Deni Hines Talks About Her One Night Only Show In Adelaide

Markus Hamence Presents Deni Hines for one night only at The Regal Theatre and it promises to be a night of three decades worth of big hits and new songs accompanied by a full live band. Hines has been busy of late with performing on The Masked Singer as the Unicorn, working gigs in Thailand, touring Japan before appearing on this year’s Dancing with the Stars where she made it all the way to the finals and then releasing a new single Love You in this Life.

Hi Fi Way had a great chat catching up with Deni Hines about new music, life and how age is no barrier to keep on living life to the full!

You’re coming to Adelaide for one night to perform at The Regal theatre are you looking forward to the show?
“One night only!” (sings) I am so much! I’ve known about this gig for the last six months and finally it’s like a big pimple about to pop! Yes! I’m excited!

The show is at The Regal Theatre, and it’s recently been refurbished with a really cool Art Deco vibe.
I love Art Deco. My actual engagement ring was Art Deco inspired and I was talking to Markus Hamence who told me the room is Art Deco. I’ve seen some stills of the room and it looks beautiful. I love it! I’m looking forward to it.

What can audiences expect from this show?
Expect the unexpected and be pleasantly surprised!

You’re playing with a full live band so what kind of songs can we expect to hear?
Markus asked me the same thing! If you want to know what I’m singing, come see the show! I’m not revealing anything because I want them to come to the show! I’m doing one show in Australia only. You want to know what I’m singing? I’ll see you on the 26th! (laughs)

I’m sure people will come along anyway!
Just know and I’m not telling you what you will hear but whatever you think you will hear you will hear! (laughs)

I remember you as far back as The Rockmelons and then your solo work so will there be a mixture of songs you will be singing?
I have a very large repertoire. I have three decades of music so if you think I’m coming to Adelaide to sing one, you’re crazy!

I didn’t think so! I’m sure you won’t stop singing with the list of songs that you have!
Thing is I’m doing two forty five-minute sets and that’s not even half of my repertoire!

After the past few years where performing live was difficult how do you feel know about getting back to working and performing live?
I’ve been working through Covid. I’ve been in Thailand for five years so when I first came, I was working with a band here that I associated myself with singing a few nights a week. Then I went to Australia to do The Masked Singer and when I finished that I went back to Thailand for two days then did a tour of Japan before Covid kicked in and during the two-year lockdown I had four releases. I have a studio in my house so I was recording, writing and singing at home. Now we are out of that and I’m still gigging so I’ve been singing the whole time. I’ve been to Vietnam and I’ve done some stuff for the Australian government, so just because I haven’t been in Australia and only sung once on a TV show doesn’t mean I haven’t been working!

I guess it seems like we haven’t really seen you much in Australia! It’s great though that you’re still working.
Thats not true! Where were you when I was on Dancing with the Stars last year?

Ohhh…umm…I don’t watch that show!
Well, I got into the finals with Dancing with the Stars.

Ok…that’s on me! I don’t watch Dancing with the Stars! I’m so sorry!
(laughs) The Masked Singer was four years ago, and Dancing with the Stars was the past year!

What’s it like to live overseas as opposed to Australia?
I don’t miss Australia at all! I’ve been living in Thailand for five years and will do another five years. When I’m in Australia I work then I leave. Literary I’m there for eight days.  It’s so weird, I was asked by Markus “Is it nice when you come home?” I said “No!” A. It’s not home and B. Every time I’ve come back it’s been for work. So, I’ve not really seen people. I’m not there for social reasons. I’m there to do gigs. It usually entails getting there, getting acclimatised to the time difference, doing rehearsals, going to the gig, doing interviews and then leaving.

This time is the same. I have a private gig in Thailand that I fly out for then come back the next day. Seven or eight days later I’m flying out to Australia to do a rehearsal in Sydney then fly out to Adelaide for this show then go back to Sydney for a Monday night jam there before I fly back to Thailand. Then on the of December 14 my husband and I fly out to Israel for two weeks for our ten-year wedding anniversary!

