“For those who are interested and cruel enough to take a good look, when I walk onstage, you’re basically watching a guy at the edge of a nervous breakdown.”

These are practically the last words anyone expects to hear from one of the most acclaimed and prolific composers in the history of cinema – the great Hans Zimmer, who boasts an astonishing 179 composer credits on iMDB, including the Academy Award-winning score for The Lion King.

But in Zimmer’s eyes, these feelings are quite natural, given that he never expected to grace a stage in front of a live audience to perform his work. In fact, he’s insistent that he had nothing to do with the idea.

“I’m innocent in this tour,” he says, currently on the road for the US leg of the Hans Zimmer Revealed circuit, which sees the German composer lead a 76-strong orchestra and band through some of his most popular compositions.

“I was just gonna carry on being a film composer and it was Johnny Marr and Pharrell [Williams] that sort of ganged up on me and said, ‘Hans, you’ve gotta get out of this dark, windowless room – there comes a point in your life where you have to look your audience in the eye.’ And I’m going, ‘But I’ve got stage fright!’ and they said, ‘Well, you can’t let that stop you, you can’t let fear stop your life.’

“And by the way, they completely lied to me, because on the first night, I look out and where am I? I’m in another dark, windowless room – it’s just with a lot of people in it! So I’m destined and doomed to an existence of dark, windowless rooms.”

The show’s title promises, at least, to get us inside that room and watch the composer in his element. But the title, too, was out of Zimmer’s hands: it was pitched to him by promoter and long-time friend Harvey Goldsmith, whom Zimmer has no problem allowing free rein.

“Forget about me for a moment,” Zimmer says. “I’m revealing all those amazing musicians that have played on these scores, that people have heard but never seen. What is amazing about them is they rock out! They are a pretty exciting bunch of players.

“I have this friend, Marc Brickman, who is a lighting designer for Dave Gilmour in Pink Floyd and I just said to him, ‘How about we reinterpret these movies visually, just with light, and really show the audiences the musicians?’ Because there’s something that happens – everybody around the world can go and see The Lion King either as a film or as a musical, and that first chant that happens, for instance, every kid knows this, everybody else knows this. But it’s always an actor doing it, as opposed to the guy that really did it. So there is something that happens when you have the real authentic man playing it or singing it.”

Certainly, it helps to have the friends that Zimmer has collected along the way – conversations with Adele and Paul McCartney have helped to ease the stage fright somewhat, he says – but the composer’s general approach to performance mirrors his behaviour in the studio. His way in is always through storytelling.

“A director phones up and he goes, ‘Hans, I wanna tell you a story,’ and suddenly, Inception unfolds in front of you, or Interstellar, or Thelma & Louise, or Gladiator,” he says. “And as I’m listening, I start feeling things – no, I don’t hear the notes, but music is some weird, autonomous language to me, and I sort of find, what’s the subtext, what’s the thing that they can’t elegantly tell in pictures and in words, what’s the bit left for me, what’s the underlying thing?

“And the underlying thing is to invite the audience in to have emotion, to have an experience, and I’m very careful not to be manipulative and not to be sentimental in the music, but just to, in a funny way, do something which creates an opening, a doorway, which you can walk through and give you permission to feel something.”

Over the 33 years he has composed for film, the nature of Zimmer’s invitation to his audience has changed dramatically, crossing the full spectrum of his eclectic musical tastes. With “one foot in classical, one foot in rock’n’roll and one foot in electronica”, Zimmer has utilised every tool available, much like his heroes Ennio Morricone and John Williams. His works have employed everything from orchestral instruments to electronics and the human voice; even to razor blades scraped across cello strings in the soundtrack for Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.

“It got a little bloody,” says Zimmer of said razor. “It was rusty, as well! There was a good chance of tetanus and people dying. But here’s the thing: somebody at a studio has just okayed for us to spend $100 mil or something, and you do feel the weight of that on your shoulders, but you’re supposed to be a bit reckless. You’re supposed to experiment, you’re supposed to go and come up with something new, and if it means a razor blade on a cello string…

“And yeah, we are actually gonna play that piece when we get over there [to Australia], but I’m not gonna make Tina get out the old razor blade,” he laughs.

