0:01

Somewhere along the way . I

0:04

hope it's like what you're

0:06

looking for Somewhere

0:08

along the way .

0:12

Hello everyone , welcome to the Camino Cafe

0:14

podcast . Well , that was Dan

0:16

Mullins . He was here in Santiago last

0:18

year performing and that was his most

0:21

famous Camino song . Somewhere Along

0:23

the Way , shortly after Dan left

0:25

, he came down with a virus and was told

0:27

by doctors that he would never sing

0:29

again . Imagine , after performing

0:32

for 41 years it's

0:34

the one thing he loves doing

0:36

the most singing and

0:38

he was told that he would never sing again

0:40

. Well , dan beat the odds . Today

0:43

he's on the podcast to tell us about this

0:45

odyssey and we

0:47

have such wonderful news he's going to be walking

0:49

the Camino and recording a new album

0:51

. Let's hear it in Dan's words

0:53

Dan Mullins , I am so excited

0:56

to have you on today's show . Welcome

0:58

back to the Camino Cafe .

1:00

Thanks , Lee . It's great to be with you . I've

1:02

been really looking forward to this .

1:04

I had such a great time when you were here this past

1:06

fall and after you had walked

1:08

with Jen and your son and Claudette

1:10

, you did a concert just a couple of nights after

1:13

arriving here and you sounded fantastic . It

1:15

was so much fun at the concert . And

1:17

then , shortly after you went

1:19

home , there was a bit of a crisis with

1:21

your voice and first off , I would say I'm so grateful

1:24

that your voice is back .

1:26

Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah

1:28

. So I went to see my mother in

1:31

Queensland it's an hour's

1:33

flight and they

1:36

was in the line and there

1:38

was a man about 10 or 15

1:40

people up from me just coughing the

1:42

whole time and I thought , oh gosh , I hope

1:44

I don't sit next to him . You know , surely

1:46

he shouldn't get on the flight . They won't let him on

1:48

. Everyone was aware of him coughing

1:50

. He just didn't stop the whole

1:52

time and wouldn't you know it ? You

1:55

know he's sitting in the plane coughing and I'm

1:57

walking down the aisle with my ticket going oh

1:59

no , like you know , 11d

2:01

, I can see . It's right next to that guy . So

2:05

I sat down next to him and straight away he starts

2:07

to cough . And he's coughing so badly

2:09

he couldn't even control his coughing

2:12

. He couldn't even put anything

2:14

over his mouth or anything . And I said to the

2:16

steward you know , can

2:18

I get a different seat ? She said

2:20

I'd wear full , you know , because we canceled all

2:22

the flights last night . I

2:24

said , oh no , this is a disaster . So

2:28

we got back to Sydney and I knew

2:30

straight away that I was never going

2:32

to escape this illness , whatever this

2:34

man had . But that afternoon it was a Sunday

2:36

. That afternoon I did a show in Belmaine

2:38

Huge show , big pack

2:41

to the rafters and just went crazy . It

2:43

was Easter Sunday and so they had Easter

2:46

Monday off . And then on the Tuesday I

2:48

woke up and went into work and thought , oh no , I'm really

2:50

quite ill . And when home

2:52

I said to my boss look , I'm going to go home

2:54

because I'm ill . She said go , go , go

2:57

. We need you to be better , you know . So

2:59

I went home and I actually got very

3:01

ill . I was the sickest I'd been in my

3:04

living memory , much more sick than

3:06

I'd ever been with COVID or anything like that in

3:08

bed for kind of 10 days sick . Yeah

3:11

, it was really awful actually , as

3:13

I was sort of coming good . I got this

3:15

cough and the cough

3:17

. I would wake up in the middle of the night and cough

3:19

between , you know , 1am and 5am

3:21

. I would cough for four hours

3:23

straight and I would cough

3:25

so hard . Forgive me , but I would nearly be

3:27

sick and so I would

3:30

be on all fours on my bed coughing

3:32

, coughing . I had to sleep in another

3:34

room . Jenny and the boys had to sleep

3:36

in different parts of the house to get some rest because

3:38

I was keeping everyone awake . I coughed so hard and

3:41

as I came good , slowly

3:43

but surely . So I can tell you exactly when it was it

3:45

was four weeks later . We went down to the south

3:47

coast to visit some friends . One of them said I'll sing

3:49

us a song , dan . You know I had the guitar there and

3:52

I sang the River by Bruce Springsteen

3:54

. You know I've sung that song literally

3:56

thousands of times . And

3:58

halfway through the second line I thought oh

4:00

, I can't sing . There

4:03

was no voice there . Driving home the following

4:05

day , jen said to me what do you think happened

4:07

last night with your voice ? And

4:10

I said well , my voice has never been . It's not been the

4:12

same since I had this illness

4:14

, you know . And so she

4:16

said oh , maybe she'll go and see someone about it . And I

4:18

could tell that my voice was a bit husky . You can tell it's a

4:20

bit husky now . It's not quite as

4:22

smooth as it used to be and that's kind

4:24

of like my new normal now

4:26

. But I

4:28

don't quite have that same gloss that I used

4:30

to have . But , and that's just

4:32

the result of what I went through , but anyway . So

4:35

at the time I was thinking something's not quite right

4:37

. So I went to see this first

4:40

doctor and he

4:42

said oh , you need to have surgery

4:44

. You've got a lesion on your

4:47

vocal cord . I don't know if many

4:49

people want to realize , but your vocal cords are

4:51

not much bigger than your thumbnail . All of that was

4:53

Celine Dion comes out of something

4:55

about the size of her thumbnail and

4:58

one of the one of the vocal

5:00

cords had you could see it and they put the camera down

5:02

a six mil lesion

5:04

on one side , six millimeters

5:06

long , and it was about three

5:09

millimeters thick . And I said

5:11

what on earth is that ? And

5:13

he said well , that's from coughing . And

5:15

what it meant was that my vocal cords could no

5:17

longer come together , they could no

5:19

longer close , and it's when they close

5:21

that you get pitch and

5:24

tune and melody and that's

5:26

how you get the gloss on your voice when they close

5:28

. And they couldn't close and then live a close again

5:30

. And I said okay , he

5:33

said you need to have a steroid injection

5:35

into them , into that scar . So

5:38

we booked in for the surgery and then

5:40

, luckily , out of the blue , got to see

5:42

the best voice specialist in Sydney . It

5:44

happened to call and say oh , look , you know you

5:46

tried to get in . We couldn't get you in , but we have a vacancy

5:49

. So we said oh

5:51

, quickly , we'll go and see her . She said , no , no

5:53

, that's like a big problem on your vocal cords . I

5:55

don't see a problem with it . I think we can , through

5:58

speech therapy and what have you

6:00

, get your voice back ? And I said , oh , fantastic

6:02

. Over the course of the next two weeks my

6:05

voice got much , much worse , much

6:07

worse , and to us

6:09

I could hardly talk . I was like this and

6:12

we panicked . We just totally

6:14

panicked . So we went back to the original guy and

6:16

said , oh , can you do that steroid thing ? And he said

6:18

, sure . So we did the process

6:21

. You know , that was really quite ghastly

6:24

, the whole thing .

6:25

You know steroid shots are really painful . Normally

6:27

you had to have this in your throat .

