22 | Follow The Knowledge with Darcy Davis

In this episode of Through the Creative Door, Alexis sits down with multi-talented music producer, pianist, DJ, studio owner and fellow podcast host of “Music My Mates Make”, Darcy Davis, also known as D-Day. The two dive deep into the creative process, from Darcy’s journey building his own recording studio in Alice Springs, to his passion for creating music in unconventional spaces. Darcy shares an inspiring story about stepping up to lead a family legacy project, recording an album in Pidginjarra language, and the pride he feels for preserving Indigenous culture through music. Join Alexis and Darcy for an honest conversation about creative flow, overcoming self-doubt and how pushing through challenges can bring out your best work.

If you’d like to see more, you can follow Darcy on instagram; @ darcydavis

 

This episode was recorded on 5 August 2024 on the lands of the Arrernte Peoples. We hope that this episode inspires you as a creative person and as a human being.

Thanks for listening, catch you on the next episode.

Psst! We are always on the lookout for creative people to share their story and inspire others. Have you got someone in mind who would love to have a chat? Get in contact with us via Instagram @throughthecreativedoor

 

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Creative resources from Darcy:

UPK7 Album: https://open.spotify.com/album/6YGdxqYMOLcU2z4ha7FJZT?si=qO5vRNwJSLum1zZ6mtGwxQ 

 

BOOKS:

Mastery by Robert Greene 

The Creative Act: A Way Of Being by Rick Rubin 

Let’s get social:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/throughthecreativedoor/ 

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ttcdpodcast

CREDITS

Created and Hosted by Alexis Naylor

Music by Alexis Naylor & Ruby Miguel

Edited and Produced by Ruby Miguel

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00:09 - Alexis (Host)

Hello, my name is Alexis Naylor and I am your host here at Through the Creative Door. On behalf of myself and my guests, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians on which this podcast is recorded and produced. Owners and custodians on which this podcast is recorded and produced. May we pay our respects to all First Nations people and acknowledge Elders, past and present. On this podcast, I'll be chatting to an array of creative guests, getting a glimpse into their worlds and having some honest and inspiring conversations along the way. I'm delighted to welcome you to Through the Creative Door. 

 

Hello, darcy. 

 

00:50 - Darcy (Guest)

How are you, alexis? 

 

00:52 - Alexis (Host) 

Good, how are you? 

 

00:53 

Yeah, really good. Thanks for having me on your show. 

 

00:55 - Alexis (Host)

I am so chuffed that I get to welcome you through the Creative Door podcast. 

 

01:02 - Darcy (Guest)

It feels good to step right through that door. I just felt like a different feeling sensation good to step right through that door together. 

 

01:04 - Alexis (Host)

Well, I'm actually very grateful that I get to be in your creative space in uh, but we will talk about that more as we get through the podcast. I feel like I need to enlighten the listeners a little bit. A bit about you. For some they may know you as Darcy, but aka D-Day, D-Day. 

 

01:31 - Darcy (Guest)

D-Davis. Yeah, kind of stuck around that nickname. 

 

01:36 - Alexis (Host)

But you are such a talented bear. Such a talented bear. You're a music producer. You're a phenomenal piano player, or pianist correct terminology You're an MC, you DJ so much I mean. You've also been radio hosts in many different iterations. You've been in so many different ensembles and, if I couldn't add any more to the rap sheet, you also have a beautiful studio called Red House recording studio here in Alice Springs where you get to, you know, be creative in all of the ways and you also have your own podcast which is awesome. 

 

02:19 - Darcy (Guest)

You were my first guest on my first podcast and now you've just eclipsed me altogether. 

 

02:24 - Alexis (Host)

Oh, stop it. You're inspiring me, thank you, but your podcast is Music My Mates Make, which is so inspiring and just fills my cup every time I get to listen, which is such a pleasure. 

 

02:36 - Darcy (Guest)

You were my first guest, so you really got it rolling. In fact, I've conked out a little bit and you're just like a powerhouse just striving through, so you're inspiring me. How are you doing this? How are you doing that? They're kind of like waves, aren't they like? They come in and out and one person comes in surfing this wave and then they might like get dumped into the ocean and the next person catches a wave. And yeah, hopefully we check in with each other and inspire each other. So I'm feeling super motivated now after seeing you again. 

 

03:08 - Alexis (Host)

Excellent, excellent. That's what we want to hear. 

 

03:10 - Darcy (Guest)

Yeah, I love it. 