Aussie audiences can expect to hear a sizable sample of Zimmer’s compositions from the Batman trilogy, as The Dark Knight’s soundtrack in particular lays bare the composer’s true aspirations: despite the stage fright, some part of him just wants to be a rock star.

“OK, I’m gonna be pretentious – [The Dark Knight is] a punk symphony!” he says. “It’s basically completely and utterly influenced by my punk history. I did a question/answer thing with Moby and Jean-Michel Jarre and Gary Numan the other day and it turned out we all started out playing punk guitar, and the interviewer was saying, ‘Oh, you just say punk guitar for the credibility factor.’

“And I said, ‘No, it wasn’t the credibility factor, it was the inability factor!’ It was the inability to be a great guitarist – we just liked making a loud noise. Just because I’m a below average guitarist doesn’t mean I don’t want to go and unleash that stuff occasionally.”

[Hans Zimmer photo by Ed Robinson]

Hans Zimmer Revealed is on Tuesday May 2 at Qudos Bank Arena.

Post originally printed in The BRAG; available at https://thebrag.com/hans-zimmer-talks-interstellar-inception-playing-razor-blades-dark-knight-soundtrack/

Life In Reel Time: An Interview with David Stratton

Talk to any Australian between the ages of 20 and 80 about movie critics, and without fail, two names pop up: Margaret and David, the beloved duo who fought over films for 30 years on screens around the country.

At The Movies gracefully retired in 2014, but true passion never subsides – and cinema is unquestionably David Stratton’s greatest passion, given that it has consumed his every waking moment since he was a young boy.

“You can get passionate about the arts – whether it’s cinema, theatre or literature – because they touch us in so many ways,” says Stratton, looking fondly on his obsession. “You can get very passionate, and Margaret [Pomeranz], I think, is probably a more passionate person than me on the surface. Although I think I have passion lurking just beneath the surface.

“I think [the show] worked because we were different types and because we didn’t mind saying what we thought about films, but we were also very understanding of the other person’s point of view.”

Stratton has spent over five decades seeing through the eyes of others, be it on At The Movies or in his 18-year tenure as director of Sydney Film Festival. Now, his audiences finally get a glimpse of the world through his eyes, in a documentary feature and series based on his career – David Stratton: A Cinematic Life.

“I never thought that anybody would be very interested in me or my opinions outside those areas,” says Stratton, “and so when the proposal came to make this film, as I say, I was quite flattered and intrigued and concerned and all those things. I think it turned out pretty well! But I’m too close to it to really know what I think.”

It would be wonderful to see co-host Margaret Pomeranz’s take on the film, but she too is close to the project, having featured heavily in the narrative of Stratton’s life.

“She phoned me the other day and said she liked it and that she cried, which is rather nice,” he says. “But I don’t think she’s going to review it publicly – I mean, she can’t, because she’s in it, she’s got quite a substantial supporting role.”

A Cinematic Life paints a portrait of Stratton’s years in the field by engaging directly with the medium. As a lover of Australian cinema, he has championed a great many films and filmmakers that would otherwise not have entered the zeitgeist as memorably as they did. Among the artists that speak fondly of Stratton in the film are Nicole Kidman, George Miller, Russell Crowe, Gillian Armstrong, and other stalwarts of the industry. Sadly, its book counterpart has not yet found an outlet, even though Stratton’s autobiography I Peed On Fellini was roundly celebrated.

“The sad fact is, I’ve written a book, a sort of encyclopaedia really, of Australian feature films since 1990… but I can’t find a publisher,” he says. “Maybe this documentary will get publishers interested after all, but it’s there, it’s written!”

For Stratton, this points to a changing culture around film criticism – it’s easier to get your voice out there, but harder to be heard than ever before. He believes there are three vital factors to success as a critic: dedication, passion, and pure blind luck. Oh, and watching tonnes of movies.

“The only advice I can give to young would-be critics is to see lots of films,” he says. “Not just to see current films but to delve back into cinema history, because that’s how I learnt about the cinema – I didn’t go to film school, I didn’t even go to university, I didn’t even finish high school! But I learnt about cinema by watching films.

