Dan Patlansky: A Golden String That Grounds You
Family is the golden string – life’s tonal texture, so to speak – that keeps everything together for Bluesman, Dan Patlansky. Even during four-week-long tours he keeps them close in song. Touring locally or abroad, it’s them he will always come home to. They ground him, he says, which links in well with his latest album’s title, Movin’ On, and its general theme of going back to his roots; remembering what is important to him.
Driving down memory lane
Dan started playing guitar at the age of nine. His parents’ record collection – much of it Blues – was what he grew up listening to on road trips when they went on holiday. “Most of the music was guitar-driven,” he says. He played guitar all through high school, but really only started playing professionally in Matric. “I was getting paid to play in like a little cover band around Joburg,” Dan explains. After that, he took to Blues and in 2004, he booked a national tour in South Africa, playing in small towns and big cities alike. “I have pretty much been doing that in South Africa since then. I feel very blessed that I get to do this. It’s something you love, you know. Not everyone gets to do that.”
Road trippin’ with Blues from a young age
Dan’s parents’ love for the Blues had a huge impact on him from a young age and saw him fall in love with the genre even amidst the pop and rock culture of the 90s. “Obviously as a teenager, you don’t ever want to admit that you like the music your parents listen to. But, you know, if you listen to it enough, it kind of seeps into you.” It was only when he started playing that he really started liking the Blues. “I realised it was one of the simplest forms of music in the world. 99% of what you hear today – apart from classical music – stems from the Blues. The Blues is the original thing… Because it’s a three-chord form of music – traditionally – and it’s an improvising thing, it was a massive challenge to make it interesting and to get people to listen to it.” He says it’s easy to bore people with Blues, which is why he saw it as an exciting challenge, finding improvisation exhilarating. “With Blues and Jazz, certain elements are the same – melody, words, chord structure. Otherwise, all the soloing stuff you do, is completely out of thin air every night and you kind of just see where it goes. That’s the alluring thing for me.” He admits that if you’re not feeling it, it shows too. “It comes through in your playing.”
Family support in a fickle industry
“A big part of being able to become a musician, was because of the support my parents gave me,” he says. “Obviously, becoming a musician, there are many months; years that you don’t earn anything, which is a scary thing for a parent. And, it’s a scary industry to let your child go into. It’s very fickle and all over the place. But, my parents saw my passion, and so did my whole family and they supported that. It was a big help.”
Theirs has always been a closeknit family. While Dan doesn’t get to see them as much these days, they still have family gatherings at least every month. “I just think it’s so important. It was a big part of my youth and growing up and I want my kids to have the same thing with my parents and my wife’s family. It grounds you as a human. No matter where you’ve been, what happened in the month or the week, when you get together with family, it’s just family… It’s a truly grounding experience.”
Dan still has a good relationship with his parents, who live in Joburg. They are still a big part of his life and often still come to his shows, “if it’s within a certain radius of their house,” he jokes. “If there is a show close to where they live, they’re always there. Always.”
He lights up when he talks about his mom. “My mom had a very different sense of humour to the moms of all the other people I grew up with. That would be the thing I’d always remember – her sense of humour.” Now, there is another mom he’s clearly proud to talk about too. His wife, Gisela is an interior architect, and together they have two kids – Sophie (9) and Jack (6). “She is a fantastic mom,” he says, adding that she brings balance to their little family. “She’s a very involved mom in the kids’ activities. Sports, drama, whatever they’re up to, she pushes them, which is great.”
Juggling a muso’s life and the modern family
Travelling so often while he has a family at home, Dan says: “It’s tough, man!” Yet, he also believes it’s very good for a marriage. “There’s that saying, absence makes the heart grow fonder. When you tour – and I try never to be away for more than four weeks at a time because of the kids and family and all that – on my marriage front it’s really good. Yes, you can speak every day, but you’re not in each other’s faces all day long. It’s really good for a relationship. You appreciate each other when you’re away, and when you get back.” Technology like Facetime and Whatsapp calls make his travels easier. Still, he says it feels like he misses out on big parts of his kids’ lives. “What I really try and do when I am back from a month-long tour, is not to book much for the month thereafter and to put in extra time with the family and the kids.”
Family pushes you
Just like Gisela pushes their kids to be persevere, having a family to support has often pushed Dan to do things differently too. He says it was that which initially led things to go in the opposite direction of finding himself. “Going back to your roots doesn’t necessarily pay the bills. You’re working for yourself, which is awesome, but it can be scary, especially when you’ve got kids.” Primarily, Dan decided to create music he was sure would do well or make money. But, he soon realised that it didn’t align with the vision of what he wanted to do. “I think it’s just now, getting older, being in my forties – you realise what’s important and that life’s not long.”
Finding himself and figuring things out
Dan’s latest album’s first single, Who I Am was very well received. “The whole album generally follows the basic theme of rediscovering who I am,” he says. The song is about a long car drive on your own, through the night, and being able to figure stuff out. “Figuring out what’s important to me,” he adds. “Also, what’s important to me career-wise and the direction of my songs and music and what I want to be remembered as.” Dan wants to make music that means something and this latest album revolves around making the music he loves. “Who I am is literally the discovery; the realisation of what I want to be and that is going back to my roots and doing what I love the most.”
Driving through the night solo is something Dan does quite often. He says he has had many realisations one the road. “You’re giving yourself the brain time to figure things out.”
The album is a step back to where he comes from and he believes that many people in the audience will be able to appreciate that. Still, “it’s not too far a step back that I will lose newer fans,” he adds.
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