Cirrus@Austlit

Singer/songwriter, musician and writer. Warner has published crime fiction, the screenplays for various films and television episodes, children's fiction, and musical theatre.

Dave Warner grew up in Perth, Western Australia, and was educated at Aquinas College in South Perth. He then attended the University of Western Australia, where in 1973 he founded the band Pus. Heavily influenced by radical '60s New York activist band, The Fugs, Pus might best be described as a precursor to the punk rock movement. In 1975, having graduated with a BA (Hons), majoring in Psychology, Warner went to the United Kingdom, and while living in London wrote many new songs which expressed a clearly-defined vision of Australia.

By 1977, when punk had become a defined sub-cultural movement in the UK and USA, Warner had already moved away from its core sensibilities and began to explore a style that infused classic rock structures and social commentary which he dubbed Suburban Rock. His band 'Dave Warner's From the Suburbs' scored a major hit in Australia that year with the single "Suburban Boy," taken from the album Mug's Game (1978). From the Suburbs then released Free Kicks (1979) before disbanding. Warner put together another line-up and released Correct Weight (1979) and This is My Planet (1981).

By the mid-1980s, tired of touring, Warner began writing fiction, poetry, reviews, musicals, and for film and television while continuing to perform. His live shows invariably included readings from his novels, plays and performance poetry. In 1982, his revue, The Sensational Sixties started to tour large suburban hotels. Warner wrote and appeared in a musical, The Sixties and All That Pop (1985) and later that same year wrote the rock musical Planet Pres, put on by the Western Australian Theatre Company (WATC). In 1987 Warner managed and wrote songs for a female trio, Pleasure Principle. He also wrote and performed the one-man show Australian Heroes, and appeared in minor roles in the films Boundaries of the Heart (1988) and Boys in the Island (1989).

Among Warner's other works are at least seven novels, several non-fiction books and four screenplays: Cut (2000), which stars Molly Ringwald and Kylie Minogue; Balmain Boys (TV, 2002), Garage Days (2002) and Restraint (2008). He has also co-written scripts for the TV drama series Going Home, the short TV feature Roll, a number of episodes for McLeod's Daughters, and one episode for Packed To The Rafters.

Australian Writing and Rock Music affiliation: songwriter, journalist, manager, vocals, guitar.