“I try to watch a film every day that I haven’t seen before. That’s my challenge to myself, and that adds enormously to my knowledge. So I watch films from 1930, 1940 and from anywhere, from Czechoslovakia or Japan – I don’t care, I just want to see a new film every day.”

With every film he sees, Stratton takes down notes, archiving them in an enormous handwritten database of the 2,500+ films he’s watched. It’s something he does for himself, and perhaps occasionally to refer back to when lecturing on film history at the University of Sydney. This technique is what has made Stratton known and loved – a breadth of knowledge on everything cinematic.

“If I can say one thing about my career, I’ve been incredibly lucky,” he admits. “I mean, I was very well-informed from an early age about films, but even so, I was very lucky to be just in the right time and the right place when they urgently wanted a director to the Sydney Film Festival. I didn’t apply for that job, they asked me.

“Luck plays such an important role, but you’ve gotta have the dedication and the passion and the knowledge as well … Write about everything that you see and just write it for yourself. And doing that will just encourage you or enable you to express your ideas and your feelings about the film and the aspects of the film that you think are important to convey to people.”

David Stratton: A Cinematic Life (dir. Sally Aitken) is in cinemas Thursday March 9. Watch the trailer at Transmission Films.

Post originally printed in The BRAG; available at http://thebrag.com/arts/david-stratton-explains-how-he-pursues-cinematic-life

David Stratton photo by Mark Rogers

All Fired Up: An Interview with Japandroids

Three years ago, after the rapture of Celebration Rock’s intensive touring came to a close, Japandroids disappeared from our lives.

Their website went dark and the boys passed their long nights of wine and roses unseen and unheard.

Now, as the sun rises over a new day – and scores of music fans lick their wounds from the year that was – Japandroids are back in town, bringing with them Near To The Wild Heart Of Life and all the fervour we’ve been missing.

Kicking off 2017 with a new Japandroids record seems like the perfect tonic for the times, but it wasn’t concocted with that intention. For Vancouver rockers Brian King and David Prowse, positivity was par for the course; a natural ingredient to their brand of garage rock rather than a response to a moment in history.

“For people in the US, it’s like a comment about how, ‘You announced your record around the time that Trump won the election, so did you plan to fight this evil with something positive?’” says King. “And I’m like, ‘Man, when we were recording this record, it wasn’t even announced that he was running for President!’ It’s like, ‘Do you really think this is part of our game plan? We’re not even American!’”

(Just days after our interview, during a performance of ‘Continuous Thunder’ at Sydney’s Red Rattler, the audience converged in a venue-wide, spontaneous group hug – which might explain the depth of feeling people have for this band, and why the new album’s timing would seem fortuitous.)

“2016 was a shit year for a lot of reasons, and I think people are kinda desperately looking for some way to put it behind them, and positive things to put in their minds instead of all the negative,” King says. “And Japandroids make very positive, life-affirming rock music, I like to think. I can see why people wanna think of it in terms like counter-balancing the evils of the world, but I don’t think our music is designed to affect policy. It’s designed to affect values. It’s more about the individual and less about the [political]. Save that for Prophets Of Rage.”

It may not be openly political, then, but Near To The Wild Heart Of Life is still just as restless as the times. “The future’s under fire / The past is gaining ground,” cries King in the opener, evoking the tightrope space in which the new record was crafted. There was never any debate over the opening track, but having its name spread to the front cover, and thus define the whole record, was not so obvious. Prowse calls it an “old-school thing to do”.

“Honestly, we did that a bit reluctantly,” says King. “There was definitely a time in music history where [there were] shitty records with one good song, that song is number one and that’s what the record’s called, and then the rest of the record sucks.”

“We’re bringing back that trend!” laughs Prowse.

Across eight tracks, the ’Droids serenade the boards they’ve tread on their global tours; the long roads that separate their homes in Mexico City, Toronto, Vancouver; and the romantic partners left behind as they chase their dreams.

“Song one is about the moment you decide to go away, song two [‘North East South West’] is about being gone, and the middle of the record is [about] balancing being away, finding your sense of place, finding your sense of home,” says Prowse. “A lot of that is finding a person who makes you feel that way.”

