Dave McCormack
David Liam "Dave" McCormack (born 25 October 1968) is an Australian musician/singer-songwriter and voice actor. First making his public appearance as the lead-singer of rock group, Custard, he is well known internationally for voicing Bandit Heeler in the animated television series, Bluey.
Musical History[]
McCormack grew up in the west Brisbane suburb of Kenmore, Queensland, and attended Ipswich Grammar School, also to the west of Brisbane. He started his musical career in 1986 as a vocalist and guitarist in a Brisbane-based blues hip hop rock outfit titled Who's Gerald?, in 1986, which included some of his teachers [1], including the release of a cassette. In March 1988, Who's Gerald? released the single "Wrestle Wrestle" and had the track "Pins and Needles" on that year's Youngblood musical compilation CD. Atthow, McCormack and Medew briefly formed Automatic Graphic in 1988 with Scott Younger.
Custard[]
In 1989, McCormack and Paul Medew (one of McCormack's former teachers) formed Custard Gun with Shane Brunn (later in Hugbubble, Vanlustbader) on drums and James Straker (later in Melniks). After a number of performances, Straker left in early 1990, the band was renamed as Custard, and Straker was replaced at year's end by Matthew Strong on guitar.
Custard existed for about a decade, with a number of different drummers, before dissolving in 2000. The band released five albums in the 1990s, a number of EPs and singles and a greatest hits compilation. A DVD video clip compilation called The Spaces by the Side of the Road – A Digital History of Custard was later released in 2007.
During Custards' run, McCormack would back up other groups, notably The Cows, and also worked with Robert Moore, Robert Hirst and Robert Forster on each of their singles & CDs.
In December 2009, Custard reformed for a concert as part of the Queensland Proclamation Day celebrations (2009 marking the 150th anniversary). The band released a new album Come Back, All Is Forgiven in November 2015, and the critically acclaimed The Common Touch in 2017. In 2020, the single 'Funky Again' was released in March 2020, ahead of the band's eighth studio album Respect All Lifeforms.
Other & Later Work[]
After the break-up of Custard, McCormack formed The Titanics with Emma Tom, a journalist for broadsheet newspaper The Australian, Glenn Thompson and film-maker Tina Havelock Stevens. The Titanics released Size Isn't Everything and Love Is The Devil, both in 2000.
Following the break-up of The Titanics McCormack went solo, releasing doodlings called The Matterhorn in 2001, before hiring a backing band called The Polaroids. Dave McCormack and The Polaroids released two albums, Candy (2002) and The Truth About Love (2004) as well as a few singles and a DVD entitled Save Dave. Much later in October 2009, McCormack released Little Murders (named after the 1969 film) containing twenty tracks with a run-time at almost an hour.
McCormack was one of the two weekly 'mystery' guests on the Australian television show, RocKwiz in March 2006, later appearing as the host of said show in January 2009.
In November 2006, under the guidance of JJJ, McCormack assembled a band to perform a concert at the Tivoli in Brisbane as a tribute for the late Grant McLennan of The Go-Betweens. Early in 2007, McCormack then went into the studio to produce a tribute album to the band, called Write Your Adventures Down, while also recording a cover version of Streets of Your Town for the film All My Friends Are Leaving Brisbane.
McCormack is a part owner of the Sonar Music composer collective and since 2009 has been responsible for many film and television scores. Additionally, McCormack has also composed film scores for Alex Proyas's Garage Days in 2002, and for Daniel Krige's West in 2007.
Custard released a new album in November 2015, entitled Come Back, All Is Forgiven, which was followed by 2017's The Common Touch.
Work on Bluey[]
Since 2018, McCormack has starred in the critically acclaimed ABC Kids animated television series Bluey, as the voice of said character's father, Bandit Heeler. He gained the role through contacts at Sonar Music, and originally thought that he'd only read a few lines, but ended up reading the entire pilot.[2]
McCormack famously doesn't alter his voice, instead using his normal speaking voice when acting on behalf of Bandit (unless the role requires such, see Teasing/Unicorse)[3], and originally recorded his lines at his home in Sydney, separate from the rest of the production & crew back in Brisbane.[2]
In the pilot episode of The Weekend the intro is a clip of Custard’s song called Pinball Lez.
Trivia[]
- He would later voice the character Orbo in the Adventure Time spin-off series Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake.