In 1975, Dave went to London and wrote many new songs which expressed a clearly-defined vision of Australia, including tracks such as Convict Streak and Oklahoma which were to become more well known through his next band – Dave Warner's From the Suburbs. Suburban Boy become the cornerstone of this new style of music, which Dave labelled suburban rock. Warner's music is probably best described as Lou Reed meets Tomas Pynchon, while Bob Dylan has referred to Dave as his "favourite Australian songwriter".

Dave formed The Suburbs in January 1977. The group developed a huge underground following, which led to Dave signing with Australia's Mushroom Records in 1978. His first album, Mugs Game, went gold within a month of release. Dave's second album, Free Kicks, was released in 1979.

After the original Suburbs disbanded, Dave followed up with Correct Weight (1979), This is My Planet (1981 - reissued as This is Your Planet in 1996), Meanwhile in the Suburbs (EP - 1989), Dark Side of the Scrum (1989), Suburban Sprawl (1990), Surplus and Dearth (1995) and Loose Men, Tight Shorts (1996).

After the release of This is My Planet, Dave Warner retired from writing and performing music full-time, turning instead to writing plays, novels and screenplays.

In 1982, he created The Sensational Sixties, an enormously successful revue which toured through large suburban hotels with Warner directing, producing and compering. After another trip overseas came comedy revues with Suburbs' stalwart Johnny Leopard, Australia's first Murder Mystery Weekends and in 1985 Warner wrote, and appeared in, the barn-storming musical The Sixties and All That Pop.

The show ran for six months, appearing at the Adelaide Fringe Festival and doing a country tour of Western Australia. Later that same year, Warner's rock musical, Planet Pres, was produced by the WA Theatre Company. One reviewer called it the "best Australian rock musical ever".

Dave then formed, wrote songs for and managed a female trio, Pleasure Principle. In 1987, Dave wrote and performed his one-man show, Australian Heroes in Sydney, and made his screen debut with a small part in Boundaries of the Heart as well as working on new songs with Greg Macainsh (Skyhooks).

His first novel, the crime opus City Of Light, was published in 1995 and won the award for Best Fiction Work at the WA Premier's Book Awards in 1996. That year also saw the release of Footy's Hall Of Shame, a humorous look at Australian Rules Football.

In 1997 Dave published another hard-edged crime novel (Big Bad Blood) and edited an anthology of Australian humorous writing called Great Australian Bites.

The first in a serious of humorous, Agatha Christie-style novels starring rock-star-turned-detective Andrew "The Lizard" Zirk, Murder In The Groove, was published in 1998, along with Cricket's Hall Of Shame and 25 Years of Mushroom Records. September 1998 saw the release of three AFL footy-related CDs, featuring tracks paying tribute to the Sydney Swans, the Western Bulldogs and the St. Kilda Saints football clubs respectively.

The final year of the 20th century saw Dave take part in a number film and TV projects, including the completion of the feature film Cut. Racing's Hall of Shame, co-written with Nicolas Brasch, was released, as was the CD Suburbs In The Seventies - a double album featuring original recordings from The Suburbs' 1977-78 period. Also released was the secolnd "Lizard" Zirk novel, Murder In The Frame. The first few months of 2000 saw the release of Dave's critically-acclaimed new novel eXXXpresso as well as the horror/comedy/slasher film Cut. He was also one of the chief writers on the daily SBS drama Going Home.

2003 saw Dave cowrite the screenplay for the feature film Garage Days with filmmaker Alex Proyas (I Robot, The Crow, Dark City). He also wrote episodes for the Channel Nine TV series McLeod's Daughters and wrote the short TV feature Roll, directed by award winning Martin Wilson.

The past few years have seen the production of another thriller feature film, Ravenswood, which is yet to be released. Currently another film, Brace (aka Dirty Girls) is set to shoot in March 2008 in Western Australia. Dave has been very busy writing for television over the past few years, on such shows as Canal Road, Sea Patrol and Packed to The Rafters. Dave's first children's novel, Charlotte and the Starlet, has been overwhelmingly successful, leading publisher Random House to commission two more novels in the series.

>> Dave lives in Sydney with wife Nicole, daughters Violet and Venice and son Gus.