He’s talking about his girlfriend, but the comfort between Prowse and King shows they’ve found home equally in each other’s company. The bond they share goes a long way to explaining how they’ve maintained their sanity working so intensively with each other, especially given the pressure of producing a new record after two consecutive critical hits.

“Whenever you’re trying to make ‘art’, quote unquote, you’re always trying to push yourself to make something that is the best that you could ever have done,” says Prowse. “And so I think inevitably there’s always a lot of internal pressure that we put on ourselves, which always makes it a very intense process.”

“Celebration Rock wasn’t done until we felt like we’d made something better than Post-Nothing, and this one wasn’t done until we felt like we had created something that we thought was better than the first two,” says King. “There’s definitely a motivating factor of trying to outdo yourself, but I’m not sure there’s an example of a band or an artist who continue to outdo themselves right until the end, you know?

“Maybe Metallica really thought St. Anger was their best album, I dunno!” he laughs. “I think we’ll continue operating under that until, I suppose, we become really rich and just implode. Or just a ‘so drunk with power and surrounded by yes-men that we have no idea that we’re making a piece of shit’ type deal.”

They’re unwilling to stagnate, unwilling to sit still, and despite every critic’s statement of Japandroids’ newfound ‘maturity’, still bursting with the same youthful fire. It helps that they share a singular vision for their music, welcome new perspectives in production, and stay true to the way they’ve always played: “back to basics, drums and guitar”, as a duo.

“We connected, playing as the two of us, and never found someone that we connected with in that same way,” says King. “Then we kind of eventually just stopped looking. I really don’t think bass players are getting the shit end of the stick; they can be in a two-man band, too.”

“Some of our best friends are bassists,” says Prowse. “We don’t hate them, we don’t have anything against them. It’s just not for us.”

What may surprise the fans is the embracing of new textures among the stripped-back, straight-up rock of Post-Nothing. Japandroids’ transformation peaks in the eight-minute ‘Arc Of Bar’, something of a prog rock anthem that’s been sparking rockist ire for its use of ‘synths’. Fear not, guitar heroes, as King is quick to reassure us that it’s not really synths, just “a guitar that sounds very synthy”.

“Certainly it’s a very foreign sound for a Japandroids record, very foreign,” says Prowse, recalling a moment with a fan in Vancouver who had followed the boys across Canada as they toured the new material.

“Because I’m triggering ‘Arc Of Bar’ with a sampler live, he was like, ‘When I first saw a sampler onstage at a Japandroids show, I was scared, I was very scared,’” laughs Prowse. “And then he came around.”

“We’ve been pretty dogmatic about the sonics of our band, so a lot of people, as soon as they think of our band, they think of a very specific kind of sound. So on some level, I think we can’t control how people respond to that kind of stuff. We just had to do what we wanted to do, y’know?

“I think the most important thing we can do is just stay true to ourselves and follow our muse and go where our inspiration takes us, because if we had just decided that people like this kind of album, let’s just make another one like this every three years until we die – ”

“We’d probably be a lot happier,” says King.

But Prowse hopes it would “piss more people off than if we just make records that are a little different”.

“Can you imagine if Radiohead just kept trying to write ‘Creep’ for the next 20 years?” says King. “We made the first two records that people loved just by following our instincts, and we just followed our instincts again. I mean, it’s worked twice before!”

And to those few still harking after the younger them, King says: “The kids will always have Celebration Rock.”

Near To The Wild Heart Of Life by Japandroids is out Friday January 27 through Pod/Inertia.

Post originally printed in The BRAG; available at http://thebrag.com/music/japandroids-are-back-last-talking-trump-their-positive-outlook-music

Cotton Mouth: An Interview with Pat Simmons

Talk about a long train runnin’ – it’d be hard to find a music group with the kind of renown and career longevity that The Doobie Brothers have enjoyed in their near 50 years of busting out classic American folk-infused rock.

Named for a shared proclivity for the humble joint back in 1970, the Brothers have kept up their musical efforts with reinvention, re-appropriation and renewing of their signature style.

