Part 2 of the making of Dead Mans Shoes
Part 3 of the making of Dead Mans Shoes
Kim Cheshire is a talented, experienced artistic, country singing star….
From his roots back in the Daize, his first band circa 1965 he was clear music was his life. He started a promising career as a professional musician, singing with the band Nimbus in 1971. By 1973 Nimbus had turned a punishing tour into support on the same play bill as Thin Lizzy, Budgie, and others. Nimbus then followed the growing pub scene where a meeting with Dave Robinson the future founder of Stiff records led to the recording of their first album Halfway To Paradise,.
The upsurge of punk rock in the late 70’s forced Kim Cheshire and Nimbus to go their separate ways. The disillusioned Kim traveled to the home of his heroes of American country-rock(Gram Parsons, Little Feat, Jackson Browne, CSN) In 1977 he left the UK via Mexico to arrive on the West coast of The US of A in no time his unfulfilling solo work for Imagination Records was behind him and he embraced the oeuvre of “real” country musicians like George Jones, Hank Williams and Merle Haggard”.
Although America offered Kim the freedom and inspiration to write and perform, the dark side of the music industry left him cold and it would be many years before he returned to his rock’n’roll heart.
As the decade turned he found himself half way around the globe in Australia singing and playing guitar on the pub scene once more by night, whilst picking grapes by day. The special strains of Irish Ozzie bush music stirred his musical blood.
By 83 he had immersed himself in the indie movie scene with the likes of Haydn Keenan, Auteur of Going Down the sex and drugs and rock’n’roll classic. As music co-ordinater he sourced songs from The Birthday Party, Nico, James Reyne, Dynamic Heptonics and Mondo Rock .
With Anna Hruby , actress and wife, Kim’s musical portfolio began to include the theatre and staging of rock drama Broken Tales. He reprised Broken Tales as Ha Ha Ha performing Humans in 1984, which itself created an offshoot band called Ha Ha Ha that gave Kim his first opportunity at management. A rollercoaster ride of 80’s rock excess and half a million dollars of video, music and production deals later he was wrung out.
His next management venture was in partnership with Jeremy Pauls (Air Supply and Divinyls founder). It struck an Iceberg when Love Darts was turned down by CBS in favour of Noiseworks in 86 but there was a silver lining according to Kim
"The guys came to me after and said We're sick of career music. We want to play for fun, We want to play country music, we’ve heard your songs, we want you to sing with us."
That got Kim back on track, doing what he loved: playing music. That band became The Danglin' Brothers’.
After being booked to gig at the Bondi Regis they were packing it to the rafters within three short weeks. They were attracting the attention of other performers and producers like Paul Kelly, members of Died Pretty and INXS. This put The Danglin Brothers’ in the forefront of the resurgence of the country music scene and set them on track for wider success, touring with James Reyne, Paul Kelly and Wall of Voodoo.
The Danglin Brothers’ for a time were under the wing of Mark Moffatt( The saints, Tim Finn, Mondo Rock) and in 86 Kim and the Band made their first venture to Tamworth where a few years later Keith Urban, citing them as his inspiration, would dedicate his Golden Guitar to the Danglin Brothers’ .
Australia was fair humming with country and 5 years later Kim was invited to front The Wheel with Rod McCormack , recording a debut album named for the band with Garth Porter. They were twice ARIA - nominated, And won Golden Guitars back to back for Best vocal Group in 1996 and ’97.
There is an intimacy with Pub audiences that is missing on the big stage and Kim soon realized he wasn’t happy on the mainstream Australian Country music circuit,
"I realised during that period I wasn't cut out for mainstream Australian country music. I decided I wanted to go back to the pubs so I put together a bunch of friends I called King Horse. That was the beginning of revitalising my true musical spirit."
The outcome of that spirit was the album Rocking Horse To Mars in 2012, Kim’s first solo album, co-written with Kevin Bennett(The Flood) And recorded with friends and comrades out of friendship and love.
"I haven't always been out there playing gigs and making records but I've always written songs I write whether I have a project on hand or not. I consider myself a writer, someone who just wants to get stuff off my chest. So when it came time to record this record, I had quite a backlog . . ."
Now with his latest album, Dead Mans Shoes, Peace in our name are proud to present Kim’s Peace song Wake Me Up(When The War Is Over)
Please learn more about Kim Cheshire and his music and Peace activism at http://www.kimcheshire.com
