Hi Hue and thanks for taking the time out to speak with us at Musicology.
Artists will often draw upon everyday characters and paint musical portraits about their lives therefore creating a parallel between the artist and individual but in your song Fernando you are looking for a link between yourself and (in the sporting world) a superstar. Do you feel that the similarities between everyday people and superstars are fewer than the differences?
Yes. I think when you boil down to it, everyone has got great skills to offer the world. It's the skills that few of us possess like being the fastest man and the smartest person that seems to gain everybody's attention. People like extremes. There is also a bridge between superstars and 'normal people' just by the way superstars live their lives by taking more risks. We are all human after all and we are all mortal. The people who are the most different are the billionaires who run the World Bank and the economy. They live different lives to everyone including the superstars. They run the world, and not many can relate to that.
The video clip revolves around a guy (you) walking around a lonely and quiet Brunswick, is there something inherently isolating about Brunswick that made you choice this location to shoot the video or simply a convenient area in which to film?
The funny thing about the clip is that Brunswick isn't usually that quiet. It was the Monday night after a long weekend so everyone was in bed or hungover. We needed to get something done so we did it.
Moving onto the rest of the album Holiday, what other subject matter do you address on the record?
Addiction, greed, psychotic illness, colours/spectrum, love, death.
When it comes to your societal viewpoints that go towards shaping your lyrical content, do you feel like an outsider looking in or an insider looking out?
Sometimes I feel like the world is a zoo and I'm tapping on the window to get a reaction out of a hibernating reptile.
What were some of the challenges in putting this album together and what were some of the great surprises in making this LP?
I've always wanted to work with Ross Cockle the engineer. He is all about painting the sound as it is with no effects or 'bells and whistles'. The album was recorded on a Mason and Hamlin 1920 piano and it sounds so authentically old and almost like it has a life of its own. My lyric writing and song forms expanded on this album to create something entirely new and nothing that I've heard before. The challenge was to be entirely original in every song and not to drift into another character.
The triangle between music, art and philosophy is often an equilateral one. By bringing Bernard Caleo on board and interpreting your lyrical meanings through his visual medium was a masterstroke. Looking at his sketches, do they reinforce exactly what you were trying to achieve musically?
Bernard used to come and sketch me and my band from as early as 2009. I have thought that he is incredible that he sketches so quickly that the pictures have a lasting quality to them. Like a Luenig or a Picasso. He can capture raw emotion, and simplicity.
What does the rest of 2017 have in store for you?
Beethoven Spring Sonata, Melbourne Jazz Fest, Amsterdam , Tasmania, Album Launches, Premieres of new pieces I'm writing, festivals , Wedding (not mine someone else's)
HOLIDAY TOUR DATES
FRI 14 APR | MINERVA’S BOOKS & POT OF GOLD COLLECTABLES | BALLARAT
SAT 15 APR | THE JAZZLAB with special guest JOE O’CONNOR | BRUNSWICK
THUR 20 APR | VENUE 505 with special guest BRIAN CAMPEAU | SURRY HILLS, SYDNEY
FRI 21 APR | SMITH’S ALTERNATIVE with special guest ALICE COTTEE | CANBERRA
SAT 29 APR | DRILL HALL | MULLUMBIMBY NSW