Founding member and fingerpicking master Pat Simmons will be revisiting our shores this year for Bluesfest and more, and in a fortuitous turn of events, he’ll be joined by fellow founder Tom Johnston and their stadium-smashing Latin peer, Carlos Santana.

“I think the first time we were ever in Australia touring, we were actually playing some shows with Carlos – the very first time we were there, back in the, oh gosh, mid-’70s or something like that,” says Simmons. “Always a thrill. An honour, really. I’ve been listening to Carlos for such a long time, since the ’60s, and seen him quite a few times through the years. We have played quite a few shows with him through these decades, so it’s always really fun.”

Simmons, all warmth and calm at 68, says the setlists nowadays alternate between the hits “as they call them”, mixed in with “a few oddball tunes” for good measure, along with deep cuts for those who’ve been keeping up pace with the Doobies’ 14 studio albums.

“The music is such a gift for me, personally,” he says. “It’s what I’ve always enjoyed doing my entire lifetime and to still be doing it, gosh, 50 years practically into the career of this band is… you know, I feel very blessed in that regard.”

Imagine the bond formed between artists over 30-plus years, especially two whose skills are as complementary as Simmons and Johnston.

“We’re probably more than brothers in so many ways just because of spending so much time together,” says Simmons. “I think art and creativity brings people closer together than you can imagine, so we’re very close as friends and as colleagues.”

Of course, there’s more to the name than brotherhood. With marijuana culture having been core to the band since its inception, and becoming a beast of its own in the years since Woodstock, one would think a musician of Simmons’ calibre would rue the old title, but he’s comfortable leaning into the connotations of the name.

“I have pretty much smoked most of my life, on and off,” he says. “I’m not averse to taking hits – somebody offers me a hit of a joint, you know, that’s not a problem for me – but I don’t find that it defines who I am, necessarily. Some people really are into it and it really is a huge part of their identity, I guess, and their reality, but I’m not a different person when I’m stoned, as to when I’m not.”

For Simmons, the recent legalisation of pot across eight of the United States was more or less an inevitability, and his interest in mind-altering substances is leisurely and non-committal. It’s just one of many ways of shaping one’s perceptions.

“There’s certainly an altering of your consciousness a little bit when you get high, but it’s so much less than if you had a couple of shots of tequila or something,” he says. “Then your reality really gets altered! I remember when I first started smoking pot, it was hard to identify the fact I was even stoned. And I’ve had so many people, noobies who never smoked weed before, and they smoke it for the first time, and always, almost without exception, people go, ‘I don’t feel anything, what’s the big deal, what am I supposed to be feeling?’

“It’s so subtle, and it’s such an altering of your consciousness that it’s not necessarily something that maybe you haven’t felt before under certain circumstances. Oftentimes when people are creating or they’re reading a novel, you’re into kind of an altered consciousness in terms of where your attention is at, and I think that’s true of smoking pot.”

Naturally, removing the stigma around the substance lifts the barriers to its free and uninhibited use, but Simmons sees this as a positive, given marijuana’s comparatively low social cost compared to Sydney’s own and far worse poison: alcohol.

“I think that if the majority of people who maybe have a hesitance about what that [experience] might be or how that might affect the culture in general, if they understood that it really is not a game-changer, it’s not a life-changer, it’s simply a momentary experience, that most people would be much less averse to it, you know what I mean? Especially when you compare it to, you know, having a cocktail or something, and most people – I would say the majority of people, a good portion of the populace – has a drink once in a while and doesn’t think twice about it, and they know that it alters their consciousness but not in such an adverse way that it completely changes their lifestyle.”

Of course, the real trip for Australian audiences is going to be the dual experience of these seasoned veterans alongside the wild style of Santana, along with the rest of the shifting Bluesfest legacy lineup. And who knows – maybe some lucky attendees can share more than just a melody with Simmons.

Bluesfest 2017, featuring The Doobie Brothers, runs Thursday April 13 – Monday April 17, at Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm, and they also appear with Santana at Qudos Bank Arena, Thursday April 13

Reviving Heidi: An Interview with Jesse Hooper

Four years ago, in an interview with music blog It’s My Kind Of Scene, former Killing Heidi frontwoman Ella Hooper said of her beloved ’90s pop-rock group: “It really did just run its natural course and I think it would be very unnatural to start it up again now.”

