Within some 20 gigs of launching themselves onto the Melbourne musical landscape in December 2012, the Mississippi blues-inspired guitar/drums duo that goes by the name of its singer/songwriter/guitarist, Chris Russell’s Chicken Walk, released its self-titled debut album. Seven months later came album number two, Shakedown. The as-yet-untitled third album is taking a little longer.

“A change in 50 per cent of the personnel will do that, I guess,” Russell chuckles, noting the departure of original drummer Dean Muller. “So for the past 15 months, since Dave Folley joined the band, we’ve just been learning to play with each other and I didn’t wanna push through something that was just about me because we’ve formed like a really fucking great partnership. He just has incredible empathy as a musician and I didn’t wanna miss out on the opportunity to capture that. So I’ve basically shelved all the songs that I’d previously written – I’ve got probably 20 exercise books in every room of the house that are just full of lyrics and stuff – and I thought I would start again.

“Last week we started recording stuff that I’d written with Dave, or stuff that I’ve written with Dave in mind, and some of that he hadn’t even heard yet, but, like, even the first takes were, ‘Yup – print that. Print that.’ Which is amazing but a testament to the musician. He’s just incredibly flexible. Like, I mean, he plays with Tex Perkins, he plays with Archie Roach – he’s had a pretty long and storeyed career – and anything that I throw at him, I guess what he likes to do is let the song speak. As much as he’s a very deft and accomplished player, he tries to figure out what the song’s teaching him, or what the song wants to say to him, and then interpret that, rather than go, here’s a chance to show some chops.”

Of course Russell is no slouch on career front, having been a solid sideman in many a combo over the past 20-odd years. It’s only over the past three, however, that he’s stepped out of the shadows and begun to carve a niche in his own right.

“I’ve been to the Mississippi Delta six times over the last seven years,” Russell explains, “and that’s how Chicken Walk sort of started, ‘cause I’d played in a lot of bands but I’d never played blues on stage, just because I didn’t want to be a cultural magpie as such. 

“Listening to John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and those guys, it’s universal, but there’s still that thing – these people come from a different culture. The first time I walked into a black juke joint in Clarksdale, Mississippi, I realised I’d got this whole thing backwards. I got the notes right, in the right place, but I was feeling it like a Southern hemisphere First World person, where Mississippi, parts of it really are like the Third World, and to use a metaphor, you have to swim in those waters to know what it’s like.”