Dave & The Plushies

Dave is a singer and comedian that runs his own soft toy boy band group called ‘Dave & The Plushies’, which is titled ‘On The Road To 2nd’ – since he plays songs from his 1st album and some from his 2nd album, which will be released later. Milk Bar Magazine had a chat to Dave all about his show, how he started comedy acting and how the plushies made it into his performances.

Dave discusses how he got into comedy acting by accident, since he had started out writing music, but that didn’t really go anywhere: ‘I had a few interesting dreams about smurfs and porcupines, these odd dreams about the smurfs building a toilet inside a Barbie doll house for a garden gnome,’ he says. ‘I wrote a song about it and I tried it out as a gig and the audience really loved it and I think that sort of led me onto a path of writing musical comedy. I don’t know where it came from.’

As for the idea of adding plushies to his show, Dave says it was inspired by a show he had watched while he was gigging about four to five years ago: ‘I saw these two girls setting up their stage in a really appealing way and I thought, “well, maybe I could do something with my show” and I thought, “well, I’ve written my song about smurfs and one about a porcupine” and I thought “why not, what’s a common thread between these two things?”’ This led to the realisation that the thread was soft toys: ‘I thought “why not bring soft toys onto my stage to make it look a little more interesting” and then from there it just all of a sudden turned into the Dave and the Plushies.’

But ironically, as the shows have continued, the plushies have become less and less to do with the show itself: ‘They just turned into a nice little stage prop where people can come and feel like they’re in their own bedroom, back in their childhood and it’s just a nice appealing warm cuddly feeling when you see the stage,’ Dave says.

His favourite plushy is his E.T one, but he doesn’t have it anymore because somebody had accidentally given it away: ‘I can’t find it anymore so it’s a little bit sad, I miss it and that was my favourite plushy because it’s the only plushy I wrote a song about, as a love song called ‘E.T’. I’m trying to find ways to get it back because I do really love it.’ But as for the plushies he currently owns, Dave loves the massive Darth Vader plush toy that his girlfriend has bought him, since he loves Star Wars. There’s also his meerkat plushy, and a few strange ones like aliens and kidney stones.

But Dave hasn’t sung about any of his plush toys, because he’s a bit scared of getting done with copyright: ‘I sing a song about a Smurf and all of a sudden I get sued by someone. I’m just a little bit cautious about that sort of stuff, but I’ve come to a point where I don’t really care anymore; I’m just gonna sing a song about E.T. and put it on my album,’ Dave explains. He continues: ‘But a lot of my songs are love songs, so they’re romantic storytelling and they usually go on a very strange twist I suppose.’

Dave has two albums, which he has titled 1st and 2nd, and while both have similar themes, they differ in their musical compositions: ‘I am using more beats for my 2nd album; the 1st album was completely acoustic. I’m going to use beats for the 2nd album and a little bit more electronic stuff; I’m experimenting with different genres of music,’ he says. Dave would also love to do something like a big band album or a jazz album, because he loves exploring different types of music.

As well as being a comedian, Dave has also been a professional wedding singer for six to seven years and loves it: ‘It probably started way before Dave & The Plushies began; I just had a couple of mates and we played in the same band at church and we thought, “well, why not just go out there and do some weddings?” and that all of a sudden snowboarded into a business where we just started singing love songs to all our friends weddings and that turned out really good,’ He says. ‘I love weddings, they’re a great occasion and they’re positive and fun and I can just serenade people and it’s always a positive environment,’ he continues.

If Dave could describe himself in three words, he would say ‘Always Flippin’ Hungry’ just because he loves food. As for his favourite food, he would pick Thai: ‘I love Thai curries and then that’d go into Indian curries, and I love my steaks and my parmas and my Vietnamese,’ he says enthusiastically.

Dave’s ideal superpower would be to absorb other people’s superpowers, so that he could have them all. His dream destination would be the Greek Islands, because he thinks they’re beautiful. As for his future goals, they involve trying to get Dave and the Plushies out globally: ‘I would love to do that and travel the world, I’d love to just travel. And make my own Ironman suit, I reckon that would be really, really cool,’ he concludes.