But last year, in a suburban lounge room in Melbourne, something changed. The old gears clicked back into place, and within months, Killing Heidi were not just back, but locked in to headline a 2017 Twilight At Taronga set.

With the benefit of hindsight, Ella’s brother and co-founder, guitarist Jesse Hooper, can laugh off the comment, having recently assuaged his own doubts with the group’s first revitalised local shows.

“When we first started playing songs, there’s that nervousness of, ‘Will this feel awkward, will this feel like we’re pretending to be 15?’ – I think that’s where Ella’s quote comes from,” he says. “I guess what I’m really excited about now is that it doesn’t! It feels like we’re interpreting these songs with all these new skills and all these life experiences that we’ve had, and it doesn’t feel like we’re pretending to be teenagers; it feels like we’re playing these songs in a mature, fantastic, reinvigorated way.

“We’ve done the first three shows now, and we feel great. We love it, we come off so excited and the audience responses have been so positive that it’s reinvigorated it even more. We’ve been working really hard on rehearsing up the show because we have very high expectations of this, as we think other people do, so we’re really pumped. It’s even exciting to do press again!”

In the decade since Heidi disbanded, the siblings have been hard at work with their individual music careers – Ella as a solo artist, and Jesse as a teacher and producer with several respected Australian institutions – both of which now feed back into the band. The lineup returns with original drummer Adam Pedretti and “a couple of new friends joining us on bass and keys”.

“With [Ella’s] solo project, she’s done a whole bunch of songs and genres and ways of performing that she didn’t get through Killing Heidi, so she’s enhanced her craft so much more,” says Jesse. “The same with me – I’ve been collaborating with hip hop artists, refugee artists, soul artists and R&B artists, so I’ve learned a whole bunch about different genres that I never would have done. It’s almost like the souped-up ‘Heidi on steroids’ version that’s been amplified a hundred times from ten years ago. It really is the next level of Killing Heidi.”

One could assume working with family in such close proximity would naturally have its strains, but for Jesse, it’s so much a part of his life that he and Ella have found creative ease, using their bond to push their efforts further.

“As soon as we’d finished high school, we were in the band together for another ten years – it wasn’t till the last eight years or so that we stopped working with each other every day, so we don’t really have anything to compare it to,” he says. “But I guess we just have a great working relationship, we still drive each other crazy like brothers and sisters do sometimes, but I think we just have a really kinda shared vision for what we love to do in terms of music, and that’s a nice thing to come back to.”

The other source of pride for Jesse was his residency at Melbourne’s Artful Dodgers, a community arts program where he worked with disadvantaged youths and refugees to build their capacity as musicians and creatives.

“I was the resident musician there for three years and got to foster some amazing relationships with young people and create some amazing music,” he says. “One thing in particular was we worked with a Burundian hip hop duo who were former child soldiers who came here as refugees, and we got to produce and co-write a song with Paul Kelly and them called ‘Child Soldier’. That was a really nice way of me using my professional network in the music industry to make art with these two fantastic young former refugees, that I think just shows that you can bridge these gaps between the top end of the music industry and real grassroots emerging musicians.”

As the music program leader at Melbourne’s Collarts, and as a world-touring musician, Jesse has further honed his skill set while passing on his experience to a new generation of musicians. It’s a position and school of which he’s immensely proud, judging by the tone of his voice.

“[The students] are too young to have experienced when Killing Heidi was at its height of success, but they know some of the songs, and they can watch the YouTube videos,” he says. “There’s just the respect there that, you know, I’m not just a teacher – I’m someone who’s experienced working in the industry and having successes and writing hit songs, that I actually have some practical application. It’s not just about the theory of being a great musician – which is very, very important – but I can show them how to apply it in a contemporary music context, which is why Collarts is the best music university in the country by a mile.”

The kids must have watched some of those YouTube videos, too, because, like the press, all his students want to know one thing: are the red dreads coming back? “I think that’s the most popular question I’ve been asked in the last three months,” Jesse laughs. “I wish I could grow it back! They ask me about it every day.”

