Interviews
MY MORNING JACKET
IF FANS ARE STEALING MY MORNING JACKET’S SONGS “AND SHARING THEM REALLY FAST”, THE BAND DIDN’T CARE WHEN IT CAME TO CIRCUITAL. GUITARIST CARL BROEMEL TELLS DAN CONDON THE BAND WERE RAPT TO SEE CROWDS SINGING ALONG WITH THE NEW MATERIAL AS SOON AS THEY TOOK IT ON THE ROAD.
My Morning Jacket’s most recent visit to Australia was with the Big Day Out tour as well as opening for the great Neil Young all across the country. But there was one town on Australia’s east coast that had Carl Broemel and his bandmates besotted. “We took a day and went surfing in Byron Bay and while we were there, our friends were telling us about the Bluesfest – ‘You guys should come back and do that’ – and I was like, ‘Man, if I can come back here I will do anything!’” Broemel gushes from his adopted home of Nashville.
BUDDY GUY
THE REIGNING KING OF CHICAGO BLUES, BUDDY GUY MIGHT BE IN HIS MID-’70S, BUT HIS SPIRIT AND WORK ETHIC IS STRONGER THAN EVER. HE TALKS ALL THINGS BLUES WITH DAN CONDON.
He started as a protégé of the great Muddy Waters, but before long Buddy Guy had established himself as a larger than life figure deserving of his own page in the blues history books. He’s always placed an emphasis on fun with his brand of blues-rock, which is an element he still considers vital to this day.
TROMBONE SHORTY
TROY “TROMBONE SHORTY” ANDREWS’S BEEN HONOURED TO APPEAR AS HIMSELF IN TREME AND HE’S WRITTEN WITH THE LEGENDARY LAMONT DOZIER. MICHAEL SMITH DISCOVERS THAT THE NEW ORLEANS MUSO AIN’T ABOUT TO REST ON HIS LAURELS.
If you ever saw that extraordinary television series Tremé, based on life in the real 6th Ward neighbourhood in New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina – made by the guys behind The Wire, you’ll have seen multi-instrumentalist Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews play himself in the occasional episode. It’s perfect casting since Andrews grew up in the neighbourhood and is steeped in the whole brass band ethos that has made it famous courtesy bands like The Dirty Dozen Brass Band and The Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
THE POGUES
“THE SAINTS WERE FUCKING GREAT!” EXCLAIMS THE POGUES FOUNDING MEMBER PETER “SPIDER” STACY. IT MAY BE OVER TWO DECADES SINCE THE POGUES ONLY VISIT TO AUSTRALIA, BUT STEVE BELL LEARNS THAT THE AUSTRALIAN CONNECTION IS DEEPER THAN IT SEEMS.
Legendary London outfit The Pogues are a band at once defined by the decade in which they rose to prominence – their classic body of Celtic-flavoured punk was crafted in the ‘80s, and a product of that decade’s political and societal upheaval – but also one out of sync with that same era, for their unique music and persona was completely and utterly different to everything surrounding them at the time.
EILEN JEWEL
“I DEFINITELY THINK ABOUT TWIN PEAKS,” ADMITS US ALT.ROOTS ARTIST EILEN JEWELL. BUT MICHAEL SMITH DISCOVERS THAT WHEN IT COMES TO WRITING SHE HEADS FOR THE MOUNTAINS NOT THE RED ROOM
She may be Boston-based right now, but chasing her music has seen singer/songwriter Eilen Jewell live in a lot of different places. Growing up in Idaho City, Jewell began her musical career busking on the streets of Santa Fe while at college, before lighting out to Los Angeles, then back east to Massachusetts where she recorded her 2005 debut album, Boundary County. All of which is probably why, when it came time to write her latest record, Queen Of The Minor Key, she felt the need to light and set up alone in a tiny cabin in the Idaho Mountains, no running water or electricity, with just her guitar.
CANDI STATON
“THEY CALLED ME ALL KINDS OF NAMES,” RECALLS US SOUL AND GOSPEL VETERAN CANDI STATON, ABOUT HOW TRADITIONALISTS REACTED TO HER DISCO FORAYS. DAN CONDON FINDS OUT HOW SHE GOT FROM GOSPEL TO DISCO ANTHEM YOUNG HEARTS RUN FREE.