 

03:12 - Alexis (Host)

Going to launch into the first question. Okay, let's launch. I feel like this is a difficult one because you have such a broad spectrum of avenues of creating. But what does a creative space mean to you, and why? 

 

03:31 - Darcy (Guest)

Creative space is just anywhere that you can kind of intentionally set out to do your thing. It's a safe space. It's usually quiet for me, or somewhere that's not. I don't have all the regular distractions from life like people trying to get a hold of you to do something, or, you know social media or somewhere that you can kind of just block out and go into that space. 

 

03:59

Hopefully, when you hit the flow, the flow state, when you stop thinking about time you enter, you go through the creative door, metaphorically speaking, and for me it's like it's not always that the inspiration is going to be there, but you sort of start moving the proverbial paint around the canvas and then little things start to take shape and I think, yeah, I, I like to, usually like to do something, like have a vacuum up or just clear the space a little bit and then know that I'm entering in like intentionally into creating something. 

 

04:38

It's not always there, like I believe a little bit in the muse, that the muse kind of might be that spirit which whispers the cool ideas into you when you're ready for it. So showing up and being ready for the muse to maybe hopefully gift you a good idea or not, or just showing up ready might be enough. You might not always catch an idea that day, but creative space is somewhere I go into intentionally to let the yeah, let creativity come through 

 

05:21 - Alexis (Host) 

And do you find that you like coming into studio space is more feasible in that way, or really just purposefully coming into a space? 

 

05:26

Well, yeah, obviously I love being in the studio in the Red House, the building my dad made, and when I was quite young and grew into being able to know how to use it and operate it professionally. But a creative space could be somewhere also that could be quite transient. Or you might be in the middle of a chaotic environment, for example, like on a plane. I like to throw on my headphones and crack open Ableton and just go into a creative space there. I like being in a moving space there or on. I like moving. I like being in a moving space, like on a train really, or somewhere like that, and being able to throw down just on that, um, on my laptop alone, without any other equipment. Sometimes I'm pretty good at playing the the keyboard on a computer. 

 

06:25 - Alexis (Host)

On a computer? Can you teach me how to do that. That's tough.

 

06:22

No, I kind of it's funny. Sometimes I'm in here and we have this big studio full of equipment and I'm like let me just play this down. They're like Darcy man, you know you have all of this stuff. I like to be resourceful. Whatever your space is, that's the best environment. But I do like, yeah, sometimes, being in a cafe or on a plane, some type of public transport, I feel like I have no other choice than to go into that and it kind of maybe accelerates me into that creative space. So I like to be able to be wherever and still tap into that. 

 

07:04 - Alexis (Host)

I love that. 

 

07:06 - Darcy (Guest)

If I'm making beats, obviously I can't lay down vocals like you. There's a different emphasis on what I'm creating to you, but I like making beats on public transport as well. 

 

07:18 - Alexis (Host)

I love this. I love this so much. I guess there's a great segue into the next question. 

 

07:24 - Darcy (Guest)

Nice, good segue. 

 

07:30 - Alexis (Host)

If you could choose something out of all the body of work that you've done, what is something that you're most proud of creating and why? 

 

07:42 - Darcy (Guest)

Well, I usually don't feel proud. I usually feel like I'm onto the next thing. In fact, like my whole lifetime has been trying to get accustomed to feeling okay with something that I have created and put out there and, yeah, where we're on worst critics all the time. 

 

08:09

So I feel like I've hit a point where I can tolerate hearing myself, let alone being really proud of things. But my own personal breakthrough was and it's, the thing that I'm most proud of achieving not necessarily the end result but the process that I went through. So I'll just talk a bit about that. Last year I was working on this UPK project, which is a project that started before I was even born, in 1989, out at Morijulu, which is the community of Uluru, Ayers Rock. They brought a 16-track tape machine out there and they made this Music for Health project, which ended up being a really popular record, especially on the AP wirelands where my parents have lived and worked as teachers since the 80s before coming to Alice, and so that project it's been through a bunch of different versions since then. Usually about every six years there's a new one, and so usually it's been my dad and I collaborating on it, in fact, on UPK6. 