6:29

Yeah , yeah , yeah . And I had to have all these needles

6:31

in my neck and everything and then , and

6:34

then I fainted three times

6:36

throughout the whole thing . It was so ghastly

6:38

. And then , when we finished , he was

6:40

like okay , that's it . You know it

6:42

didn't work , you'll never sing again . And

6:45

he said didn't you hear me ? I said

6:47

it didn't work , you'll

6:49

never sing again . You might sing

6:51

, but you know it's like would

6:53

be like a marathon runner trying to run

6:56

and having lost , having three toes

6:58

cut off . And I said what , what

7:00

? I wouldn't say , what

7:02

wasn't allowed to speak . So I

7:04

was like , you know , gesturing

7:06

with my hands . He said but as

7:09

for singing , no , that's all finished , okay

7:11

. So I went out to the , to the foyer

7:14

, to pay you know , cause all this money ? And

7:17

the receptionist said wow

7:20

, that was a heavy consult , wasn't it ? I

7:22

said you know , yeah , that was a heavy . I didn't

7:25

. I was thinking to myself but , lee remark

7:27

, I don't know why or how I thought

7:29

to myself at that moment . There

7:31

are people getting worse diagnoses today

7:33

. I don't know why I thought

7:36

like that , but driving home in

7:38

the car , I was thinking and I wasn't supposed to be driving myself

7:40

home , but I was and I was thinking , oh

7:42

gosh , okay , who

7:45

am I going to be now ? Hmm

7:47

, I can't sing . What

7:50

am I going to do with all my spare time ? So

7:53

it was really an extraordinary thing . Anyway

7:56

, I went , I went back to

7:58

the other doctor and

8:01

she said look

8:03

, I'm going to send you to my friend

8:06

and he's a speech therapist

8:08

. I think we can , I

8:10

think we can make this work . I said

8:13

, oh , okay , that's really kind of you

8:15

, you know . So she sent me to Cecilia

8:17

, and Cecilia is the patron saint

8:19

of musicians St Cecilia is the patron

8:21

saint of musicians and Cecilia

8:24

wasn't just my speech therapist , she became

8:26

just my therapist . She was a

8:28

woman of a certain age plus

8:30

some , and she was so

8:32

gentle and so kind and

8:34

so supportive she

8:36

never for a moment let me believe

8:38

that I was not going to get my voice back

8:41

to full use ever . She

8:43

basically taught me to speak again . Then

8:45

, after 12 weeks , she said and it's

8:47

so exciting . And I said what's that , cecilia ? She

8:49

said I think you're ready to sing again

8:51

. So she sent me to Patricia

8:53

, who's another woman of a certain age

8:55

plus some , and Patricia

8:57

was just the most extraordinary , or is

9:00

the most extraordinary woman . She didn't

9:02

tell me . It took 10 weeks for me to get

9:04

my singing voice back , by the way . 10 weeks . And

9:07

I had to learn to sing again from scratch . And

9:10

at the end of those 10 weeks she

9:12

said I didn't want to tell you

9:14

this , but now's the right time . And I said

9:16

what's that ? She said I didn't . I was

9:18

. When you came in I thought , oh , we've got a real , we've got

9:20

real trouble on our hands here . But

9:22

she said you've done all the work . You've done all the everything

9:25

I've asked you to do . You've

9:27

done and you've embraced it and

9:29

I think you're ready to sing again . And

9:31

I was so excited , so delighted

9:33

, so I did a little two hour show just down

9:35

the road at my local pub and

9:39

they were lined up down the street was so packed

9:41

and everyone was just like he's

9:43

back . So I was

9:46

taking it very slowly , lee . And

9:48

now but now here in the

9:50

new year , I'm back into it in full swing . I'm

9:52

doing shows most weekends . It's back

9:54

, the voice is back and I'm okay and I got

9:56

through it all . And here we are . Well

9:59

, I don't know , nine months later or something

10:01

.

10:02

This was a nine month Odyssey .

10:04

Yeah , yeah , yeah , and frightening at times

10:06

, really frightening to think . You

10:10

know , singing is such

10:12

a big part of what I do . I

10:14

was . I sat a day morning here last

10:17

night I sat on the lounge . I sang for three or four

10:19

hours just sitting there , you know , working

10:21

on things and writing and learning

10:24

and what they call , and what they call wood

10:26

shedding , which is , you know , just sort of working out

10:28

different ways to do different songs and

10:30

how they sound , and that's what I do , that's

10:33

how I kind of like

10:35

my thing . So having the

10:38

prospect of losing it was , I

10:41

never really had a time . The thought , to be honest , I just

10:43

sort of truly believed in these two

10:45

beautiful women , helped me

10:47

believe that I'd be okay

10:49

and I'm okay .

10:51

You've got your podcast , you've got your music

10:53

, but also , you know , for those folks that

10:56

are listening today that don't live in Australia

10:58

, you've also had this huge journalistic

11:00

career where you've also used your voice

11:02

, and is that something still today that you're

11:04

doing regularly in your current

11:06

job ?

11:08

Yeah , I am , yeah , yeah , and

11:10

that was one of the great challenges because I talk

11:12

all that work . I've got a team around the country

11:14

, so we used I

11:18

used typing text in meetings

11:20

. I would type and

11:22

everyone would say , oh , dan says they

11:26

would read what I typed . I'd

11:28

type it out and they'd say hang on , hang on , dan's saying

11:30

something . And I would type it out . I

11:33

was not allowed to speak at all for three weeks

11:35

after that , so the next like

11:37

six weeks , it was very limited

11:39

. Use of my voice had

11:41

to be had to really not use it very much

11:44

too . But then it started to come

11:46

good and everyone and it was really funny , actually it was

11:48

my boss , melanie

11:50

said to me one day in a meeting your

11:52

voice sounds great . I said

11:54

, oh , really . She said , no , no , it sounds

11:56

great , keep doing

11:58

what you're doing . And I said , oh , that's nice . Yeah

12:01

, so it was . It was time . Time was

12:03

a time in patience and doing

12:05

all of the exercises . You know I've

12:07

got all these apps on my phone and all

12:10

these recordings of Patricia playing

12:12

the piano and me having to sing

12:14

along the scales and stuff , and I had to do it every

12:16

day and every night I would be standing

12:19

in the kitchen singing and la la la

12:21

, meaning , naming , meaning , naming , meaning

12:23

, naming , meaning , naming . Doing it over and over

12:25

and over and over and over until I got it back

12:27

.

12:28

You leave this appointment and you go out to

12:30

your car . I mean , do you you don't

12:32

have a moment of falling apart I ? I

12:34

mean , that doctor didn't seem to have the best of bedside

12:37

manner with you .

12:39

I have one moment of falling apart

12:41

. When I got home , my middle

12:44

son , lewis , was at home and

12:47

I came in through the back gate and into

12:50

the courtyard and he kind

12:52

of opened the back door and said how

12:54

did ? How did it go ? And I couldn't

12:56

speak , of course , and I just burst into tears and

12:58

fell into his arms and he was like oh no

13:00

, oh no , what's

13:02

wrong , dad , what's wrong ? And I couldn't tell him

13:04

so I had to get my phone out

13:06

and type it out . The doctor

13:09

said I'd never sing again

13:11

. He's going what ? Oh no

13:13

, oh no , that's what

13:15

. What happened ? I fainted

13:18

three times . He's

13:20

going what are you doing driving ? You're crazy

13:23

. You know what

13:25

he was freaking out . Yeah , I was like wasn't the smartest

13:27

thing to do . I'm

13:30

kind of renowned for that kind of thing , but the

13:32

good thing is , here we are today talking .

13:34

I was thinking back when I saw you here in

13:36

concert in Santiago , that

13:39

you , a lot of your singing came very

13:41

naturally to you . You know , being able to

13:43

play by ear . You had to go back

13:45

and start all over again as a musician

13:47

, as a vocalist 100%

13:50

had to start from scratch .

13:51

I had to learn to sing again from scratch

13:53

.

13:54

How many hours do you think you've put towards

13:56

that just in this period of time during

13:58

the last nine months ?

