Wayne Connolly


Wayne Connolly is an Australian producer/engineer and musician. Throughout the 1990s, Connolly played in Sydney band, The Welcome Mat, with whom he released a series of critically acclaimed albums and EPs on the Waterfront Records, Regular Records and id/Mercury labels. In 1994, he formed Knievel with Tracy Ellis and Nick Kennedy, who went on to release five albums and a series of singles on various labels in Australia, the United States and Japan including Murmur, Citadel Records and Albert Music. Knievel achieved high rotation on Triple J, toured locally and abroad, and supported acts such as Luna, Teenage Fanclub, Death Cab for Cutie and The Pernice Brothers.

Career

Production/audio engineering

Connolly has balanced his career as a performer with work as a producer and engineer for some of Australia's most successful and respected artists, including Josh Pyke, The Vines, Boy & Bear, Paul Dempsey, Youth Group and You Am I.
In the early '90s he took a job managing Paradise Studios for rooART, which put him in touch with emerging artists providing songs for the Youngblood compilation series. Among these were Underground Lovers, Glide, and Custard, all of whom formed working relationships with the producer. Production credits from the 1990s include Wahooti Fandango by Custard, Fill Yourself With Music by Screamfeeder, The Young Need Discipline, Lazy Highways and Future Spa by The Fauves, In Your Bright Ray by The Go-Betweens' Grant McLennan, and Sold by Died Pretty.
Since the early 2000s, Connolly has also worked with Neil Finn, Cloud Control, Dallas Crane, Sarah Blasko, Silverchair, Jimmy Barnes, The Living End, Grinspoon, Powderfinger, The Veronicas, Midnight Oil's Jim Moginie, Halfway, Dappled Cities, Old Man River, The Grates, Turnstyle and many more. Recent credits include albums for The Apartments, Community Radio, All Our Exes Live in Texas, Husky, Hungry Kids of Hungary, Knievel, Sounds Like Sunset and The Paper Kites.

Film and television

In addition to his work in the music recording industry, Connolly has produced work for film and television. His credits include Friday On My Mind , The Kettering Incident, Love Child , The Black Balloon, Newcastle, Little Fish, Monkey Puzzle, Mullet, Willful and Dirty Deeds. The track, "When We Get There", produced for The Black Balloon, won best song at the 2008 AGSC/APRA awards.

Studio

From 2007-2015, Connolly worked largely from his own studio within the Albert Music premises in Sydney where he housed his restored Neve 8026 desk.

Awards

In 1992, Connolly produced the Underground Lovers album, Leaves Me Blind, and subsequently received Rolling Stone magazine's Best Australian Record award. The following year he engineered You Am I's fourth EP Coprolalia and their debut album Sound As Ever, alongside Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth. This album went on to win the 1993 ARIA for Best Alternative Release. He has received numerous ARIA nominations and awards for his work, including Producer of the Year for his work on Josh Pyke's Memories and Dust in 2007, and Engineer of the Year for his work on Paul Dempsey's "Fast Friends" in 2010.
Nominations