 

09:30

I said to dad, like did you know that one day I was gonna be the one recording this project? He said yeah. I said what? So you sorta like engineered me to be the engineer of this project? He said yeah, of course, why else do you have children? He was just joking, but you know, last year dad was going through a lot of health problems and his heart got down to like 20% capacity. We were worried for his life, actually legitimately, because he was close he was close to meeting his maker and they almost cancelled the whole project. They said should we cancel it or do you think that you can go on without your dad, sort of thing, and knowing how much money and effort the organization had gone into the whole thing, I said you know what? I think I can do it and went out there and yeah, it was on top of setting up all the mics running between the rooms. So we create like a bush studio with heshen and we like build it off the side of like an old house and so building the studio and then setting up, and then usually the role that my dad would do would be because he's good at language at Pidginjarri, he speaks fluently he would be the one constructing the songs and I'd be kind of there to hit record or throw ideas in. But it wasn't all my responsibility. So this time it was like all right, you got to write the songs, you got to be there in a language that I wasn't that good at. But now, as a result of that, it was like a massive trial by fire and something that I was grateful that I could experience while my dad was still alive. It's sort of like experiencing like what it'd be like when he's gone to carry that on, but he was still hanging on for his life. So, yeah, I'm. 

 

11:21

I wrote my first song in Pidginjarra language, which is, I feel, proud of that as a white fella, that I have family out there coaching me, schooling me. And I said to one of my bros there, Dwayne. I said, oh, I might need to get a dictionary for Pidginjarra. He said, forget the dictionary, wear your dictionary, just ask us any, any questions. 

 

11:45

And it was this beautiful collaboration that happened and them knowing my dad in the whole story what they call the story of this project and then being able to rise above and still create an album, basically doing all of the roles and um now becoming kind of like a different person through that process of my language has gotten heaps better. 

 

12:15

I wrote another song. So I did two songs on the album that were collaborations, because obviously I can't write a whole song in language, but, um, come up with the concept and, yeah, the, the, the pride that I feel was that I persevered through that and I managed to do all of those roles in such a massive project and didn't drop the ball and dad survived and yeah, all of that was very, yeah, it was really tough, one of the most difficult things that I've been through, and so I just feel personal pride that, yeah, this like a legacy there that I can take forward and had breakthroughs with the Aboriginal language that I feel proud, as an Australian, that I can really delve deep into that language and I'm determined to become fluent. 

 

13:10

I speak Chinese, so I want to become fluent in Pidginjarra, like my dad. I can see it in my mind being able to interact and be fluent. It just feels like this massive achievement on the horizon which I'm going to get through. So, yeah, to answer your question, I feel proud of that. It's out on all platforms now you can have a look. Upk7, it's a concept album. 

 

13:32 - Alexis (Host)

We will make sure to put it in the show notes and everyone has to listen yeah so, on the flip side of things that we're proud of, what do you think has challenged you the most in creativity and what do you think the major lesson was? 

 

13:50 - Darcy (Guest)

I have this kind of like a lazy susan of skills that I'm rotating around and adding something to this one. I'm working on my DJing now. I'm working on my rapping. I'm trying to be a producer. I want to get better at these mic placements and compression and stuff. 

 

14:07

So the most challenging thing is like being all of those roles is hard. And then there's literally a project, like I did, where I'm literally all those roles at once and the difficult thing is like, yeah, people can, oh, you're good at all these things, that then having something to show for each one, or the time it takes for you to actually really master that one area when you have a lot that you're trying to digest and make sense of. So the difficult thing is like finding my identity within all those areas. Like some people will see me on the street and they say, oh, you're that rapper. Or they might say, oh, you're the dj or you're the piano guy and it's hard to make all those things work. Or how do you carve out an authentic identity when you're always jumping around mediums in a way? 

 

15:10

So I'm hoping that it becomes like a. It gets to the point where I'm can transcend all of those things, and all of those things naturally weave into something greater than and people seek me out to be that guy who knows all of those disciplines and has a different, unique perspective, where people can headhunt me to be that person, to be involved in that project, or they want me in the studio because of the energy that I bring, and they also also know that I'm good with lyrics and I'm good with arrangements and that I have this type of background. So, yeah, the challenge is making all those things work together and unify them, have them to be reinforced with one another, and not that I'm spread too thin amongst all of that. 

 

16:08 - Alexis (Host)

Now, this could be as simple as an instrument, but I'm hoping that maybe there's something maybe more sentimental. Well, who knows? I shouldn't lead you into this question Is there an object that you can't live without when you're creating, and why? 

 

16:30 - Darcy (Guest)

I wouldn't say it's an object, but what I like is a degree of chance.

