Players Please! Play Arn Dave Wray aka

Frank Bennett aka

Dave Wray aka Frank Bennett. Hardcore fellow. Sydney through and through. West side. Sax player and singer. Birrong dude.
Talking about his life in music mainly in Sydney. Sydney nightlife, bands, clubs, venues. Good luck and bad. Laughing often. Brawling and wailing.
Frank Sinatra. Jazz. R&B. Birrong. Thats important.
It starts abruptly and ends so too.

It’s a long interview. About 90 minutes. And when we leave it , Dave is mid sentence.

I first met Dave when he was also mainly Frank Bennett. He opened up for Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes once or twice but even as he was putting out that first album he knew he wasn’t right for that regulation rock scene way of playing to people. He wanted to get paid properly right from the start. No dues payable!
But those few gigs with him in the van were great. Our band had a pretty miserable interior at the time. Uptight and grim. Pressure of the business etc. On a long drive across town you could ask Dave if he knew any jokes and 40 minutes could pass by in a stream of loud hilarity.

We remained friends after that period of messing with the business. He never toured regularly. Corporate gigs only. He sang at my sister Julies wedding in Melbourne. (It was her choice!)

He has been known to be occasionally reckless. One day we were driving around Sydney and another driver pulled into a park Dave was moving into. He pulled out a replica pistol and let it be seen. The other driver was not to know what was real or not and took the fastest option out of the situation.

Then Clare and I were accompanying Robyn Hitchcock at the premiere of the Jonathan Demme film made about him, STOREFRONT HITCHCOCK in Sydney. Dave turned up with his then partner. He was showing us his back tattoo of the word BIRRONG (the suburb he was born into) emblazoned across his shoulders. Then he went to the toilet and came walking back with his white pockets hanging out of his pants and his cock out. Robyn was not ready for that. Neither were we.

A little while later we were sitting upstairs at the Metro in George st Sydney, having just launched our album The Dave Graney Show. It was a small dressing room with myself, Clare, Dave and the late Chris Fay. We were just unwinding after the show with close friends. Those two.

Dave suddenly said, “Ok Dave! lets go get some blow and some hookers!”

Clare and I laughed.

Chris Fay said “Isn’t it funny how Dave always says what everybody is thinking?”

There is a lot of talk about Sydney in the conversation.

Sydney on film such as this Powell and Pressburger technicolour classic , They’re A Weird Mob.

I mention a film made by Joey Bishops son Larry, who I interviewed at the films Melbourne launch in the late 90s.

There is also talk of many Sydney venues of the 80s and 90s and 2000s. Such as French’s Tavern.

A lof of talk about Frank Sinatra.

1965 Gay Talese story in Esquire, “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold”.

We mention favourite books about Frank Sinatra such as The Way You Wear Your Hat and Mr S.

The interview ends abruptly. Dave is still mid flow, but he had to excuse himself. We had already talked for long enough so I ended it.

Dave later texted…

“Shame I didn’t get to tell the story about singing the National Anthem at John Howard (former Australian conservative PM) for the Opera House’s 30th anniversary. The Children overboard scandal had just occurred so I just the 2nd verse about ‘for those who’ve come across the sea, we’ve boundless plains to share’ straight at the cunt and watched him squirm in his seat. Mum was very proud”.

I replied, “Oh well, and you met him ccoming out of the lift at the rugby too!”

“I should’ve kidnapped the little cunt and thrown him in Parramatta River. ‘Who’s overboard now, fuckface?!’”

Yeah Dave Wray gets in there and grinds, boots and all.