The World In Our Hands

sh Grunwald is in the midst of a tour of south west Queensland as Time Off catches up with him, though it's not the usual type of tour one might expect of the blues and roots muso from Byron Bay. He's been checking out the coal seam gas wells around Chinchilla and Tara, and he'll soon be showcasing some of his findings on YouTube and his national run of shows in June. 

“I actually feel often quite unconfident to speak about any issue that I might have a personal view on,” Grunwald admits, “but this is the biggest thing that's ever happened in Australia, I think. Like today, this lady explained to me just how they've got so many health issues and that quite possibly they could be looking at dying of cancer and any unknown number of things; their kids are bleeding from the nose, they've just got constant headaches and when they leave where they live they get better. But that story, what she was saying you know, she's been on Today Tonight or some of those shows and explained it, but then the government just puts out some propaganda after that: 'Oh no, we looked into that and that was found not to be true'. And she's still going through the same thing, so if people like me and other people from other walks of life don't come and see it, film it, tell everybody, put it out there, it's not gonna happen through the normal media… I don't want to be in the position of doing that or doing any of this stuff, like the surf was pumping today for example and I'd rather be surfing, but I feel ethically that I have to do it.”

Though reluctant to use his platform to preach, there's no doubting Grunwald's sway amidst an international audience that includes some of Australia's best known musicians. Recently he teamed up with The Living End's Scott Owen and Andy Strachan for a banging version of Gnarls Barkley's Crazy.

“It was epic,” he enthuses of the recording session. “I'm very privileged playing with those guys; they're just monster players and obviously from one of the biggest bands in the country. It's a very powerful sound playing with those guys and it's fun for me to rock out and you know that song Crazy, I've been doing it for a while, and over New Year's I did a special little other thing with having Scottie on bass and Rob Hirst from Midnight Oil on drums… It goes well and everyone sings along at gigs and it's a bit of fun.”

Due to play Caxton Street's annual Seafood & Wine Festival this weekend with Owen and Strachan along for the ride, Grunwald's set is sure to be a highlight. “Well, I've done it before,” he says. “Once when I was doing a lot of band stuff I turned up there and I hadn't played solo for a while, and I was expecting a bit of like… I guess I was expecting it to be people sitting down at tables just having a little bit of lobster, and I thought, 'Oh, I'll play it solo'. And it was just the most raucous gig in the end and people were ready to rock, and so that was fun. That gig was a rebirth of me going, 'Oh yeah, the solo thing again', you know it was just great to connect with people. And then I also played it with Kram when we were doing a little side project called Krash and that was pretty raucous as well, so I've got expectations of being raucous but this will be a bigger sounding format that I've done it in.”

Ash Grunwald will be playing the following dates:

Thursday 6 June - The Republic Bar, Hobart
Friday 7 June – The Gov, Adelaide
Saturday 8 June – Fly By Night Club, Fremantle 
Sunday 9 June – The Bakery, Perth
Saturday 15 June – Torquay Hotel
Friday 21 June – The Metro Theatre, Sydney
Saturday 22 June – The Cambridge, Newcastle
Thursday 27 June  – Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Friday 28 June – Prince Bandroom, Melbourne
Saturday 29 June – Westenport Hotel, San Remo 
Thursday 4 July – The Great Northern, Byron Bay
Friday 5 July – The Hi-Fi, Brisbane
Saturday 6 July – Kings Beach Tavern, Sunshine Coast
Sunday 7 July – Rabbit and Cocoon, Gold Coast