These days, former Queensland Danny George Wilson lives in Sutton, England. As one half of the songwriters in Grand Drive (his brother is the other), he’s now gone solo for the first time, with The Famous Mad Mile.

“We’d just finished touring See the Morning In and a guy was on tour with us, Simon Alpin, playing bits and bobs – mandolin and lap steel and things like that,” he explains. “I had a bunch of songs that I said I’d like to record in a pretty easy-going fashion, and I didn’t want to go into the studio and do them; I didn’t want to make an album, as it were. So after the tour we just went around to his house for a few days and recorded some songs in his living room. I guess that’s why it comes across as being very easy-going and kind of homely in that way. It wasn’t necessarily meant to be a record – it’s just a group of friends making a record.”

He agrees that it was a very different proposition to recording as part of Grand Drive, where they;ve always taken the records really seriously. By comparison, his solo debut had no pretensions about making a record. “It felt like I was just making some…stuff,” Danny bluffs, uncertain of how describe the recording process. “It’s been really different; the touring is the most different I guess because generally I’ve been on my own – ‘have guitar will travel’. It forces you into situations that you wouldn’t normally get into if you were with the band. It’s been brilliant, and I’ve met some brilliant people.”

Has playing live solo been very different to normal?

“Simon’s been on a few of the dates,” he explains, “and Jess Klein from the States who sings harmonies on some of the songs has been and we’ve toured together, but mainly it’s been me on my own. The shows have been literally me talking a load of rubbish and playing a bunch of songs – whatever feels like should be the next song is generally the next song. It’s been very easy-going, like the record.”

The record itself is something that Danny didn’t feel like he needed to make, but is now so glad that he did. Now working on new Grand Drive material, Danny doesn’t believe that his solo album has effected the way he writes in solo guise. “Me and my brother have gotten together and been writing songs and comparing songs and there’s some that we’ve agreed sound like a singer-songwriter singing some songs and there are some that lend themselves much more easily to the band. It’s the same as ever.

“Essentially the songs on The Famous Mad Mile are ones that we didn’t feel were right for the band, because they were too personal and didn’t lend themselves musically to what the band were wanting to do. I don’t generally think about the songwriting so much but think about ideas and then the music generally comes. I try not to be too academic about what I’m writing.”

It sounds like this record was made very intuitively. “Oh yeah, not to mention the fact that it was recorded in someone’s living room amongst baby toys and books and cups of tea! The thing that I really like about it is that it sounds exactly like what it was. There’s none of that rock ‘n roll smoke and mirrors. I like to hear records like that, and I’ve really enjoyed making a record like that.”

Did you have any vision as to what you wanted to make?

“I had no idea. I just wanted to put some ideas onto a tape. Musically it’s exactly where I felt the songs should be, and that’s why the friends who came on played on it are so particular – the violin, the cello – it was exactly the way we felt the songs should be presented. It came out exactly as I’d imagined, in a way, but that’s because we really didn’t much around with it. It wasn’t some great vision but more that we had songs that we thought might sound nice with a double bass and violin and mandolin so that’s what we did.”

Danny George Wilson’s The Famous Mad Mile is out now.