Wow! I feel tired just listening to that whole itinerary! How do you keep up with everything? (laughs) Do you love performing that much?
(laughs) I love what I do! Anastasia, I love what I do! I’m fifty-two years of age and I don’t act it! I still do cartwheels and eleven thousand steps a day! I don’t have the head space of a fifty-year-old person. I love what I do and that’s it! Age and time are a mind constraint, and something happens to the human psyche when they get to a certain age where they think they need to give up and that’s usually around thirty five to fifty and I’m not like that! I’m just like “Nope!”

I looked at my mother yesterday (Marcia Hines), she’s doing Australian Idol again right and when I spoke to her she said “Oh Den, I’m so tired!” and I said surprised “What?” I’m looking at her on a video chat and I’m like “Mum! You’re tired? I have to say, if half of my friends looked this good when they were tired, they would be happy! Can I just say on the other side, I am so happy that you are my mother, that is my gene pool!”

Yes! I love when Marcia Hines comes to Adelaide to perform in shows. She has so much energy. So yeah, you have such a good gene pool there!
And you know our relative is Grace Jones, right? And she’s still working! Another member of the family with high energy!

I didn’t know that! Well, you definitely come from a good line of people!
Its a good thing I didn’t go into medicine with the good lineage of musicians behind me.

I understand what you’re saying. Life can get tiring for me but I just want to keep going! I don’t want to stop because of an age thing!
Especially when you love what you do and if you write about music Anastaisa and you do the genre that you love, we are one of the few people on the planet that actually love what we do. I’ve been doing this for over thirty years but it doesn’t seem like I’ve been clocking in for thirty years! 

Yeah, you’re doing something that gives you joy every single day! And that’s like when people say there’s nothing to do in Adelaide, well, I’m never stopping! Life is what you make of it. 
Exactly! You create your own reality as well.

Exactly! And I love music! Music feeds the soul!
Imagine what this planet would be like if it had no such thing as music?

Well, for me music is life.
I couldn’t do it. Could you imagine?

No. I just couldn’t.
I look at people that don’t like music. It seems to me that music is a very important thing in your life the way you talk about it.

Yes!
And I was breast fed fuck’n music! I was in my mother when she was singing! But I look at people that are so disassociated from their own body that they can’t even feel the rhythm of their heart. The rhythm of their breast. The rhythm of their step.

Hmm…I don’t get it either!
My mind boggles by that. I’m like wow! Because I always think, if you’re not listening to yourself then you’re not listening to your body and acknowledging all the stuff that it does and the rhythms of that, so, then how are you accepting your partner? If you’re not listening to yourself then you’re definitely not listening to a partner! 

I agree! For me I wish I could sing or play an instrument!
Next life baby! Next life! (laughs)

Yeah hopefully (laughs). So, do you have any new music out?
Love You in this Life is my new single with Ricky with FSP, my Japanese band. I wrote this song in Japan before Covid. This band is off the charts! I have a Japanese record deal so I will be going back to Japan. I was on Dancing with the Stars and after that I released this single in June.

I don’t watch a lot of reality TV shows.
I hear you! But the Dancing one! I was fifty one in the middle of that show and to be dancing, getting fit, learning a skill and getting paid for it; I would do it again! That whole thing I said about people getting to middle age and giving up, well I’m not there. I looked at my body, and I mean I have body dysmorphia and I’ve always had because of the industry I’m in and I remember Tom Chappel, who designed the costumes, he was also the designer for Priscilla Queen of the Desert, so this Academy Award winning designer puts me in this swim suit with tassels! I’m like “Where’s the rest of it?” I was “WTF Tim? I’m fifty one, where’s the rest of it?” (laughs) I had to Salsa in that bitch, but you know what? I looked at my body, because we got the photos after each show, and when I looked at those press photos I went “Holy shit! Is that me?” I was bare legged in a one-piece swim suit with tassels, girl!

If you’re going to be doing all that dancing, you’re going to shape up, aren’t you?
I was so fit! It was eight hours of dancing every day, my body perpetually sore but I loved it! I loved it because all these people sitting at home judging me, eating their TV dinners, I mean, don’t! Don’t judge me! Here I am, half way to one hundred (years old) dropping cartwheels in heels!

I love it! (laughs) You’re a scream! Maybe it’s the 1970s babies but we are a different breed!
We are! We are a different breed!

Interview by Anastasia Lambis

Tickets to Deni Hines show HERE