Davey Lane doesn’t like talking about himself. Just as well then that he’s spent the better part of the last decade as lead guitarist for Australian legends You Am I, trading riffs, quips, and quiffs with primary songwriter Tim Rogers.

Now, though, he doesn’t really have that option – with his band the Pictures’ debut album Pieces of Eight out and about, he kinda needs to do the promo work that’s required. “It’s weird because this is MY record, very much kinda ‘my baby’, so I’m not talking about You Am I and they’re not all Tim’s songs, so I guess I’m able to explain the record a little bit better because I wrote the bloody thing!” Davey says with a laugh.

The Pictures have been kicking around for a long time now, originally selling demo EPs on the You Am I official message board. “Bloody hell!” he exclaims. “I should get all those early EPs gathered up and burned. They’re horrible. Formative, to put it nicely.”

Of course, there’s no doubt that he learned a lot from them, realising that, at that time, there was no way the world was ready to see the Pictures. “Listening back to them now, it seems to me that I couldn’t sing to save my life, and I couldn’t write lyrics. It’s been frustrating ‘til now waiting to put out a [debut] record, but listening back to things like that I kind of realise that it’s a bit of a blessing in disguise. It’s a good process to do. But at the same time I’ve been glad that there’s been not much hype with the band at all, because we’ve had the opportunity to be under the radar and start off and be shit for a while, and work on it to get better.”

With the explosion of the Vines and Jet on the international scene, the time seemed ripe in 2004, and the Pictures signed a deal with Hut Recordings, a subsidiary of EMI, in the U.K. Then it all went decidedly pear-shaped: “Just before the EP was about to come out EMI liquidated the whole record label,” Davey explains, “so the last year has been pretty frustrating and a pretty difficult year. Everything that could go wrong did, and all the shit went down with our old drummer.”

Indeed: Brett Wolfenden has now gone from the Pictures to Treetops to the Gear, and now he’s part of the new band formed by John Farnham’s manager Glenn Wheatley’s son. “I guess he’s gotta do what he’s gotta do,” Davey says diplomatically.

So, onwards and upwards as they say. With Pieces of Eight, the Pictures have come off with an album that hits with power and panache but also has the good sense to be chock-full of melody as well. “It wasn’t really a conscious thing, but I wanted to have some things that were easy on the ear in that regard and some songs that took an unexpected left turn, and I just wanted to write lyrics that actually meant something.”

That’s certainly something that Davey has picked up from the maestro himself, one Timothy Anthony Rogers, Esquire. But it’s not as if he’s slavishly devoted. “I think people had this impression of the band being ‘the guy from You Am I’s side project’,” Davey admits. “It’s a funny old thing, but it’s all good now. I guess that’s maybe the way that people might have perceived it. So fuck em!”

Most certainly fuck them – fuck them all, from those who never believed that a kid could be a fan, join the band, contribute something more than meaningful (You Am I actually got better as a live act with Davey on board), and then release a rockin’ good times of a debut album with his, ahem, ‘side project’.

Certainly the production work of Mr. Greg Wales – erstwhile Sandpit skinsman and producer to innumerable Australian acts – helped, with his work on fellow Melbourne three-piece Even’s debut album being an important touchstone for Pieces of Eight. “I’ve known Greg for a long time,” explains Davey, “and I love less is more, the Even record, and I love Circle High and Wide, the Snout one, and I’ve always liked those records, and I knew that he would be someone who wouldn’t be difficult to work with and who would be open to a lot of different ideas. Also, he understood the situation that we were in and that we didn’t have much money to play with, and he was very understanding of that and he helped us out a lot there as well. We had to make the record relatively cheaply.”

The next trick will, undoubtedly, be for the band to secure a deal in the U.K. or the States, but it’s not something that Davey is fussing over at the moment. “Because we only started recording at the start of March, it’s been really busy and hectic so we haven’t had a lot of time to start sending it to people overseas, but the good thing about our record deal – and I need to know what’s going on but I try not to get too involved – is that we own the record ourselves, so we can do whatever we want with it.”

Is that one of the reasons why you went on the independent level rather than sign to a major?

“That was one of the reasons. The major labels weren’t interested in us anyway, not at all and we got knocked by everybody, and not that I’m whinging about it, but that’s what happened.”

That in itself is mighty surprising: given what’s happened with rock ‘n roll being a major force in the first half of this decade, you’d think a band with the skills of the Pictures would’ve been a monty for the majors to at least look at.

“I haven’t really thought about it that much,” he shrugs. “They could have had the record and now they don’t.”

It’s not something Davey is at all concerned about because ‘his baby’ is now completely in his control – and the sky is the limit.

The Pictures’ Pieces of Eight is out now. The band are heading out on a major tour with the Vandas. Dates:
JUNE
Thursday 30th - Preston Hotel, Geelong
JULY
Friday 1st - Karova Lounge, Ballarat
Saturday 2nd - Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Sunday 3rd - The Tote, Melbourne - all ages
Wednesday 6th - North Eastern Hotel, Benalla
Thursday 7th - ANU Bar, Canberra
Friday 8th - Gaelic Club, Sydney
Saturday 9th - Monavale Hotel, Monavale
Sunday 10th - Bondi Hotel, Bondi
Thursday 14th - Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle
Friday 15th - Great Northern, Byron Bay
Saturday 16th - The Alley Bar, Brisbane
Wednesday 20th - Enigma Bar, Adelaide
Thursday 21st - Prince Of Wales, Bunbury
Friday 22nd - White Sands, Scarborough
Saturday 23rd - The Amplifier, Perth
Sunday 24th - Swan Basement, North Fremantle
Friday 29th – The Republic Bar, Hobart
Saturday 30th – The Republic Bar, Hobart