Still Got The Blues

Practically a local now, Canadian-born blues guitarist Wolf Mail lives as low-key a life as he can for three months of the year; he checks out of touring and into his hideaway north of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Born in Montreal, there's still a strong French lilt in his voice, a reflection of his childhood spent in the south of France, leavened by time in California. His music, however, is pure Chicago blues, whether courtesy of Elmore James and John Lee Hooker or the conduit for British bluesers like Peter Green. Like them, it's all about getting out there and playing, touring, living the blues.

“The idea I had for this record,” Mail explains, “was to get back to a more basic power trio set-up, because my last record's [2012's Soho Strays] piano, backing vocals; I just felt it was a bit overproduced and didn't reflect what I really do live on stage. I had a couple of tracks that were sitting in the back of my head for a long time and couldn't use those on that album.

“Then, instead of going in the studio and writing songs, I decided to take these new songs, play 'em, test them with the people, see what kind of response we get and how we feel about them, and then record them. So last year we toured Scandinavia – Norway, Sweden and Denmark – over twenty shows, played this entire record on that tour, and booked a studio [in the Netherlands] right after it, fresh from the road to try to nail that energy.”

As is often the case, when you're an international solo touring artist, it's easier to deal with the logistics, visas and border crossings if you pick up a local rhythm section in each region. In Australia, it's bass player Bas Khoury, who also plays with The Stilsons, and drummers Nic Cicere and Reuben James Alexander, the latter featuring on Mail's 2011 Sydney-based live album, Basement Sessions.

Regardless of where he is though, these days, Wolf Mail plays his signature guitar, made for him by Tasmanian-based luthier Mark Gilbert. “That guitar,” he sighs, “I love it! I did a show in Hobart a few years back and Mark approached me and said, 'Man, can I build a guitar for you?' So we sat down a designed a guitar together.”