14:01

Oh , hours and hours and hours and hours

14:03

, yeah yeah . And

14:07

it was quite interesting process because

14:09

one

14:11

of the things that was happening

14:14

with my

14:16

vocal chords , as I said , was they weren't closing

14:18

, so a lot of breath comes through that

14:20

gap , right . So

14:24

you need the vocal chords to seal so

14:26

that the breath stops and that's how you get

14:28

the noise

14:31

. The sound resonates in your voice

14:34

box , your vocal chamber , and then

14:36

resonates in your head , and that's how

14:38

people have their distinct sound

14:41

and how you use

14:43

it is . You get used to

14:45

being able to project in a certain manner and

14:47

use those different

14:50

instruments in your person

14:52

. That gives you your sound and

14:54

you have to be able to find it . So

14:57

, slowly but surely

14:59

, I realized well , it's

15:02

not the same voice that used to be and

15:04

it never will be , and

15:06

I understand that . So

15:09

I have to learn to breathe

15:11

differently all the time . So

15:15

when I sing , I

15:17

used to sing , for instance , what

15:19

could something I could sing for you ? Just to explain

15:21

it to you , El Camino Rosa

15:24

, santo Domingo Cruz

15:26

. So that's

15:28

me trying to sing that all with one voice

15:31

, one breath , right . So now

15:33

I cut it up El Camino

15:35

Rosa's breath , santo

15:38

Domingo Cruz

15:40

. So there's a lot more . I've got to breathe

15:42

differently , I've got to breathe in places where I wouldn't

15:44

normally breathe and I've got

15:47

, and it's taught me , a whole different

15:49

way of singing , which is quite interesting . And

15:51

I sing the same song . So people come and see me

15:53

, who've seen me for years , come and see

15:55

me now and go oh , I

15:58

love the new voice , the new voices . He's better than the

16:00

old voice . Yeah , it's better

16:02

. Wow , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah .

16:05

Why do you think they're saying that ?

16:07

When you're breathing all the time . It's a lot easier to listen to

16:09

somebody who's breathing all the time . It's a weird thing . If

16:12

I was to show you like I just explained that one there

16:14

, that probably wasn't the best example , but

16:16

because you go like Say that again

16:18

, say that again .

16:20

It's easier to listen to someone .

16:22

When they're breathing properly and they're breathing easily

16:24

, because it's

16:27

really funny . We have a sense of empathy

16:29

when we're listening and we're watching someone perform

16:32

. So if they are struggling

16:34

, we're struggling . You've

16:38

got to be comfortable watching the person play

16:40

. Really hard to explain . So

16:42

if you go like Well , my bags are packed . I'm

16:44

ready to go On my way away . I'll go See

16:49

, that's now straining right . Whereas

16:51

if you're breathing when you're supposed to be breathing . So that's

16:54

difficult to listen to if you're in the crowd , whereas

16:56

if you're breathing , you see Well , my bags

16:58

are packed . Breath , well

17:00

, my bags are packed , I'm ready to go

17:03

. Taxi's waiting

17:05

outside my door . You've

17:08

always got the voice to listen

17:10

to . There's no straining

17:12

, there's no pressure . It's

17:15

easy to listen to . And that's

17:17

what I've learned to do , which I should have been

17:19

doing for 40 years , lee , but

17:23

I wasn't . So you know

17:25

, when I say I learned to sing again , I

17:28

learned to sing properly .

17:29

Maybe this will give you longevity and voice

17:31

, longevity and career

17:33

.

17:34

Well , I never warmed up . I never

17:36

, ever , warmed my voice

17:38

. No , no , no

17:41

. And Cecilia asked

17:43

Patricia , my singing teacher did you ever warm up

17:45

? I said I would have a couple of beers . She

17:48

said , no , no , no , I mean like

17:50

warm up your voice . I said , oh

17:52

yeah , I would have a couple of beers . She's like no

17:54

, I'm down Now I warm up , now

17:56

I do my warm up and I take care of my voice and

17:58

I look after myself . And

18:01

yeah , things I should have been doing for , like

18:04

I say , four decades , I'm now

18:06

starting to do because I should have been doing them all

18:08

those years ago .

18:09

During this time , then you know it sounds

18:11

like you're pretty busy . You're still working

18:13

, you're doing all the therapeutic

18:15

things you need to do to restore the voice

18:18

. Did you find that

18:20

you were able to have any other creative outlet

18:22

, like , were you writing songs or journaling

18:25

or , you know , doing something to help you

18:27

mentally and emotionally through

18:29

this time ?

18:30

Well , I played a lot of guitar . I played

18:33

a lot of guitar and I also

18:35

wrote a lot of songs

18:37

, so that was

18:39

one of the things that I wanted

18:41

to do . We

18:43

had planned to finally get all of

18:45

that done , and when

18:48

you lose something that's very special

18:50

to you , it

18:52

puts a lot of things in perspective . And so , using

18:55

that time to write and

18:58

using that time to try

19:01

and get better at the guitar and

19:04

I used that time to I

19:09

rested a lot , lee , it

19:12

sounds crazy , but I have three

19:14

jobs , so my day job is really

19:16

full on . So I

19:18

took the time to rest actually , yeah

19:21

, yeah , I was really focused and I took

19:23

care of myself and

19:26

really that was pretty

19:28

important in the whole recovery process as

19:30

well . But

19:35

I write all the time because I write for

19:37

my podcast . You

19:40

know I've got three interviews this weekend

19:42

and I write every single one of them . I write

19:45

a big intro and a big outro and I write all

19:47

the questions and everything . So I'm always writing and

19:50

, of course , my day job is writing interviews

19:52

. So , yeah , yeah

19:55

, I tried to be

19:57

as creative as I could have . It's the best answer for you

19:59

, lee .

19:59

Yeah , do you write

20:01

some new songs during this ?

20:02

time . Yeah , yeah , absolutely yeah . Oh

20:05

, a dozen or more , I guess , maybe

20:07

even 50 .

20:09

Wow , wow , and those will be on the

20:12

new album .

20:12

Some will be and some of the songs on

20:14

the album are old songs that we

20:17

found . We had a

20:19

shopping bag full of VHS

20:21

tapes upstairs in our storage

20:23

and we always said

20:25

we must get those put onto CD

20:27

or something you know , put onto a USB . There's

20:30

people who do that , as you know , and

20:33

we . Somehow , you know as the old story

20:35

it comes up on your computer when you talk

20:37

about things . I don't want to get into all of

20:39

that , but it came up , you know we'll do it for

20:41

you for $50 per search

20:44

, and said , oh , I'll drop them off . So set

20:46

them off . And they came back and here they are

20:48

on a USB , you know . And

20:50

when we put it in the computer upstairs , one of them

20:52

was Dan Mullins concert

20:54

, Brisbane 1991

20:56

.

20:56

1991 . Yeah .

20:59

And Jen said , oh , I wonder what that is . I

21:01

said I don't know what that is , so we click

21:03

on it and it's . Somebody had put a video

21:05

camera at the back of a concert at

21:08

Her Majesty's Hotel

21:11

, her Majesty's Bar in Brisbane in 1991

21:14

. And it's me with a , with a four

21:16

piece band , and they were a very

21:18

, very good band playing all my own songs packed

21:20

, you know , no , no room . There's

21:22

no , no , no room for anybody else to get in . And

21:25

it was all of these songs . And

21:28

so I started watching it . I'm thinking , oh

21:30

yeah , I forgot I wrote that song . Oh

21:33

, this is a really good song . And then the

21:35

next one oh yeah , I forgot , I wrote this song

21:37

. So there was I don't know , I most

21:39

probably did 30 songs that night . 20

21:42

of them I'd forgotten , not even written . So I

21:44

had to listen back to them and

21:48

in some cases had to write

21:50

out the lyrics because I'd completely

21:52

forgotten even the lyrics . And

21:54

a couple of them made it onto this record . So

21:57

onto this new record , so or will ? So

22:00

, yeah , that's a real blessing . So I think about half

22:02

of them are new and

22:04

about half of them are old

22:07

or not so old , yeah .

