By STEVE MASCORD
ARGUABLY the most hotly-tipped hard rock band in the world, Dirty Honey give the NSW Northern Rivers a free tourist speil every night of their current world tour.
“It was in the Commonwealth, at Byron Bay in Australia, sitting looking at the beautiful mountains and listening to the birds, that I finally wrote the words to this song,” singer Mark Labelle told a packed Electric Ballroom in London last night as he introduced their Aerosmith-influenced quartet’s next single.
Dirty Honey’s debut EP and current LP Can’t Find The Breaks were each recorded in Byron at a studio co-founded by Powderfinger’s Bernard Fanning. The other founder was super producer Nick DiDa (Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine) who is the brother of Dirty Honey’s manager, Mark.
But the song, “Coming Home (Ballad Of The Shire)” wasn’t just written amid the semi-rainforest of the alternative-leaning coastal region. The title came from a mishearing of someone describing the less-trendy sister town of Byron which lies half-an-hour’s drive to the south.
“(Labelle) thought Nick said ‘the ballad of the shire’,” guitarist John Notto tells Hot Metal.
“He said ‘no, we’re in the Ballina Shire’. So Marc was like ‘that’s a good song title!’. So actually Nick thought he was kidding and later he was like ‘that’s a horrible song title’.
“So there was this whole battle that ensued for months and we kind of compromised by putting both in – ‘coming home’ and ‘the ballad of the shire’.”
A video has just been shot for the gentle Allman Brothers-tinged lament – meaning the modest seaside town of 10,171 is about to become a whole not more famous.
Dirty Honey returns to “the Shire” to play Bluesfest next month.
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