Killing Heidi played Twilight at Taronga Zoo on Saturday February 4, supported by Abbe May.

Post originally printed in The BRAG; available at http://thebrag.com/music/killing-heidi-are-back-better-ever-says-jesse-hooper

Staying Underground: An Interview with Ben Ely

19 years ago, Brisbane electro-punks Regurgitator released Unit and, contrary to their thoughts at the time, found a whole lot of people liked their new stuff better than their old stuff, rocketing to mainstream attention with five hit singles.

Skip forward to the eve of Unit’s 20th anniversary, and the band isn’t focused on celebrating the milestone. Instead, Regurgitator are doing something truly unexpected: coming to Sydney Festival with a reimagining (regurgitating?) of one of the most worshipped rock albums of all time, The Velvet Underground & Nico.

Fresh off the back of their 2016 tour, which he wryly describes as “pretty physically challenging at our old age”, founding member and bassist Ben Ely reflects on his first belated encounter with the Velvet Underground record, at a time when he was far more focused on Prince, Metallica, Michael Jackson and Iron Maiden.

“It just sounded really completely alien, like it’s kinda pop music but so completely alien to everything else around,” he remembers. “I think that album and that band inspired so many musicians to think out of the box and have that DIY attitude. A lot of those punk acts like Jonathan Richman and Iggy Pop and all that New York scene is influenced by that sound. I think it’s a pretty great record.”

It’s no surprise that the do-it- yourself vibe rings true for Ely, considering Regurgitator’s penchant for creating on their own terms. The approach suits their distaste for major label interference, their abrasive artistic impulses and a simple broad pragmatism.

“We’ve kinda always recorded very cheaply and bought our own gear and recorded it at home or in a garage – we’ve done most of our records that way,” Ely says. “We’re kinda control freaks and we don’t wanna waste money as well. I guess the idea of going to a studio is quite nice? But we’re just such tight-arses.”

Their days of tight-arsery may be coming to an end, however, as they’re considering booking a studio – “Heaven forbid,” says Ely – to record their next album, currently in gestation.

“Or at least I think we’re talking about going to a mate’s studio,” the bassist laughs.

The ’Gurge – Ely and partners-in- crime Quan Yeomans and Peter Kostic – showcased their lateral thinking in planning for the Velvet Underground gig, appropriating Chinese musical elements into their new vision as a means to pitch it to the National Gallery of Victoria for its Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei exhibition.

“My wife’s a contemporary dancer, and she just did a tour of China with some classical Chinese musicians,” Ely explains. “We met this girl Mindy [Meng Wang] who was really lovely, and she plays the guzheng, which is very similar to the koto. That was kinda fresh in my mind, so I just said, ‘Because it’s Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei it could be cool to do The Velvet Underground, but instead of violins and pianos you could use the guzheng to play those parts.’”

The performance proved the surprise hit of the exhibit, with critics lavishing praise on the band’s last-minute decision to cover ‘When Doves Cry’ in tribute to the late Prince. “He passed away on the day we did the Velvet Underground show,” says Ely. “I don’t even know how to play the song – I mean, it’s very simple, it’s just repeating four chords, that kinda thing. I say that as I’m sitting in my backyard surrounded by purple flowers having fallen off the tree. Oh, it’s so poetic!” he laughs.

Now 46 years old, Ely is prosaic about the loss of his heroes – a staple sensation for music lovers in 2016 – and optimistic about the future. “I think it’s one thing to respect the people that’ve existed and our elders who have made great music and they’ve made great music on major labels and had a massive commercial push behind them, but I think it’s good to get out there and support younger independent artists who are really amazing,” he says, citing bands and labels that have grabbed his attention recently including Bad//Dreems, Summer Flake, Bedroom Suck Records and Rice Is Nice.

“The exciting thing is that our heroes will go, but it’s the circle of life, y’know? It’s just like The Lion King: there’s gonna be some new little cubs that’ll come out and turn into strong lions and make really great music. That’s what I’m getting excited about. Especially in Australia, there’s a lot of great music in Australia and I’m trying to get into that a lot more.”

