The Daily Telegraph
November 26, 1998

This is serious, mac

by dino scatena

Even with a couple of ARIA Awards under his belt, Paul McDermott still doesn't quite know what to make of the music industry.

The funny man joke about how backstage during this year's ceremony, he and his co- host Mikey Robins stuck pretty close to each other because their sort "don't really mix with musicians".

"I know some who are friends and so on, but we're a different breed. We're stand-up comedians, we have a different mentality. So you cling together because you're the same. And Mikey's a friend."

Anyone who ever caught the Doug Anthony Allstars or saw McDermott break into sonf on his Good News Week knows that for a comedian, the boy's got a pretty seriou set of pipes sitting in his throat.

"People have always basically been confused about me," explains McDermott without a hint of his trademark sarcasm or irony. "But I think it's good to keep doing different things.

Suddenly the smirk returns. "What was the guy's name? Craig McLachlan. That's what I want to do. I was a singer before Neighbours , I had a band. Because he had a lot of musical credibility. Just because he became an actor for a while, it didn't detract in any way from the strong musical cred he'd built up through years of hard work on the circuit."

All of this has led to McDermott's decision to finally release a straight record, a duet with ex-Def FX singer Fiona Horne called Shut Up / Kiss Me.

McDermott met the vocalist-cum-author-cum Playboy Playmate when she appeared as a guest on his show earlier in the year. The two sang together on that first night and McDermott decided to invite his new friend to cut a record of a song that he'd had laying around for years.

"She's not stopping at the moment, " McDermott offered on his musical collaborator. "I think she did a lot of hard years with Def FX and like so many Australian bands on the road all the time, they got incredible audiences all around the country but all of the money went straight back into the band. I know bands that have had number one songs in Australia and still been getting paid 100 bucks a week.. It's shocking. Less than the dole. But you do it because that's your art.

"This record is a bit of a contrast to what she's done in the past, " he added. "We just thought it would be a one-off for the show. But then we got a very warm response from people who saw the show, asking where they could get the single, so we decided we'd put this out as a bit of a promotional thing for Good News Week.

"It was something nice to do with Fiona. But now there's the embarrassing realisation that there's something there you've got to talk about. It's all fun making the thing. The wierd thing is then having to admit you made it.

"Well, it is for me. I don't know if other people have the same sense of: 'Oh, I've done that. You take it away and listen to it now if you want to. If you don't, that's fine. I don't care.' Now I've got to sit in a coffee shop and rattle on about it."

Sitting in a coffee shop overlooking Bondi Beach, McDermott explains that there's a lot more where Kiss Me came from. In fact there's a whole revue of songs (from a show called Mosh! which McDermott wrote and toured throught Melbourne and Adelaide after the Allstars' break-up) and several more compositions from an aborted DAAS show.

"I just don't get much of n opportunity to actually do anything with them," McDermott said of his collection of over 100 songs. "Even with this thing: We had a week to put it together for the show, Fiona had never hear it before and she was a bit uncertain about doing this sort of thing because she has a reputation with Def FX of doing a harder edge thing.

"So between Good News Week and Good News Weekend, there wasn't much time to put too much effort into the production and music. I actually think it's one of those things where you have to put time into it."

McDermott has now slotted some time aside for the middle of next year to do the music thing properly and hopefully come out of it on the other side with a debut solo album.

"I just like singing and I like performing songs, I like doing original material, but whether it's accepted or whatever, I'm not that fussed about. I'd just like to be able to do it because I enjoy it.

- dino scatena