Candi Staton is not just a soul singer. She was after all a huge presence in the disco movement of the ‘70s as the voice of 1976 smash hit, Young Hearts Run Free. Years later the London nightclub scene was soundtracked by her You Got The Love, initially released alongside The Source and remixed by plenty over the years; more recently Florence + The Machine’s version of the song was met with great praise, cracking the ARIA Top 10 in 2010. But it was as a soul singer that she began and how she has been honoured with last year’s release of Evidence: The Complete Fame Records Masters, 48 tracks she recorded with the masterful Rick Hall in the legendary Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama between 1969 and 1974.
DAVID BROMBERG BAND
“YOU’RE AN INGRATE IF YOU CAN’T APPRECIATE IT,” CLAIMS MUSICAL MASTERMIND DAVID BROMBERG ABOUT BEING SAMPLED BY BEASTIE BOYS. DAN CONDON DISCOVERS BROMBERG ACCEPTED THE USE OF HIS RIFF BY THE HIP HOP OUTFIT AS “A GREAT COMPLIMENT”.
David Bromberg has played with everyone from Bob Dylan to Link Wray to The Eagles as well as established a deep well of incredible material of his own. He hasn’t been here in over 20 years. “1903 I think it was,” he quips from his Wilmington, Delaware home when asked when his last visit was. “A wonderful year.”
MOSH BEN ARI
WORKING ON HIS NEW FARM GOT MOSH BEN ARI WANTING TO WRITE ABOUT BEING “A CITIZEN IN ISRAEL”. MICHAEL SMITH LEARNS THAT THERE’S “STUFF” HE REALLY WANTS TO CHANGE.
“A lot of the time what happens,” Ben Ari explains from his car on the way to Tel Aviv for a meeting, “is you’re working some song and it’s kind of a mellow song, but then you go to the studio and you find you can do it bit groovier. The beginning of the music is a melody and in the studio and we start to work with the producer and it’ll come out a different style, but if it’s a writing that causes it to become a reggae song.”
THE BARONS OF TANG
DO NOT CALL THE BARONS OF TANG A JAM BAND. “WE’RE A COMPLICATED PARTY BAND,” DOUBLE BASS PLAYER JULIAN CUE TELLS MICHAEL SMITH.
They’ve got to be one of the busiest bands in the country – so busy in fact that Melbourne-based seven-piece The Barons Of Tang are still trying to find time to record a debut album, five years into their existence – but then, while their incredible gig-load obviously validates their chosen musical path, they never really expected it to work out quite this way. “We put it together for love of the idea and what we were doing,” the double bass-slapping Julian Cue explains. “We had absolutely no preconceived notions of success or having it grow or anything like that. It was a bit vague but we knew we wanted to put together something noisy and slightly antagonistic but with an interesting array of instruments. We’d play as a four- or five-piece with accordion, double bass, percussion and guitar, loosely playing Eastern European music as well as more punky stuff. We literally just put it together for fun and the fact that it was so well received was a surprise [laughs] to us. It actually took quite some time for us to take it seriously… and here we are.”
G3
“A TRAVELLING YOUTH GANG” IS HOW STEVE VAI DESCRIBES HIS G3 COLLABORATION WITH JOE SATRIANI AND STEVE LUKATHER. MICHAEL SMITH FACES OFF WITH A GANG LEADER.
It seemed like a good idea – tour the world with a couple of your guitar-playing buddies between album projects. When you’re working at the level Joe Satriani is, there’s every reason for the idea to have pretty big legs, especially when you can call on players like Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, John Petrucci and Michael Schenker, just to name a few. Thus, G3 was born back in 1996 and isn’t likely to stop any time soon. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of it all, considering the heavyweight talent on show, is the fact that the whole G3 thing rolls along without the least evidence of ego getting in the way. In fact it’s very much a mutual admiration society. And why not? After all, they all started out learning how to play from each other, more or less.
JOHN HIATT
JOHN HIATT RECKONS HIS BANDMATES ARE ‘SLUMMING IT’ PLAYING WITH HIM. BUT THE AMERICAN SINGER/SONGWRITER ASSURES MICHAEL SMITH HE’S LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT.
