davegraney.com

Rod Hayward - guitar, vocals (1989-1997)

Formerly with Little Murders, Dust on the Bible, the Tussock brothers and the Pete Best Beatles. Also played with the White buffaloes.
Rod walked into a rehearsal studio in Melbourne in 1989 with Conway Savage. Clare and I had talked Chris Walsh (formerly from the Moodists) and Conway into doing a few shows with us in a band that would do half my songs and a lot of covers. Con said that he knew a guitar player. Rod played all my songs for the next decade with complete empathy and a faultless precision. He had a great sound and style and really knew how to place sounds in the fabric of a group sound like Steve Cropper or Albert Lee (He loved Albert Lee and Stevie Ray Vaughan and Tom Verlaine). I always had an idea that the Coral Snakes could be an entity in themselves like the MG's had been. For a few shows in 1991, the Coral Snakes did a set of songs with Rod singing. It was a real pity that it didn't happen any more after that.
Rod lives and works in Melbourne. He played and will play in the recent and future versions of Dave Graney 'n' the Coral Snakes.

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Gordy Blair - bass, vocals (1987/1988, 1990/1991, 1993/1997)

Born in Belfast, formerly with Rudi (76/79), the Outcasts (79/81), the Trial (81/82), Big Self (82/85) and Ruefrex (85/86).
After the Moodists ran out of steam, Clare was really into playing with a lot of different people. I was into staying home and listening to records. Clare ran into Gordy through some mutual friends who all seemed to have Creation Records in common. Clare and Gordy played as the rhythm section of a band called Cathedral Forest which was formed by a man called Adam Sanderson. Adam had formerly been in an early Creation records band called, The Jasmine Minks.
We started to rehearse my songs and I demoed some of my tunes with Gordy in 1987. Gordy ran the Ritzy cinema in Brixton and lived the London life with a whole bunch of ex Belfast boys.
Gordy played the bass in a fantastically intricate, melodious way. Very serious about music and life. Half of the set navigational points around which his musical sensibility swung were formed in the dramatic scene that was British punk and post punk. That a lot of that scene in Gordys case was played out in the city of Belfast set an indelible tone over all of the approaches he took to a musical idea.
Other influences that were always at play in Gordys aesthetic were his time playing sax and the consequent non bass players way he would see the particular architecture of a song. Very considered in every note he played.
He came out to Australia in 1991 for six months and then returned to live permanently in 1993.
He reunited with Clare and Robin to back Malcolm Ross for a few dates in Melbourne in 1999.
He was invited to participate in the 2015 shows but, after preliminary deliberations, declined to do so.

Robin Casinader - piano, organ, violin, vocals (1991-1997)

Robin had previously played in Plays with Marionettes and the Wreckery. In those bands he played keyboards, violin and drums.
After we returned from the UK in 1991 I ran into Robin on a bus and we talked about playing together. He was just putting out a solo cd, "All of these things".
He was one of those musicians who really made a commitment to make music his life. He earned money from teaching and playing and did little else. All through the Coral Snakes he kept his own projects going.
First there was "the Vanishing Lady" (1992) who had an extensive (and brilliant) repertoire of electric folk rock songs which he subsequently just threw away. I encouraged him to record one, "Late, Late, Late" for the "Unbuttoned "cd. A great songwriter, musically and lyrically. Also a fine string arranger. (He did all of ours as well as "white skin/black heart" for Midnight Oil).In the Vanishing Lady he and his co singer, Amanda Brotchie, did a great version of an old English song called "the saucy sailor". It was a taste of things to come.
In 1996 he formed "Hood", a fantastic folk rock inspired outfit who he drilled relentlessly in rehearsal and who played to dumbfounded audiences around Melbourne. They put out an album, "every bell in town" on ID/Mercury, (legend has it he mastered the album seven times) and again, watched the world turn its back. Hood continue on in Melbourne, trying to find places to play outside the straight rock scene.
Now residing in Canbera, he continues to work his own music, as well as contributing to others recordings and also teaching. He played and will play in the recent and future versions of Dave Graney 'n' the Coral Snakes.

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Robin Casinader music page at Facebook.

Dave Graney and Clare Moore with Robin Casinader -IN CONCERT - digital album for May 2020