 

16:41

So it's like sometimes you just have to throw paint at the wall or at the canvas, um, and not really have a clue what it's going to achieve. But, um, to have a degree of like, let's see what this does. Or let's do something that you wouldn't normally do, like let's try and put this channel effects on the one that it's not meant for. Or let's like put so, let's put some chance into the mix, so it might be just the way that you put your hands down on the piano might give you the key that you're arriving at. It might be like flicking open to a book, a page in a book, and going this is my word that I'm drawing something from, or having some degree of chance, because I feel like that's how the ideas can get through. You heard of like happy accidents, like I think there's kind of a science to happy accidents, being able to roll the dice in a way and see what will come, and that might be your first spark of creativity. 

 

17:56 - Alexis (Host)

If you could give one piece of advice, one nugget of gold to another creative, what would it be? 

 

18:05 - Darcy (Guest)

It relates to what I'm saying like follow the knowledge, go for learning and skills. Like prioritize that above short-term monetary gain. If you can always keep going, all right, I'm comfortable with this. Now it's time to be uncomfortable again. I'm gonna learn this next thing. Or I know my weakness is in my voice, or like I'm not for my beat, sound standard and stock standard and average. Or finding like, oh, my sound design skills aren't really good. I need to spend some time creating sounds and or whatever it is. That is your weakness. Keep stepping into that weak point and you'll find if you keep doing that, then you have like a broader and broader vantage point and creative standpoint to get the ideas out of your head. So I would say keep stepping into your weaknesses. Always, prioritize learning over short-term monetary gain and the money will follow in the future yep, wise words, wise words. 

 

19:21 - Alexis (Host)

Uh, well, off the back of that, if you're talking about learning and education and upskilling. If you have any other resources or references podcasts.

 

19:27 - Darcy (Guest)

yeah, one of the books that really influenced me was Robert Greene's Mastery. I don't know if you've read that one. No, I haven't. It kind of gets into people's lives who, like Beethoven and people at the top of their field in the NBA and pilots, and kind of how they went on their journey to become masters of their field, and oftentimes there would be three or more things that they've mastered, which then gives them a unique vantage point to have a breakthrough in a certain area. So, yeah, that's been very influential. 

 

20:13 - Alexis (Host)

Last but not least, one last question If you could hear anyone come on this podcast and answer these questions who would it be, and why? 

 

20:25 - Darcy (Guest)

Well, I'm a big fan of Rick Rubin. 

 

20:28

I would love I would love for him to go through the creative door. When I was doing this project out on the lands, I was listening to his book, the the creative act. I'm more of a audiobook type of person because if I start reading I'll just go to sleep. It's like valium just out, um, but I love listening to stuff. I'm a real listener. So, yeah, I listened to his book and some of the ideas that he had were like straight out of my mind, like we were speaking the same language, like we were cosmic family members or something. Stuff that I haven't well, I've articulated to people. And, um, he put it into words in this book and it's a lot of the time was yeah, and that really fueled me through that process. But, yeah, anyone like that dr dre, would be great. 

 

21:22

I'm just talking about my influences yeah um Jack White, but in terms of Australia, I mean, there's a guy who lives in Melbourne named um Lockie, Lockie Lanius. I think he's the best musician in Australia if not one of the best in the world. You'll see him all around Melbourne. In fac he's so humble he should have meteoric success. He's just a true genius. He's a masterful jazz guitarist and singer. He can do literally everything. He would be my choice for a local guest. Yeah, if I can find him be elusive, I'll put you in contact. 

 

22:16 - Alexis (Host)

Thanks, oh my goodness Darcy, this has been such a pleasure. Thanks, oh my goodness Darcy, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and giving such grace in these beautiful answers. 

 

22:33 - Darcy (Guest)

Oh, my pleasure. 

 

22:34 - Alexis (Host)

Yeah, it's just been so lovely chatting with you. 

 

22:36 - Darcy (Guest)

Thanks for making space. 

 

22:38 - Alexis (Host)

Yes, love it. 

 

Thanks for tuning in for another episode of Through the Creative Door. If you enjoy our episodes and find value in them, consider supporting us by making a donation. Just visit buymeacoffeecom/through the creative door or via the link in our Instagram bio where you can choose an amount and even write us a little message. Every little bit helps and we truly appreciate all of your support. But if you can't donate, no worries, you can still help us out by sharing our podcast with your friends and family and leaving a review on your favorite platform. Thanks so much for being part of our community and we'll catch you on the next episode. Bye.