Once he started playing guitar aged 11, John Hiatt was sure about what he wanted to do – so sure, that he was soon playing anywhere he could pick up a gig in his native Indianapolis. So sure in fact that when he was 18, he upped sticks and headed for Nashville and scored himself a publishing deal, cranking out tunes for the princely sum of $US25 a week. Luckily, he also hooked up with a few other songwriters and, as White Duck, got out and gigged. In 1973, he was signed as a recording artist in his own right (at only age 21). As you’d expect, the road was never going to be smooth, but Hiatt has scored quite a few goals along the way, from Three Dog Night taking one of his tunes to #16 in the Billboard charts to working with Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Rosanne Cash and Ry Cooder, among others, as well as releasing twenty albums along the way.
BRIAN SETZER
AN UNLIKELY ’80S POP STAR, THANKS TO HIS TIME WITH ROCKABILLY REVIVALISTS STRAY CATS, BRIAN SETZER SPENT THE PAST TWO DECADES IMMERSED IN SWING AND JAZZ. BUT MICHAEL SMITH DISCOVERS THAT SETZER’S BACK WITH ONE OF THE OLD CATS FOR ANOTHER RUN AT ROCKABILLY.
A quick scan of just the albums he’s released and you realise just how incredibly busy – or compulsively hyperactive – Brian Setzer has been since he first pulled together his rockabilly revival meets punk trio, The Stray Cats, back in 1979. With them there are eight studio, one live and a best of; with the Brian Setzer Orchestra, there are another eight, with seven others that are either best-ofs or live albums, then as Setzer solo, there are six studio and another two live albums. And there are assorted other bits and bobs, including his contribution to the soundtrack of the feature film, La Bamba, in which he appropriately played Eddie Cochran, one of his all-time musical heroes. “That’s really the reason why I wanted to do this,” Setzer explains, on the line from his home in Minneapolis, about the evolution of Brian Setzer’s Rockabilly Riot, the show he’s bring to Australia. “I’ve got a big catalogue – that’s right, a lot of songs I could play, reaching back – and I thought I’d really like to play them all and not be limited to just Stray Cats songs or just solo songs. Just play the whole thing – I even do some Big Band songs, without the horns of course – and some old Sun Session songs [from his 2005 Rockabilly Riot Vol 1: A Tribute To Sun Records]. So this seemed to solve the problem there.”
STEVE EARLE
STEVE EARLE INSISTS THAT HE HASN’T REPLACED HEROIN ADDICTION WITH A WORK ADDICTION. DAN CONDON DISCOVERS THAT EARLE FITS IN WATCHING TV NOT JUST STARRING ON TV, IN BETWEEN ALBUMS AND TOURS.
We haven’t seen Steve Earle in Australia since late in 2008 when he was touring in support of 2007’s Washington Square Serenade. He mentions he tried to get here on the back of 2009’s Townes, but it wasn’t to be. “The only reason we missed coming on the Townes tour was Treme,” he says from his home in New York City’s Greenwich Village, referencing the HBO drama series in which he stars. “The filming schedule hit right around Byron Bay [Bluesfest] and to make this make sense financially you almost have to have at least one festival.”
KRYSTLE WARREN
SHE ONCE OPENED FOR KYLIE MINOGUE AND MANAGES HER OWN FACEBOOK PAGE TO KEEP IN TOUCH WITH HER ‘CUPCAKES’. LIZ GIUFFRE DISCOVERS THAT UK-BASED KRYSTLE WARREN IS NOT YOUR EVERYDAY FOLKIE.
Back in 2005 when Came So Far For Beauty, the big Leonard Cohen tribute show, happened at the Opera House, a whole bunch of people were blown away by Antony Hegarty of Antony & The Johnsons. We had no idea who he was, but the minute he opened his mouth he stole the show – how does a sound like that come from a vessel like this?
DIRTY THREE
WHEN WARREN ELLIS OF DIRTY THREE WENT TO DAVID LYNCH’S SILENCIO NIGHTCLUB IN PARIS, WITH ITS NO CAMERA POLICY, HE TELLS BRYGET CHRISFIELD, “FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE I FELT LIKE FILMING. AND DAVID LYNCH WAS STANDING NEXT TO ME.”
Is this the correct address? A recognisable figure sporting a long-sleeved purple paisley shirt opens a nearby door and leaps out onto the pavement. He wanders towards a metallic purple Ford Falcon, makes a victorious hand gesture (probably celebrating the fact that the windscreen remains parking fine free).Yep, this is definitely the right place.