22:09

This was something you might not have done had you not had

22:11

this time .

22:12

Exactly 100% . That's

22:15

so true . I

22:17

know where you're going with this , lee . It

22:20

was a time of reflection and

22:22

a time to just to

22:24

reset in a way to

22:27

get my energy back . And you know what ? What

22:29

I haven't told you is that at the very start of

22:31

the year , I was due to

22:33

walk the Camino

22:36

Primitivo with my friends Carl and

22:38

Brian in mid April , and

22:42

then my eldest son got

22:44

into some strife . He

22:47

needed help , so I had to . I couldn't

22:49

walk , I needed , I had to stay , and

22:52

all of my resources and funds and everything

22:54

went to him for that . For that three

22:56

or four months leading up to that

22:58

, and I worked like crazy

23:01

. I worked like I did every gig

23:03

that anybody asked me to do , so sometimes

23:05

Friday , saturday , sunday , just

23:07

so I could get the resources together to help him

23:09

out , and then all of a sudden it

23:11

was finished . You know , like he's done , and

23:15

so it kind

23:17

of was a really interesting

23:19

. It just occurred

23:21

to me then that that all happened at the same time . So

23:23

then after that , having the ability

23:26

to just switch off for a while was kind of a blessing

23:28

. Yeah , I suppose I haven't thought about it really

23:30

. Yeah .

23:31

Yeah , really probably one of the very first times that you've

23:33

had quiet reflection time . Right , I'm

23:35

getting so busy with your family

23:38

.

23:38

Yeah , yeah

23:40

, that's true . Actually

23:43

, now I think about it , it is the first

23:45

time , yeah .

23:47

How does ? That make you feel . Just to think about that

23:49

right now .

23:52

Yeah , it's kind of a bit upsetting

23:54

, to be honest , because I

23:57

can't help thinking of wasted time

23:59

Isn't

24:01

that funny ? But I , but I

24:04

, I'm kind of pleased I

24:06

can't get up . I'll get up tomorrow and

24:08

play another 50

24:10

something songs , and

24:12

I just know that

24:14

halfway through

24:16

the first song I think , oh , it's so much

24:18

fun to sing again . I'm

24:22

really pleased I did it right , so

24:24

I could have just gone up . You know , to

24:27

they said I'll never sing again . Well , that's the end of

24:29

that . And to you

24:31

, lee , I would have tried to sing

24:33

again and

24:36

it wouldn't . It would have been frustrating and it would have been

24:38

, my voice would never be the same and I would have

24:40

been disappointed and upset . And

24:42

. But I didn't do that with

24:45

Jen . I've got to give my wife Jen some credit

24:48

here too . She was very supportive and said keep

24:50

to keep going , keep doing it , keep doing it . And

24:52

she was very supportive . I'm blessed

24:54

to have her in my camp as well . But

24:57

now I think back on it , I

24:59

could have easily just gone oh well , it'll

25:02

come good eventually and not done all of the work

25:05

to make it better . But I did

25:07

, and now I'm pleased I did . So , you

25:09

know , while it was a time of

25:11

reflection and a bit of a time to reset

25:14

and a bit of easing in my

25:16

capacity and in my responsibilities

25:19

. I also was kind

25:21

of every day doing this , doing

25:24

these exercises . I kind of had I

25:26

still had plenty to do . And one

25:28

of the girls at my work was telling everybody the other day

25:30

, oh , and Dan lost his voice . He would go into

25:33

the meditation room and do his exercises and

25:35

we would all sit in the newsroom and listen to him . I

25:38

didn't know . I didn't know they were listening to

25:40

me . I was so embarrassed I

25:42

said are you kidding ? She said they

25:45

were all imitating me and all the girls

25:47

, they're all doing these little impersonations

25:50

of me . I said , oh , that's so embarrassing

25:53

.

25:53

Wait , what were they hearing ?

25:56

The voice or the breath comes through the vocal

25:58

cords from the back okay , from the lungs

26:00

out through the vocal cords , right

26:02

, and what

26:05

we needed to happen was for

26:07

them to be more flexible , to ease

26:09

up , to soften up . So

26:11

, in order to do that , you would

26:13

sing through a straw

26:15

into a bottle

26:18

of water and blow

26:20

bubbles , yeah , yeah , and blow bubbles

26:22

, as you did it , right and

26:25

with your voice and what it does

26:27

. The bubbles just bring

26:29

the voice back in

26:31

, back , down your throat , and

26:34

gently massage the vocal cords

26:36

on the outside so

26:39

that they're getting this softening on each

26:41

side . So

26:44

you'd go

26:47

and then you sing scales through

26:52

a straw into a bottle of water

26:54

, and so that's

26:57

what they heard .

27:01

And they were getting picked out of that .

27:03

Yeah , yeah , Any guys again . You know

27:05

, have my little bottle with my little straw in

27:07

it . Hello everyone . You know not going

27:09

to the quiet room at work , which

27:11

I thought was a quiet room , but it wasn't a quiet

27:14

room at all , it was a very noisy room

27:16

. Of course , everybody could hear what I was doing .

27:19

Sounds like in your heart . You never

27:21

really gave up on your voice

27:23

, like like you thought it was coming back

27:25

.

27:27

I had to . I

27:29

had to believe I

27:32

had to . I had no choice . I

27:34

had to believe that it would come back . Otherwise

27:37

, what would I do ? What

27:40

would I do with my time ?

27:43

Definitely . It's very clear that singing is your passion

27:45

. Is it also your

27:47

form of meditation ?

27:50

See Lee it's

27:52

an ego thing .

27:54

It's an ego thing . What do you ?

27:56

mean , well , it's an ego thing , right ? So

28:00

someone will throw a piano

28:03

like someone I can be at a dinner party or

28:05

at a party or something

28:07

, and someone will say , oh , dan

28:10

, sing us a song . And

28:12

you know , there's nothing quite

28:14

like the feeling of

28:16

sitting at a piano in front of people who've never heard

28:18

you , you don't know who you are . So

28:21

they pass you a guitar and might be their son's

28:23

guitar , you know from the , from the toy

28:26

room and you quickly tune it up and then you

28:28

sing and

28:31

everyone goes and

28:33

I

28:36

don't think I have to tell you I'm quite

28:38

good at it . So

28:41

when you are good at it , it's

28:43

an ego thing . You love doing

28:45

it because you feel good using

28:49

this God-given gift , and

28:51

it's even better so

28:54

much better that people enjoy

28:56

it . People get some people

28:58

seeing the joy in people's faces

29:00

. I

29:02

do it every weekend , I'm doing it tomorrow

29:05

, I did it last Sunday , I did it the Friday before

29:07

that . The following Friday

29:09

, I'm doing it on Australia Day , where

29:11

every single

29:13

person in the room is singing as loud as they possibly

29:15

can and they're

29:18

just having the time of their lives . They

29:20

go along on a Saturday afternoon or a Sunday

29:22

afternoon or a Friday night or whatever , and

29:25

they really enjoy themselves . So

29:27

what's not to love about that

29:30

part of your life that you give that moment

29:32

or that few moments

29:34

of enjoyment to somebody through

29:38

the gift that you've been given . It's

29:42

an ego thing . I do it because it makes me feel

29:44

good . I really enjoy it , and plus

29:46

as well . You know , when you finish , people come up

29:49

and say , oh , that was great . You

29:51

feel pretty good at the end of the day . When people come about

29:53

you on the back and say you did really well

29:55

today , the publican or the owner

29:57

of the venue comes and says it gives you a cash

29:59

and you get whatever money or whatever . Yeah , fantastic

30:02

, you go home , feel good about yourself . You've done a good

30:04

day's work . You've made people

30:06

happy . I know for a fact

30:08

a number of people who've met

30:10

at my shows and married

30:13

. You know , I've seen them

30:15

, I've seen them meet at

30:17

my shows and because I've been

30:19

doing it a long , long time 41

30:22

years I've been doing this . It's as

30:24

much a gift for me

30:26

and myself as

30:28

it is for anyone else . Yeah , that's why

30:31

I keep doing it and that's why I love it so much . It's

30:34

a blast , it's fun , it's great fun

30:36

.

