Are you experienced? The return of the post-disco, bedroom-minded Donny Benet

Donny Benét returns with his new album Mr Experience. Photo: Andrew Finlayson

He's a little bit older and a little bit wiser but the new album from Australia's mustachioed synth lothario, Donny Benet, shows he still has one thing on his mind.

"At the end of the day, people still want to have sex and still want to be involved with somebody in a physical and romantic relationship," he says from his homebase in Sydney.

Following his breakthrough record 2018's The Don, a brilliant album of 80s-styled synth funk, post-disco paired with unabashedly bedroom-minded vocals that were primarily concerned with the thrill of the hunt and/or hopeless romanticism, the songs on Mr Experience reflect a self-assured world view and a mature confidence. Both in their lyrical content and lush musical scope.

"The Don was written when I was in my mid-30s," he says. "For a brief period I was concerned I'd painted myself into a corner. When it came time for Mr Experience, I was heading towards 40. I'm not quite there yet, I'm a year off, but it was tough, just like, what would I write about?"

Being a happily married man himself, he'd looked at his friends' lives for The Don's single-minded lyrical inspiration.

"I had a whole bunch of friends who were in relationships that didn't work and they parted ways," he explains. "There was this brief period where they were all playing the scene a bit."

Their "nightmare" experiences had influenced songs on The Don like Love Online and Santorini, but his initial attempt to replicate their Italo-disco flavour for Mr Experience, his fifth album, proved a flop.

"Of them, 95 per cent ended up in the reject folder because I didn't believe in them. I had to step back and think, 'what's happening in my life and my friends' lives?'," he says. "I started looking at artists who were in their early 40s, like Robert Palmer and Bryan Ferry, who had had success back in the 80s, and what they were writing about."

After checking in with his mates again, he noticed a pattern of change in their outlook and behaviours.

"Things were happening in their lives, they were becoming a lot more self-assured and confident. They weren't necessarily conforming to traditional, you know, married, five kids and the house and the great job," he explains. "You don't need that. If you're confident and love yourself and where you're at, you don't have to worry about what people are expecting from you. That put it into perspective and once I got that perspective on what to write about it came easy. If I'd put the lyrics of some guy in his early 30s, it would have been really weird."

So, whereas on The Don he was making his best case for a romantic liaison, Mr Experience instead has the aura of one who lets the "diamond in his smile," do the talking, as best amplified in the dancefloor filling, Chic-styled, disco-funk of the album's title track.

"There's that confidence there. It's somebody who's been a lot of places and seen a lot of things they can't unsee," he says, laughing. "That's who Mr Experience is. That's the vibe of the album."

This vibe shines in the urgent, synth-powered, sex-with-the-ex of One Night in Paradise, the tropical jazzy adult contemporary of Negroni Summer and the smooth, after hours, whistle-led groove of Girl of My Dreams.

And while Benet's lyrics are often funny, rooted in wordplay and double entendre, he's not a comedy act singing comedy songs.

"No. I'm a romantic cynic. When I first started to do Donny, it was the whole shoegaze scene with these pretty, indie guys singing their hearts out and pretending to be blues singers. For me that seemed like a real act to put on," he says, recalling the early days of his Benet persona back in the late 2000s.

"I'm pretty cynical about getting up and really singing 'oh, oh baby, I really love you,' something heartfelt like that. You have to have a bit of humour and a wink to write a song like that. Unless you're completely a dreamer. I wanted to go for that but with a wink."

With his 80s-styled take on love, sex and relationships coupled with his superbly seductive music videos featuring plenty of gyrating hips, open-buttoned pastel shirts, slicked-back balding hair and boudoir focus is Donny Benet redefining what it means to be a sex symbol?

"I wouldn't say redefining. That's a heavy burden to shoulder," he says, laughing, before getting more serious. "I went bald pretty young and I try and keep as fit as I can but I don't have the body of a Greek Adonis. It's more a boldness or a confidence. The body I've got is the body I've got. We're all the same. We've all got faults and insecurities about ourselves. We've got what we've got so we may as well be comfortable with it. That's the appealing thing about it, if people see that you're comfortable with yourself to do that."

Then speaking from a place of experience he says, "confidence is usually the most sexy thing. I think anyway."

LOWDOWN
Who: Donny Benet
What: His new album Mr Experience
When: Out now