A Conversation With Australian Bluesman Lachy Doley
Photo Credit: Rob Van Dalen.
Lachy Doley hails from Sydney Australia and his music is based on an unusual set of equipment. He plays the Hammond Organ and utilizes a Whammy Clavinet. His performances are dripping with talent and energy and when you first hear him, it’s an experience you won’t forget. He’s been dubbed the Jimi Hendrix of the Hammond Organ and you won’t believe your ears when you hear his version of Voodoo Child.
Ken Wallis interviewed Lachy for the radio show BluesSource International. The following are edited excerpts from that interview.
Ken Wallis
It's festival season in Canada and musicians are out touring again, and we're thrilled to announce that Australian bluesman, Lachy Doley is coming to Canada. It's going to be great seeing him and Lachy is joining us to tell us all about the tour. Thanks for coming on the show.
Lachy Doley
Oh, thanks for having me. Good to be here.
Ken Wallis
So Lachy tell us where you're going to be performing.
Lachy Doley
Well first of all, I’m super excited to be coming back after two years. It's going to be amazing. We're sort of doing it in two little kind of mini tours in a way. Two weekends and then pop back to Australia in between. I’m excited to be playing a couple of the venues and festivals that I’ve done in the past especially Kitchener Blues Festival and Donnacona Festival, two of my absolute favourites. I played that a few times now.
Ken Wallis
The first time I saw you perform was at the Kitchener Blues Festival and you just blew my mind and everybody that was out in the audience were just thrilled with your performance.
Lachy Doley
Was that the year the hurricane came through?
Ken Wallis
It was three years ago.
Lachy Doley
That was our second time. That was when we finally got to actually play a full show there. Whereas two years prior to that, we only got through three songs and then someone came onto the stage and announced that there was a hurricane coming and we all had to evacuate and we had all had to go into the town hall and stay there for the next two hours until the emergency passed. It was crazy.
Ken Wallis
So you kickoff your tour in Sarnia right?
Lachy Doley
That's right yes, on the Fourth of August is when we actually kick it off at the Rüstr Music Hall. I’ve never played there before but I’m super excited to go there and from all reports it's a great venue. Following that we play Kitchener on the Fifth which is always amazing. And then on the sixth we head up to Donnacona in Quebec and play The Donnacona Blues Festival , which was actually the very first place I ever played in when I set foot in Canada.
I'm really excited to return there and that's a wonderful festival and the owner of that festival Yannick Lambert is also my booking agent. It feels like a bit of a homecoming coming back to play that festival.
Ken Wallis
And then on August 25th you’re in my hometown of Hamilton at Stonewalls.
Lachy Doley
Stonewalls, yeah we've played Hamilton last time which was amazing. This time we’re at Stonewalls which I haven't seen yet except online. It looks like a great little joint to play.
That's going to be fun and if it's anything like the last time we played in Hamilton which was insane.
Ken Wallis
And then you go to Trois Rivieres.
Lachy Doley
That's right yes. We were lucky enough to play there two years ago. That was the first time we played there so it's great to be asked back there again. It’s a wonderful festival with all sorts of diverse acts and different stages around the city, so yeah looking forward to getting back there as well. It's gonna be great to see all those friends and familiar faces that we met over the last few years of coming to Canada. I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone again and getting to play again.
Ken Wallis
It's a lot flying back and forth from Australia. It's a long flight. How do you handle your gear? You must rent stuff here in Canada?
Lachy Doley
I don't advise anyone to become an international touring Hammond organ, whammy clavinet playing musician. It really is an absolute nightmare when it comes to logistics and touring. But yeah so you're right I basically have to hire a Hammond. A lot of the festivals sometimes will already have it as backline because some of the bands will have an organ player in their lineup. The organ’s one thing but then it's the whammy clavinet which simply can't be hired. There's less than 20 of them in the world so it's a really awkward weight. The clavinet, because it's an old mechanical instrument, it's quite heavy by itself. It's almost up to 30 kilos and the limit to fly on an airline is 32; otherwise it has to be freighted. The only way I can get it onboard the flight is I have to wrap it in like five layers of bubble wrap, tape it up, put it in a soft case basically like a canvas case sort of thing, and then put it on the plane and cross my fingers and hope for the best. There's been a few sort of crazy times where I’ve had to spend a few hours trying to fix it on the other end but it's the only way I can do it. I’ve been lucky enough so it's still going and hopefully it'll survive this trip too.
Ken Wallis
If there's anyone out there that hasn’t seen you perform, they can get a great glimpse by looking at studio 301 sessions on YouTube.
Lachy Doley
Absolutely yeah. That was one of the more exciting things that we did during lockdown. There’s this iconic studio in Sydney. I decided ah stuff it's my birthday and we were right in between lockdowns at that point so we had a bit of freedom to put it on. We went into this studio and recorded a whole set. It was a much bigger version of the band than I often do. We had horns and backing singers and a lot of guests and a lot of my friends and the whole thing was captured live and recorded and it's all up on YouTube if anyone wants to check it out. I'm really proud of the way that turned out. I think it's a really great representation of what I do and kind of the feeling around my shows and the general sort of mood of the way I play.
Ken Wallis
I’m really looking forward to seeing you in in Kitchener.
Lachy Doley
Absolutely, it'll be great to see.
Ken Wallis
I assume tickets are available for all of these concerts are online?
Lachy Doley
Just type Lachy Doley into Google. Any kind of dodgy spelling you'll find me. All my all my tickets are on sale on my website so that's probably the easiest way to do it.
Website: www.lachydoley.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/LachyDoley
Instagram: www.instagram.com/lachydoley