It's A Spirit Thing

With the release of his seventh studio album, Spirit Bird, last year, Xavier Rudd has continued his soul journey as one of Australia's most important and authentic voices on environmental and Indigenous issues throughout Europe and North America over the past three months. With a heavy tour load taking in festivals including Glastonbury and his own largely sold-out shows, Rudd has managed to sneak in some time for his love of surfing and the great outdoors.

“It's all been really cool…” he says with a relaxed voice. “I rented a bike and took in some scenics up through Sedona to the Grand Canyon; that was pretty friggin' cool. That was on the three days off. Other than that we've just had a lot of shows, and the shows are goin' off – they're awesome. They're really, really awesome right now; I'm just sort of stoked, with everything.”

Though his headline shows allow Rudd an opportunity to reconnect with crowds that already know and love his thought-provoking and physical music style, festivals give him the chance to watch the faces of new fans move from bewilderment to joy once the rhythm takes hold.

“I've always had a great response from festivals and they've probably been pretty key to my following because I've always been an independent artist and not commercial and built quite a big, rootsy support base around the world – I think a lot of that probably comes from playing festivals. On this trip I did some amazing festival shows where it's pretty clear when people sort of haven't seen you and they're into it, and that's always a good feeling.

“I did this big festival in Belgium, and there's always my sort of core people at the front, and you know you can tell who knows it and who doesn't. Some of the faces were pretty stunned...” he chuckles. “That one just springs to mind 'cause I remember in the first song I was playing yidaki [didgeridoo] – I came out and I was playing didges and percussion pretty hard – and you could just see people that were sort of stunned in places, and lookin' at the screen just staring, trying to figure out what was goin' on. And then by the end of that show, even two or three songs in, it was just pumping – the whole place – and the hands in the air just bouncing with me the whole time… It was a huge crowd – probably 20,000 people or something. It's a great feeling – it's cool. It's kind of why I do what I do; I like to move people.”

And there's a significance of the Indigenous instrumentation Rudd incorporates, which is intrinsically tied to his music.

“The ones I use and the story that I bring is to respect the traditional story of it,” Rudd says of his didgeridoos. “I like to make a point of that and make sure people understand what the spirit of the instrument is. And that spirit travels with it and the sticks that I use are a spirit lord from up in Arnhem Land and that's all part of the exchange when I'm using those instruments with the right permission and the right spirit is coming out of it and hitting people in the right way…

“In terms of [my use of] the yidaki, I was adopted up in north east Arnhem Land into the Dhuwa mob, which is descendents of Yidaki, who was the man who found it 60,000 years ago. So I went through all that about ten years ago, and then, you know, it's interesting, my music, because I've come to understand that I am just a vehicle for it; I can't take responsibility for it a lot of the time. It's obvious when a song comes from a personal thing that's goin' on with me or an emotion or something, but quite often it just flows out of me and it's comin' from somewhere else. It's always been that way and in Western culture it's trippy to put that into words, but I've understood it since I was a little kid and I hold space for that… It just flows out of me and a lot of time it's spirit business.”

Supremely spiritual, the ocean is also a great influence on Rudd's musical approach. Part of a loose network of acoustic and roots musos that includes Brit Ben Howard and Australia's Mat McHugh of The Beautiful Girls, they've each grown large and fiercely loyal fan bases through the assistance of the most well-travelled street teams ever – surfers. It therefore comes as no surprise to see who the Byron-based artist has chosen to team up with on his forthcoming Australian tour.

“I've known Donavon [Frankenreiter] for years, since years ago [when] I played with him and Jack Johnson on tour. He's a classic; Donavon's a funny guy… And I've got Nahko & Medicine For The People, they're opening, and they're opening here in the States as well and they're a brilliant band… It will be groovy; it will be nice to collaborate musically together too and jump up with each other on stage and go surfin' if there's waves.

“I've had heaps of shows in Europe and America and it will be just nice to get back and do the little, humble vibe of Aussies – it's classic after being on these big tours overseas, to get home and feel like [I'm having] a home-cooked meal.”