Bernard Fanning and Paul Dempsey release Disconnect, first single of collab project Fanning Dempsey National Park

Powderfinger’s Bernard Fanning and Something For Kate’s Paul Dempsey recorded their collaborative album over several years in multiple studios. (Supplied: Cybele Malinowski)

They’re the frontmen for two of Australia’s most beloved rock bands, and now they’re joining forces for a collaborative album.

After a fortnight of online teasers, Paul Dempsey and Bernard Fanning, the distinctive voices of Something For Kate and Powderfinger respectively, have formally announced their new collaborative project.

It’s called Fanning Dempsey National Park, and after giving Zan Rowe the juicy scoop for Double J’s 10th birthday celebrations that new music was “imminent”, we now get to hear the first fruits of their joint labour.

Disconnect is the lead single of a forthcoming full-length album, a barrelling number on which Fanning and Dempsey trade lead vocals over a triumphant, heartland rock backing.

With its searing saxophone and chest-beating riffs, there’s more than a bit of Bruce Springsteen DNA in the track. It’s no secret that Dempsey is a big fan of The Boss, but to hear him go full-blown E Street Band with a healthy dose of Powderfinger at their most anthemic is a real treat.

The track also tips the hat to the pair’s mutual idol, David Bowie, with Fanning saying the track has “serious moonlight energy” and a music video set in early 80s Berlin following the shenanigans of a pair known as The Ratbags.

Disconnect is a song “that looks at having to walk away from something you really love because it’s no longer working for you,” Fanning explained in an Instagram video earlier this week.

Dempsey adds in a statement: “This started out with almost a gospel kinda feel but over a few drafts the drums got punchier, and the guitars got hookier and then we started throwing horns at everything and suddenly the party was on.

“It’s not the two of us with acoustic guitars singing campfire songs.”

The pair agreed they didn’t want to do something together that would align with people’s expectations.

“We didn’t want it to sound like a Fanning record or a Dempsey record, we wanted it to sound like a band,” says Fanning.

Thus, the National Park moniker was born giving a “sense of an organisation bigger than the two of us,” Dempsey added. “It’s so pompous that it made us laugh every time we said it.”

The origins of Fanning Dempsey National Park

The duo have crossed paths plenty of times during their careers since first coming up in Australia’s alt-rock scene of the 90s.

During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, however, Fanning and Dempsey did a memorable, remote cover of Queen and David Bowie’s classic duet Under Pressure.

Fanning also contributed vocals to Something For Kate track Inside Job, from their 2020 album The Modern Medieval.

Shortly after, “we just started trading songs and ideas online,” notes Fanning in the Instagram video.

“I’d been thinking for a long time about collaborating with a really average songwriter but there weren’t any available,” Dempsey deadpans “So I just had to work with one of the best.”

Fanning adds: “The thing we kept saying to each other from the get-go was ‘let’s just have fun’.

“We based a lot of the ideas around where we wanted to eat, so we were originally talking about going to Argentina, New York and Denmark. Then we ended up in Norway, San Francisco and Byron Bay.”

There’s no official word on a release date but we can expect the debut Fanning Dempsey National Park album later this year.

Fingers crossed the two frontmen will take their collaboration out of the studio and remote video meetings and into venues around the country at some point.

Disconnect is just begging for a full-throated sing-along with an arm around a mate’s shoulder.