Armed with 30 years of hits and a successful "best of" album released last year, Diesel was keen to try something different.
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The much-loved Australian singer and songwriter otherwise known as Mark Lizotte is a creative soul who can never quite turn off the urge to write lyrics and hooks.
In fact, he even has a portable "studio" that he takes with him on the road and can set up wherever he happens to be.
"The last records before this, one was a covers album - Americana - and that was my favourite American folk and rock and blues songs," he told LIVE.
"After that it was greatest hits time. It had been 30 years since the first Diesel release, so the timing was right.
"Diesel 30 took up space on the runway then took off last year around October, and since then I've had some free headspace to come up with some stuff that's been germinating for a while."
The title is the inspiration. I like the juxtaposition of a romantic word like sunset mixed with suburbia which is always said with such treachery and drudgery. Suburbia is extraordinary. I mean, we have such space in this country and we all bunch together.
- Diesel
And so the Sunset Suburbia project was born: a trilogy of EPs leading into an album in 2020.
"There's so much music coming out these days, it's almost like you put something out and it makes a bit of a blip and you've got nothing else to talk about for a while, you know? So we thought we'd do a slow release instead," he explained.
"The title is the inspiration. I like the juxtaposition of a romantic word like sunset mixed with suburbia which is always said with such treachery and drudgery.
"Sunset and suburbia is a real contradiction. Suburbia is extraordinary. I mean, we have such space in this country and we all bunch together."
The EP concept enabled him to act on ideas that had been "sitting in the memory bank for a long time" and, in turn, unearthed some interesting anecdotes from the past.
"On the first EP there is a song called By The Scars which is about when I was 14 and 15 and started feeling a big shift. It was that time when you're in that secure little nest of the home and you start venturing out and experiencing things and the world is a little bit scary but exciting at the same time.
"A lot of things happened at that time. I lost my virginity. I had two guys with balaclavas point a shotgun at me at a gas station. It's about that time you basically realise the world isn't as safe as you thought."
In typical Diesel fashion, though, the songs are not chronological or biographical stories. He says his style has always been "more abstract than that".
"Suburbia has always held a strange fascination for me," he said.
"I remember designer cul-de-sacs strewn with shotgun shells in Chandler, Arizona; little vignettes of skateboarding around closed service stations on weekends in Perth; some guy in the hot tub in his backyard where I'm riding my bike over the rail overpass in Sydney.
"I love going into where people live - the sights, the smells, the little repetitive things that make their world. It's kind of a bittersweet thing but it's the stuff of life and it has a way of making songs."
He didn't do any demos in preparation for the EPs, either.
"The songs are literally things that I have been playing with on the guitar, maybe never got past the first chorus, and I was like 'OK, I'll finish that one day'," he explained.
"Don Walker has got a song that he's been working on for 20-something years apparently, I was told the other day. I found that extraordinary. I'm way too impatient for that.
"On the other hand, I have really enjoyed [recording the EPs] as it elongates the recording process, allowing each EP to take on a uniqueness. I've always been a bit bummed when getting to the end of making a record, and this in a way delays gratification - making three mini albums on the way to an LP."
On his current tour he will be playing songs from all three Sunset Suburbia EPs, plus hits and fan favourites spanning his 30 years of music making.
"Sorting through all the songs, it's brought a few to light that we haven't really played. I was like 'Gee, I forgot about that one'," he said, laughing.
"You can definitely feel the audience appreciation for us playing songs that they are familiar with.
"I've had so many singles, the challenge is fitting it all into 90 or 100 minutes - which is usually longer than I am supposed to play.
"I tend to do that, though, to give people what they want.
"Bruce Springsteen can play for four hours and it doesn't feel like it. Maybe in another 15 years I can achieve that."