30:36

Yeah . Well , I wonder , when you were going through

30:38

this , to imagine your

30:41

self-identity if this part of

30:43

you had gone away .

30:45

I don't know , and I don't even want to really think about

30:47

it . I

30:50

don't know what I would have done , I don't know who

30:52

I would have been , and that was what I was thinking

30:54

driving home that day what am I going to do

30:57

? Who am I going

30:59

to be ? That was a really scary

31:01

thing , because

31:03

I don't really have many other skills . I

31:06

was at a show , went to see my friend's band

31:08

play last Saturday and the band

31:10

that came on afterwards were very loud and

31:13

I was talking to someone and I thought

31:15

, oh no , I'm talking , I'm

31:19

almost yelling . I

31:21

can't be here in this noise

31:23

and conduct a conversation . So

31:26

I just wrote on my phone as a text . You

31:28

know , look , I'm sorry , I can't talk , I can't raise

31:30

my voice . People were coming up

31:32

to me about talking and I sort of went , you know , showed

31:34

them my phone and they would go oh yeah

31:37

, your voice . Yeah , sure , I understand entirely

31:39

. So there's just some things I have to be smart about

31:41

. Like , if I go to the game , you know I'm not

31:43

going to be yelling at the game . You know yelling for my team

31:45

, screaming out loud . That is

31:47

pretty straightforward . But in the meantime

31:50

we'll keep singing

31:52

, yeah , as long as God

31:54

keeps giving me the gift to

31:56

do it . Yeah .

31:57

Well , now it's time to celebrate , right

31:59

? And you decided that I mean

32:01

, what does a pilgrim do when

32:04

the chips have been down and things get

32:06

better , or you're trying to work through something ? We

32:08

decided to walk a Camino and you

32:10

make an announcement just you're going to record

32:12

a new album and you're coming to Spain and

32:15

just talk about how that came about . I believe

32:17

that Jen had some input in

32:19

that .

32:20

Yeah . So I'll go back a little . When

32:22

I released you Enday , my then

32:25

boss said to me I'll

32:27

talk to the people at Sony Records and

32:29

they'll put it out for you . And the executive

32:32

at Sony who was given the task said to me

32:34

we don't put out people like you , we don't put

32:36

out people like you , your records . And

32:38

I said we'll just have a listen to it and see what we think . And

32:40

I sent it over to him and he said I love it and we'll

32:42

put it out . No problem , we got you got 100%

32:45

backing because I just love what you've done . He

32:48

then left and he set up his own record company

32:50

and he's really keen to make a new record . So

32:53

I sent him some songs and

32:55

he said oh my gosh , I love these songs

32:57

. These songs are amazing , they're

32:59

stories . And I said yeah , yeah

33:01

, yeah . He said let's

33:03

call the new record storyteller . He

33:07

was working with a producer

33:10

in Australia who's these days about

33:12

the best producer in Australia . He was

33:14

working with another fellow and they were in the studio

33:16

and he said

33:19

what were the ? In a bit of downtime I'm

33:21

working with this guy , dan Mullins . And

33:24

the producer said oh , yeah

33:26

. And he said I should play you

33:28

some of his songs . He said , oh , play them for me . So

33:31

he put his phone

33:33

, plug his phone in and played them . And this producer

33:35

his health say name Dan , said

33:38

oh , my gosh , who is this guy ? And

33:40

he said oh , you know , he's this funny guy

33:43

actually is a pilgrimage sort of guy and you

33:45

know whatever . And the producer Dan

33:47

said I want to meet this guy and and

33:49

and then so we kind of never

33:51

got a chance to catch up , but we spoke on the phone many times and

33:55

he said I don't , I want to make your

33:57

record and he's like

33:59

one of the top , if not the top , producer in Australia

34:01

. He made some

34:03

of the records some of the listeners might know

34:05

of dance monkey by tones and

34:08

I was like the number one song two years ago globally

34:10

was the number one song in the world . He

34:13

produced that and so he's very accomplished

34:15

and to have him even interested is

34:17

kind of kind of cool . He

34:19

said so , let's make this record , so send me

34:21

the songs . So I sent him all of the

34:23

songs that I thought I would put on the record

34:26

and he said oh

34:28

man , this is , this is going to be epic , we've

34:30

got to make this record . So we

34:33

said Okay . So he came back with a quote and

34:36

we went Okay , well , that's

34:38

a lot of money . We sort

34:40

of thought Well , the record company

34:42

doesn't know . Record companies give bands album

34:45

money anymore . That just doesn't happen . It

34:48

used to , but they don't sell records anymore

34:50

. They just don't . So they

34:53

don't . There's no way for them to get their money back . What

34:55

happens is that the band produces

34:57

it themselves and then goes on the

35:00

road and sells tickets to concerts . So

35:02

that's how bands make money . They

35:04

don't make nearly as much money as they used to and

35:07

they don't make anything really out of . You've

35:09

got to have like a billion plays

35:11

on Spotify or Apple music to get

35:14

even $10,000 kind of thing . That's

35:16

a whole different story . Yeah , yeah , yeah , you don't make any money

35:18

out of Spotify or Apple music at all . You

35:23

get like 0.0003

35:25

cents per

35:28

play . So

35:30

imagine , do your sums 10,000

35:32

, 10,000 plays for a

35:36

dollar ? Maybe not even that . So

35:40

we sort of thought we'll

35:43

crowd fund it , we'll do

35:45

a crowdfunding thing and

35:48

we'll give a t-shirt if you give $100

35:50

and maybe your name on the record if you give it to , or

35:52

whatever . And so we thought about it and we sort of

35:54

umbed in how we'd do it . I

35:57

was able to fund part of it by doing gigs

35:59

on the weekends and what have you ? And

36:02

then Jen said why don't you walk

36:05

the Camino and ask people

36:07

to walk with you ? They can

36:09

contribute to the record and that would

36:11

be a way to fund the record

36:13

. A , b they'll

36:16

have a really fantastic time . And

36:18

C you'll get to meet some of the people

36:21

who listen to your podcast and listen

36:23

to your records . I said I

36:26

love , I love that idea . We weren't sure we

36:28

would be able to do it , so

36:31

we put just an invitation

36:33

together and the response has been

36:35

fantastic . So we've

36:37

filled half the spots now , and so

36:40

we're half the way to funding the record

36:42

, a record we never in our wildest

36:44

dreams could have imagined that we could afford

36:46

. And so

36:49

so we . It's just so exciting

36:51

, and so excitingly , and

36:53

all of those wonderful people will be having the

36:56

journey of a lifetime . We've got shows

36:59

booked in some extraordinary

37:01

places and already

37:04

we've got fingers

37:06

crossed . We've got some even more exciting

37:09

and extraordinarily

37:11

exciting places to play , but

37:13

we're just not quite over the line yet . It's

37:16

so exciting to think that , a we're

37:18

going to go and walk the Camino again

37:20

and , b we're

37:23

going to have time of our lives and

37:26

I can't wait to sing for all those

37:28

people and meet all those people . We can have big

37:30

sing-alongs . You know it's

37:33

going to be epic . It really is going to be epic . You're

37:36

going to join us for a few days , right .