MICHAEL ROTHER
MUSICAL DEVELOPMENT HAPPENS IN CIRCLES FOR MICHAEL ROTHER, BUT YOU’D HAVE TO POINT OUT TO HIM THE INFLUENCE HE’S HAD ON MODERN MUSIC, AS DOUG WALLEN DISCOVERS.
Whether with Krautrock progenitors Neu! or the equally revered Harmonia or even a prior stint in Kraftwerk German musician Michael Rother has certainly seen his work go in and out of fashion (and back) over the years. One would hope, though, that today his reputation as an elder statesman is sealed. Having toured Australia once in the ’80s and twice in the ’90s, Rother was last here with Harmonia in 2009, as part of an ATP lineup curated by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.
HILLTOP HOODS
ON THE EVE OF RELEASING THEIR NEW LP, DRINKING FROM THE SUN, HILLTOP HOODS – EMCEES SUFFA, PRESSURE AND DJ DEBRIS – SAT DOWN WITH MARK HEBBLEWHITE TO GIVE UP THE GOODS ON LIVING IN THE LIGHT BUT STAYING CLOSE TO THE UNDERGROUND. HERE’S WHAT WENT DOWN.
If there’s one group that has been responsible for bringing Australian hip hop out of the shadow and into the light it’s Hilltop Hoods. The accepted narrative is a simple one. This trio, Emcee/producer Suffa (Matt Lambert), emcee Pressure (Daniel Smith) and DJ Debris (Barry Francis), seemingly came out of nowhere with the triple j hit, Nosebleed Section, a track driven by native accents and an infectious Melanie Safka sample, and opened the floodgates for a new generation of hip hop artists who were products of this land, not some foreign ghetto.
HERMITUDE
“WHEN WE FIRST WROTE IT WE WERE A LITTLE BIT KIND OF AFRAID OF IT,” CONFESSES HERMITUDE’S LUKE DUBS ABOUT THEIR UNEXPECTED BREAKTHROUGH SINGLE SPEAK OF THE DEVIL. CHRIS YATES DISCOVERS THAT THE DUO HAD THEIR CHEESE RADARS ON WHILE RECORDING.
Luke Dubs (aka Luke Dubber) is a laidback dude. Growing up in the musically and traditionally fertile grounds of the Blue Mountains sure has had an influence on his style and the music that he has created with Elgusto (aka Angus Stuart). More recently the group have been experimenting with some different sounds, and diverging from their more subtle, almost humble beats and the results have seen some incredible things happen for the group.
JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE
JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE HATES AIRPORTS, RECKONS ACTING’S A PAIN IN THE ASS AND NASHVILLE PEOPLE DRIVE HIM CRAZY. AND HE TELLS SAMSON MCDOUGALL THAT WRITING ABOUT HIS TROUBLES WITH ADDICTION IS JUST “CLEARING UP THE HEARSAY”.
Justin Townes Earle plays it down but, whether he felt it or not, his musical pedigree (son of Steve Earle, stepson of Allison Moorer and named after famed country musician Townes Van Zandt) placed a huge weight of expectation on his musical development. His rocky road is well documented, but what’s unusual in his story is that from the cinders of heroin addiction he stands as a man, now 30 years old, who has emerged from the shadows of his lineage to a reputation as one of the strongest country voices of his generation. Set to release his fifth album Nothing’s Gonna Change The Way You Feel About Me. Now this month, Earle is hitting Australian roads for a tour in April and, as was duly pointed out by his manager, he’s received equal billing for Byron Bay’s Bluefest with his father. “I was a little freaked out when I first started doing it,” he says of his first forays into writing songs, “but I really didn’t spend a lot of time around my father and his friends.”
EDDI READER
WHAT IS THIS PROBLEM PEOPLE HAVE WITH COVERS, WONDERS SCOTTISH SINGER EDDI READER? MICHAEL SMITH DISCOVERS SHE JUST LOVES TO RE-INTERPRET OTHER FOLKS’ SONGS.
“I did [Sings] The Songs Of Robert Burns [in 2003] and it was up for some kind of award here – Best Scottish Song or whatever it was – and somebody wrote in and said, ‘Yeah, but it’s a cover version’,” Eddi Reader begins in reference to an attitude in contemporary music that obviously perplexes her. “This is Ae Fond Kiss by Robert Burns, who died in 1796 and I just had to write in and go, ‘Yeah, because his version was much better’ – as if there was a version by him.”
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