David Pace

David Pace

Rock Musician and Teacher

One of Australia’s greatest rock bands, the Painters and Dockers, was formed in Melbourne in 1982. Dave Pace was not one of the original five members but he joined the band with Mick Morris in 1984 to play the trumpet and do backing vocals, “adding an earthy R&B edge to the band’s raucous, punk infused, power pop” according to music historian Ian McFarlane. In 2009 he performed with other members for a one-off show at the Prince Bandroom in St Kilda, where the band was also inducted into The Age newspaper’s EG Hall of Fame. Since 2011 he has performed, from time to time, as one of the Painters and Dockers Trio.

David was born in 1963, the second of four children. He attended Sacred Heart Primary School in St Albans, then St John’s Braybrook and Chisholm College. He began teacher training at the Institute of Catholic Education’s Mercy College in 1982, and began his teaching career at Holy Eucharist Primary School in St Albans in 1985. He has taught at a number of other primary schools as well as at the Healesville Sanctuary and for 7 years with the Melbourne Zoo Education Service where he taught visiting school children about the environment.

His fascination with the environment began at an early age when, with his younger brother Michael, he would wander the then mostly rural countryside around St Albans, seeking and observing anything that moved. He enjoys introducing children to a wide variety of fauna such as possums, flying foxes, frogs and snakes. In 1998 David began teaching at Torquay College where he has been a classroom teacher, a music teacher and is currently the coordinator of the school’s P-6 environmental education program. In 1999 he won the BHP National Science Teacher Award and also, in the same year, the Victorian Association for Environmental Education’s (VAEE) Environmental Educator of the Year. In 2003, and again in 2012, David was “Highly Commended” in the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science Teaching.

David’s interest in music began in primary school. The children lined up to march into school in step to recorded band music. One of the nuns thought it would be a good idea to supplement the march music with a small school band of 6 buglers and 6 drummers. David of course, being a boy, opted for the drums but the nun had all the children try out on the bugle and, as David put it, anybody who could produce any noise was automatically coopted to the bugle brigade. David produced a noise and thus his musical career was kick-started. A year later his father, George Pace, bought him a trumpet for his 11th birthday and he has been playing music in various forms ever since.

The Painters and Dockers have always been, as well as a popular rock band, a band with a conscience and a band with a cause. As the band’s name implies they have a close affinity with the union movement and they have regularly played benefit concerts for unions such as the Maritime Union of Australia, the CFMEU, etc. They also have conducted benefit concerts for groups such as the Salvation Army and the Fred Hollows Foundation.

Tony Stewart was one of the Australian journalists, known as the Balibo Five, who lost their lives in East Timor in 1975. Paul Stewart is the lead singer of the Painters and Dockers and is the younger brother of Tony Stewart. From 1982 the band has performed benefit concerts for East Timor. An interesting off-shoot of the Painters and Dockers is the Dili All Stars which was formed in 1992 and consisted of five members from the Dockers and five East Timorese reggae/ska performers who have lost family members in the struggle for independence. They have performed in Australia and East Timor in support of East Timorese freedom, appearing in a variety of performances such as being guests on the Johnny Farnham and Kylie Minogue Tour of Duty concert and providing music for the TV mini-series Answered by Fire.

David began writing songs as a child and he derived great enjoyment from listening to and playing music. Some of his songs have been recorded by the Painters and Dockers but his favourite composition recorded by the group was a song called Veronica Brown which was accompanied by lots of strings and was quite orchestral. He saw his role as somewhat “like the George Harrison of the band, left of centre”. When he is not performing with a later incarnation called the Painters and Dockers Trio or with the Dili All Stars, he is the lead singer and trumpet player of The Swirls, a group of five who all have had experience from other bands, and they specialise in singing cover versions of songs for their generation, ie, forty, fifty and sixty-year-olds.

David has always been an avid collector. He collects natural history books with an emphasis on birds and frogs. He wrote a children’s book called World of Frogs. He also has a set of aviaries for the various birds he owns and he breeds several of the eighteen varieties of Australian finches. He is a Vice-President of the National Finch and Softbill Association. He also collects unusual men’s shirts, old collectables such as football cards from his childhood, and of course musical instruments including guitars, brass and strings.

David lives in Torquay with his two children, Dylan and Chloe, and his partner of 9 years lives in Adelaide with her daughter Maddi.

Sources: 1. Interview with David Pace 2. St. Albans Keilor Avocate, March 30, 1994

External links

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