37:38

Here I am and I cannot wait . I was so excited

37:40

when we saw this announced . It's going to be so much

37:42

fun . The actual tour starts in May

37:44

and you start walking from León and

37:46

you're coming all the way to Santiago . So you've got the

37:48

concerts , you're going to be walking and recording

37:51

the album .

37:52

Well , no , no , we'll be recording the album when I

37:54

get back . Some of the songs actually

37:56

are very personal songs and

37:59

this will be the first

38:01

time that I've played them for

38:03

anyone . And

38:06

what we're going to do and I know we're going

38:08

to talk about the filming of it in a minute , but what

38:11

we're going to do is I'm going to introduce

38:13

the songs for the first time to

38:15

the world on the tour . Nobody's

38:17

ever heard these songs . There's a song , there's

38:19

a song called Exhibition Wednesday

38:21

, which was a letter . So

38:24

I've put music to a letter that I wrote

38:26

to my son , my oldest

38:28

son , when he was four years old . It's

38:33

an incredible song . And

38:36

that producer producer , just out of the blue

38:38

, sent me a message . It was

38:40

like a Saturday afternoon and

38:42

I got a message Exhibition

38:45

Wednesday , omg , exclamation

38:47

mark , exclamation mark , exclamation mark . And

38:50

he wrote back and said was

38:52

this genuinely a letter ? And

38:55

I said I wrote back yeah , yeah , it was . He

38:57

wrote back OMG , omg . So

39:00

the song . Well , one lonely Saturday

39:02

night and I was in

39:04

the country and I read about

39:06

a couple who had been married for 70

39:09

years . He died on Friday and she died

39:11

on Sunday . She died like

39:13

48 hours later . And

39:15

I remember reading that story , thinking oh

39:17

well , you know , she only had one lonely

39:19

Saturday night . That's

39:22

kind of a blessing in a way , you

39:24

know . And

39:27

I just thought about it . And then

39:29

, while I was getting my voice back , I

39:32

just worked out that was playing these

39:34

chords over the top . I just sang

39:36

out loud , I don't know how and why . I

39:38

just sang out loud that exact line

39:41

. She died on Friday and he died

39:43

on Sunday . Like someone turned out , a light

39:45

, in some ways , a

39:47

blessing bestowed upon her . She had

39:49

only one lonely Saturday night and

39:52

it was there . So I

39:54

quickly sent it off to the producers . He's

39:56

like oh my God , that's fantastic , that's

39:59

fantastic . So we're going to debut that

40:01

song on the trip and there'll

40:03

be moments where I'll

40:05

tell stories , and I'll tell the story behind

40:07

the song . There'll be moments when

40:09

we all just sing

40:11

together . Again , we'll

40:14

sing piano , man , at the top of our lungs . You

40:16

know there'll be times when we break

40:20

into parts and sing choir . You know

40:22

like sing , you sing a third

40:24

, you sing a fifth , you sing a seventh , and we'll all learn

40:26

how to do it and then by the end we'll

40:28

all be singing our different parts and singing like

40:30

a choir . So it's going to be just an epic

40:32

adventure and it really will be an

40:35

adventure . We'll walk

40:37

together and alone . I can't wait

40:39

to walk with people and get to

40:41

know everybody and we'll become

40:43

a very tight musical family

40:45

and it's going to be very , very special . I'm

40:48

very you know what I'm blessedly

40:50

that people would consider

40:53

first of all , even walking with me . That's

40:56

a blessing , but even more so that people

40:58

would contribute to the record because

41:00

they want to help and see me make it , because

41:03

you know , people are so kind and

41:05

so loving and to be

41:07

the recipient and to be blessed

41:09

by that blessing is quite

41:11

extraordinary , quite overwhelming , very

41:14

humbling .

41:15

I hope when you first made the announcement there

41:17

was so much concern in the communal

41:19

community , because I mean you are so well

41:21

loved , dan . You just put out

41:23

your 353rd

41:26

episode of my

41:29

Camino , the podcast , which is

41:31

amazing . I mean you've been doing

41:33

that now for how many years .

41:35

Seven years Easy .

41:37

When I think about the number of people that

41:39

have decided to walk

41:41

because they've heard an interview

41:44

on your show , or the number of hours

41:46

that people have spent training listening

41:49

to your show . You have already

41:51

given back so much to the

41:53

Camino community . It's

41:55

amazing to me that people listening may

41:58

not have an idea of how much it takes to put out

42:00

353 shows .

42:02

It's a lot of work .

42:05

It's a lot of work . I know

42:07

I've really done a very small fraction of that

42:09

and you have been so consistent

42:11

, constantly giving back to this

42:13

community . You know , when I look

42:16

at that , when I look at it somewhere along the way , how

42:18

many people do you think have that downloaded

42:20

on their Camino playlist , that

42:23

they're playing it while they're walking or they're playing it while they're

42:25

training ? When this announcement

42:27

came out of your diagnosis , I

42:29

think there was just an outpouring of love . It was so

42:31

obvious how loved you are and

42:34

I think that response is coming

42:36

through again and showing by the number of people that

42:39

want to support this project . What made

42:41

you even start this podcast seven years

42:43

ago ? That was the Camino wasn't even at

42:45

its heyday seven years ago .

42:47

Well , I was working in radio and first

42:50

of all , thank you for those very kind words . That

42:52

was beautiful . Very humbling

42:54

. But secondly , I

42:57

was working in a radio station and the fellow who was

42:59

running it was going off to form or

43:01

launch what was then Australia's really

43:04

first podcast company , and

43:07

it was called Wushka . And

43:09

he said you know

43:11

, you're one of the best producers in

43:14

Australia . Give

43:16

me ideas . I need ideas for

43:18

podcasts . So I started you know what

43:20

about this , what about that ? What he's going on writing

43:22

them down . Some of them are still going now and

43:27

he's saying you know what about this ? What about that

43:30

? And so right at the end , he said and why don't

43:32

you come up with something ? And I'd only

43:34

just got back from my Camino in 2016

43:37

. And I thought I should do a podcast about

43:39

the Camino , where people tell their story . And

43:42

that's the crazy part about it . Podcasts

43:45

were so new . We called it my

43:47

Camino the podcast because

43:49

because we don't sure what anybody

43:52

would know what it was . If we just called it my Camino

43:54

, people would go what is that ? What is that ? We

43:57

had to say the podcast . So people understood

43:59

it . Yeah , yeah , and

44:02

now it's like we got to take that out of the name

44:04

, you know , but it's kind of well , that's

44:06

a lot of work to take it out of the name , because

44:08

they have to take it out of the name 353 times

44:10

and we'll just believe

44:13

it way it is now and that's how it

44:15

began . And then that

44:17

company was

44:19

eventually bought by Spotify

44:22

, and so now

44:24

I'm with Megaphone

44:26

Spotify , I'm with Spotify now , but because

44:29

I was the founder , like one of the very first

44:31

, I don't pay fees because I'm

44:33

a legacy podcast now , because I've

44:35

been there so long , I'm

44:38

like the third longest

44:40

running podcast in the country . It's ridiculous

44:42

. And so like 353

44:44

episodes is kind of crazy

44:47

as well . It's

44:51

really weird . I flip back

44:53

through them from time to time and have a listen and

44:57

I go , oh yeah , I

44:59

forgot about this . This is a great podcast

45:02

and this is a great interview . This

45:05

girl was really brave telling her story . I'm

45:08

inspired by them and I did them . So

45:10

, yeah , it's been an amazing

45:13

journey and

45:15

my goal is to get to 500 .

45:17

How do you keep that passion up ?

45:20

Oh , that's easy because of the

45:22

people that you talk to . Lee

45:24

, it's the best thing ever . Like

45:26

you , you love it , right ? You

45:28

love it , I love it . And

45:30

never , ever , ever say , oh

45:33

, it's Saturday morning , I've got

45:35

an interview this morning with those people in Canada

45:37

. Oh , you know , never . I always go like I

45:39

can't wait to talk to those people in Canada this morning

45:41

. It's going to be so much fun , so it's not

45:44

really work for me . It's more about

45:46

just discovering people and

45:49

finding out interesting things about people , and

45:52

everyone has a story late , as

45:54

you know , right , everyone

45:56

. And when we're on the Camino at late

45:59

2022 , I

46:01

ran into this American guy and

46:04

we were in the garden there in Azura

46:07

and he was saying I don't

46:09

have a story , I don't

46:11

have a story . Not everybody has a story . I don't have a story

46:13

. I said , come on , you're talking about

46:15

quiz .

46:15

You have a story .

46:16

No , no , I don't have a story . I don't have a story . Now

46:19

I can't tell you his story because

46:21

he asked me not to , but he did

46:23

have a story . You

46:25

know , a couple of cups of tea later I

46:28

had the story out of him and it was amazing story

46:30

. It's funny . People say

46:32

I , I don't really think it , because

46:34

I say , come on the podcast , I don't really have anything

46:36

to talk about . And then ten minutes

46:39

in you're going . What you did , what you're

46:41

from where you what . What

46:43

you know it's . I

46:45

never , ever tire of it . And

46:47

then , of course , you know Sarah Jane and

46:49

and Karina Mccardo

46:52

, and just recently , I

46:54

don't know about six weeks ago , I did it and

46:56

I didn't really know their story at all

46:58

In the course of the interview

47:01

. You know she's cheated , she had

47:03

, well , she did die . She didn't cheat that , she died

47:05

and came back and

47:07

I mean that Interview

47:10

was just that's when he days to get over

47:12

that . It was just so

47:14

extraordinary . And she's she just wrote me the most

47:16

beautiful letter yesterday . An

47:18

email came through yesterday from Sarah

47:21

Jane . So I have continued

47:23

Contact with the people that I

47:25

interview as well . So we're all kind

47:27

of like a community . So I I

47:30

never tire of it . Answer to the question . Lee

47:32

, I never tire of it . I never fail

47:34

to be inspired by people and

47:36

their stories and

47:38

they're quite often so

47:41

, so excited to

47:44

have had someone Interested

47:46

in their story as well , which is a real

47:49

blessing .

47:49

Yeah , as communal pilgrims , we want

47:51

to share our stories right .

47:52

Yeah , and it's a Safe

47:55

place to Lee . I like to think

47:57

my , my podcast is a safe place . You

47:59

know you're not going to be judged , or

48:01

it's a safe

48:03

place , and so I like

48:05

to think that that community

48:08

that I've built 353

48:11

episodes is I kind of shake my

48:13

head and think it's ridiculous

48:15

, but it's a body of work now

48:17

that really

48:19

has a , has a

48:21

place of its own . I think , and

48:23

really I'm just the , I'm

48:25

just the shepherd . You know , it's

48:27

the sheep that are the stars and

48:30

it's the , it's

48:32

all of my guests . They're

48:35

the special people , they're

48:37

the story and they'll

48:39

continue on forever and

48:42

long after I'm gone . Their

48:44

stories will live on . I think that's a fantastic thing

48:46

.

48:47

Yeah , I think you're capturing a piece of history .

48:51

Yeah , exactly yeah , and so are you yeah .

48:54

Yeah , we're quite blessed to

48:56

be able to do what we do possibly be a documentary

48:58

made about the

49:00

making of the album the walks and fill me

49:02

on . How did this happen when I was in ?

49:04

Canada in 2022

49:07

. The , the wonderful people , the beautiful

49:10

and extraordinary people at the Canadian company of pilgrims

49:12

invited me over . My

49:15

friend , tom Friesen , invited me to go to

49:17

Toronto to

49:19

Give

49:21

a talk and sing some songs at their annual

49:23

gathering and I said , well , of course I'd love to come

49:26

over . So I went over there . I did some shows in London , ontario , I

49:30

did a show in Ottawa and I did a

49:32

show at the pilot have an in

49:34

downtown Toronto , and Rocco Rossi , our friend Rocco

49:36

, organized

49:39

it all for us . And that night

49:41

there I met a fellow named Simon Bern . He's

49:43

a filmmaker and a content maker , credibly

49:46

gifted photographer and filmmaker . You

49:50

go to his website , simon Bern creative

49:52

, and see the photos of the Camino and just get blown away . They

49:54

are insane photos of the Camino and

49:59

out of the blue , he sent me an email and

50:01

said look , have you thought about maybe making a film about this walk that you're

50:03

doing with all these people ? And

50:06

I said , well , I hadn't really thought about it . Some kind of busy making

50:08

an album , you

50:12

know , like that's my focus , and got

50:14

some other things going on as well . And he

50:16

said I will , I'll make that , I'd like to make it . I said how does

50:18

it work ? Then he kind of came up with

50:20

this concept of we

50:25

want to tell Dan's story but we

50:27

also want to tell the story of the Camino and make it a love letter

50:29

to Spain . And

50:33

so it's going to be part

50:36

documentary about me and my

50:38

music and the Camino , this magical musical Camino

50:40

that I and my guests are on and

50:43

their stories in some respect , and also

50:46

this love letter to Spain . So this

50:48

is this incredible place and this incredible place and

50:50

this incredible journey and this incredible

50:53

history and this incredible legacy Some

50:55

of the footage that he's shot

50:57

from other projects he's

50:59

worked on . He's a super

51:02

talented guy . So I said let's do

51:04

it . Our friend , andy Holloway , who's

51:06

now in Germany but he's normally lives

51:08

in America , andy's going to come along as

51:10

Simon's assistant and Andy's very

51:13

gifted person and he's own right photographer

51:15

and filmmaker . So we've got this

51:17

amazing team and it's going to be very fly

51:19

on the wall . They won't be impactful

51:21

at all and it won't be sort of like I

51:23

don't really want to be in a movie . They won't . They'll

51:25

be invisible . It's the most

51:27

exciting thing on the screen . It's going

51:29

to look exquisite .

51:30

How's the cost gone up in trying to put

51:33

out an album ?

51:34

This next album I'm making is going

51:36

to cost five times what Duende cost me to make . I

51:39

simply couldn't fund it myself . I would have

51:43

. I funded the first record , duende . I paid

51:45

for everything myself . I paid every

51:47

musician . I paid them musician union

51:49

rates . Everybody got paid and

51:51

I paid the studio every second , every

51:53

cent , and I paid it all

51:55

for myself out of doing gigs on weekends . I

51:57

didn't ask my family to contribute , I did it all out

51:59

of . I worked and worked and worked and worked

52:02

. But this time I can't do that . I

52:04

just I simply couldn't . It would take me too long

52:06

, would take years and I probably

52:09

wear myself out doing it . I want it to be

52:11

good enough to do justice

52:13

to the songs and I want it to be good

52:15

enough to do justice to the people

52:18

who are contributing to making it so that they

52:20

can put it on when they get home after

52:22

being out with family and friends . And you know

52:24

, I'm going to have a glass of wine , sit in front of the fire

52:26

, I'm going to put Dan's record on , I'm

52:28

going to put on Storyteller and they put

52:30

it on and they think to themselves I contributed to

52:33

this and listen to it and

52:35

I want them to go and it's fantastic

52:37

. It's absolutely world

52:39

class . This is a beautiful , beautiful

52:42

record , and not only

52:44

will they have contributed , they'll also have the

52:46

Camino to remember that they had walked

52:48

with me for almost three weeks . They

52:50

didn't just give me the money , they came for a beautiful

52:52

Camino . We walked and we've got that to share

52:55

. You know , their name will be on the back of the record

52:57

if they want to . You know , if they walk with

52:59

me , they'll get it for nothing because I'll send it to them

53:01

as a keepsake , but their name will be on the back of the record . If

53:03

they want a vinyl copy , they get a vinyl copy

53:05

. It's a great opportunity for me . It's

53:07

a great opportunity for others . A little while

53:09

down the track , they can go to a cinema

53:12

and see a full length documentary

53:14

about the Camino and

53:16

their contribution as well , which is pretty spectacular

53:18

, I reckon .

53:19

With the keepsake . Just to walk a

53:21

Camino is a memory of a lifetime

53:23

, and this is like times a

53:25

million that first Camino you ever

53:28

walked , dan , if someone

53:30

had said to you okay , so this

53:32

is what's going to happen , dan , you're going to walk

53:34

this Camino and then you're going to come home , and

53:36

then da , da , da , da , da , da , da , da . Yeah

53:40

, good question .

53:41

I don't think I would have

53:43

imagined in my wildest dreams . I

53:46

remember my first steps on the Camino , like most

53:48

people can . I was walking out of Sa'hun

53:51

and it was early morning , there

53:53

wasn't a cloud in the sky and

53:55

I thought , walking along by the poplar

53:58

trees there's a , everybody

54:00

knows there's , there are two , there

54:03

are two lines on the side of the road and

54:05

walking along there , thinking I really like

54:07

this , I

54:09

really like this . So

54:12

I was kind of walking and I couldn't

54:14

wait until I could walk far

54:16

enough from Sa'hun that Sa'hun disappeared

54:19

. I didn't want any towns on the

54:21

horizon . It's one of the Masetta , you know . It

54:23

was mid-crop so there weren't

54:25

, there were no crops at that time . So

54:27

normally there'd be sunflowers or something , but there

54:30

was not a wheat or something , but there was nothing . So it was very

54:32

barren . And I remember

54:34

, yeah , thinking I like this a lot

54:36

, I still like it a lot . I

54:39

don't know quite why it's

54:42

just struck a , struck

54:45

a chord with me , that , and that chord seems

54:47

to still be ringing out . You know , one of the things

54:49

about it , lee , are the people

54:51

. The people

54:53

, you know , they're

54:55

just so fantastic . We were talking about

54:58

stories earlier and everybody having a story

55:00

. Everybody is so kind

55:02

Well , not everybody , but the

55:04

vast majority of people that you meet are so kind

55:07

and so happy to share

55:09

. But what's not to love about that community

55:11

? And if you can be involved and engaged

55:14

in that community and

55:16

, as you said , they love you back , I

55:18

don't I don't take that for granted for a

55:20

moment why wouldn't you want

55:22

to be involved in it and go back there ? Of

55:25

course the Camino is going to call you back because

55:28

you want to go back and keep

55:31

sharing that same experience

55:33

, that same love . You want

55:35

to go back and live and breathe it all the time . That's

55:37

why I'm going back , that's

55:40

why we're going to do this incredible adventure

55:42

. And when I first

55:44

walked on those first few steps , if

55:46

you'd said in seven years time

55:49

you're going to be going back to make a

55:51

record and

55:53

you're going to be taking people with you who

55:55

are going to chip in for that record and we're

55:57

going to film a documentary about it , I would have

56:00

said sign me up , let's

56:04

do it . Yeah , what a blessing

56:07

. Yeah

56:09

, I don't really thought about that . That's

56:11

funny . You know , people always say to me good question

56:14

. Well , you asked the best questions , dan . You

56:16

asked good questions too , lee .

56:19

I take that as a real compliment coming from Dan

56:22

Mullins .

56:25

Yeah , yeah , good questions . Yeah , so it's

56:27

, it's , it's some . What

56:31

a blessing . I hadn't really ever thought about

56:33

that . What would I have made of it seven

56:35

years ago ? But yeah , sign me up .

56:38

How good is there any chance that you might

56:40

maybe play a new song

56:42

from the new album ?

56:43

I'd love to Lee , I'd love to his

56:46

. I've got my little sit there . The Camino

56:48

guitar is here . How could I , how could

56:50

I not play for you tonight ? I used

56:52

to do a lot of traveling for the radio

56:54

show that I worked for , and I was in a

56:56

little country town and I read the story

56:58

of a couple that had been married

57:00

, I think 70 years , almost 70

57:02

years , and

57:04

the wife and

57:07

husband lived in this

57:09

little town . He died on Friday

57:11

and she

57:14

died Sunday , 48

57:16

hours later , and the town was

57:18

in mourning . You know how could this

57:20

happen ? But I I , when I read it

57:22

, I remember thinking , well , she only had

57:24

one lonely Saturday night . I kind

57:26

of felt like , well , that's kind of a blessing in a way

57:28

. I never thought about it again

57:30

, and I'm talking about like 2012,

57:34

. Maybe I was on the road , I think

57:36

, yeah , 10 years , and

57:39

then , when I'd lost my voice and I

57:41

was just writing songs and playing a

57:43

lot of guitar , I would just sit

57:45

and noodle , like I'm doing

57:47

right now , and then I came to the chorus

57:50

, or what would be the chorus

57:52

, and

57:58

I sang over the top of it that

58:00

lyric and

58:03

the song wrote itself

58:05

. This is one lonely Saturday night

58:07

. Married

58:16

in 47 , aged

58:18

22 , had

58:21

seven children , lost

58:23

one at birth , Children

58:26

of neighbors and neighborhood

58:29

rivals . They saw

58:31

a little something in

58:34

each other's eyes . The

58:44

hands seemed to age at

58:46

exact the same price . Their

58:49

wedding rings got tighter and

58:51

then became looser , Just

58:54

like their skin and their

58:56

necks , if kin . But their

58:58

hearts were mighty and

59:01

the love was forever . He

59:08

died on Friday and she died

59:11

on Sunday like someone

59:13

turned out alive

59:15

, Somehow

59:18

, a blessing bestowed

59:20

upon her . She

59:22

had only one , lonely

59:25

Saturday night . He

59:36

was a minor and she

59:38

loved to play . They'd

59:40

climb in French and penny love

59:43

the song and there were the

59:45

board cladding covered

59:48

the fibro . After

59:50

a few years no one knew

59:52

there were households . He

59:59

died on Friday and she

1:00:01

died on Sunday like

1:00:03

someone turned out alive

1:00:06

Some

1:00:08

ways of blessing bestowed

1:00:11

upon her . She had

1:00:13

only one , lonely

1:00:16

Saturday night . His

1:00:22

illness was a creeper out

1:00:24

of the blue . She

1:00:27

didn't tell him , but somehow

1:00:29

she knew how she

1:00:31

wished it were to

1:00:34

go first . 36

1:00:36

hours was

1:00:39

all that it took . He

1:00:45

died on Friday and she

1:00:47

died on Sunday like someone

1:00:50

turned out alive , In

1:00:54

some ways of blessing bestowed

1:00:57

upon her . She had

1:00:59

only one lonely

1:01:02

. Saturday night

1:01:04

. Somehow

1:01:08

a blessing rained down

1:01:11

upon her . She had

1:01:13

only one lonely

1:01:16

Saturday night . One

1:01:20

lonely Saturday night

1:01:22

. One

1:01:24

lonely Saturday night .