As for anniversary celebrations, a tour for Unit could well be on the cards. At least, it could be now, as it hadn’t occurred to Ely to celebrate in such a fashion.

“We’d love to do a little tour, that’d be super fun,” he says. “Music is really funny like that; I think it’s the closest thing you can come to in this world of owning a time machine of listening to that, or even if I physically pick up the bass and play and sing some of those songs, it really can teleport you back in time to where you were when you wrote it or recorded it or played it live – so for that reason it’s quite a trippy experience.”

Funnily enough, Regurgitator may already be channelling their adolescent selves into their new record, which is still but a twinkle in their eyes. “At the moment it’s pretty rocky – it’s like our mid-life crisis, instead of getting a Ferrari we’re just playing like we’re 18 again,” Ely laughs. “But who knows, we might turn into MOR country by the time we go to play and record together. We’ll see what happens.”

Regurgitator performed The Velvet Underground & Nico at Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent on Tuesday January 17 as part of Sydney Festival.

Post originally printed in The BRAG; available at http://thebrag.com/music/why-regurgitator-are-taking-velvet-underground-sydney-festival

The Nightmare Lives On: An Interview with Robert Englund

Some 32 years ago, the teens of Springwood first fell prey to a shadow stalking through their dreams.

The bloodthirsty maniac with clawed hands hunted them through their nightmares, able at whim to transform into any one of their deepest fears. His name? Freddy Krueger.

Robert Englund, the man behind that famous burnt visage, has long since hung up the bladed glove, but nevertheless remained endlessly busy with film, television and voiceover work. Returning to our shores for Oz Comic-Con in September, he relishes the opportunity to touch base with fans young and old.

“It’s great for me, because when you’re an actor, you work in a vacuum a lot,” Englund says. “Obviously I’ve experienced the success of my horror movies and earlier projects, but Comic-Cons are a great opportunity to get a lot of feedback on my recent work.”

Krueger is one of the most documented figures in cinema history, but to hear Englund talk of his origins is to hear the story as if for the first time, channelled directly from the recently departed horror auteur Wes Craven.

He explains that Freddy was amalgamated from “a school bully with a German name, Frederik Krüger, who had picked on Wes” and an anecdote in which Craven and his brother had been watched in their bedroom by a homeless man on their street – a man with “soot or sores on his face and an old hat”.

“He looked up and made eye contact with them in their room and they shut the curtains and hid under the blankets for a while,” says Englund, “and when they went back to the window, he was still there! Looking up at their window. Wes always remembered that.”

The final piece of the puzzle came in the form of a disturbing news article chronicling the phenomenon of Cambodian refugees to America’s Midwest dying in their sleep. “They were so alienated from their beautiful, lush green jungle – they were in the flat dry prairie of America,” says Englund. “And they were unable to wake up from their nightmares and write them down as songs or poems or stories, or paint them, and so they were literally dying in their sleep.”

For Craven to fuse all these elements together into one timeless character was testament to his skill, and Englund cannot speak highly enough of his former mentor.

“Wes changed horror three times,” he says. “With the original Last House On The Left and The Hills Have Eyes, which are almost like David Lynch meets Bergman meets… I dunno, some incredible hardcore Italian director. Then later on he did the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise, which is a complete American dark fairytale myth. And then he did the Scream franchise, which of course was his wiseacre valentine to the fans, a kind of deconstructed horror acknowledging all the stuff that the fans know and understand; all of the tropes and the gimmicks that the fans are wise to, and yet still pulling the rug out from underneath them and scaring them at the same time.”

The eight films in which Englund terrorised Elm Street are merely a drop of blood in the lake of his filmography. In the last year alone, the 69-year-old has been involved on three major international features and a video game for Warner Brothers, about which he is “sworn to secrecy, but it’s safe to say that it may be one of the biggest games and one of the most popular games of all time”.

While he appears excited about the recently completed Midnight Man, a starring vehicle for him alongside Elm Street alumni Lin Shaye, he’s got the most to say about an obscure picture in development for 2018 called Abruptio.

“It’s about a strange young man who works in an office situation, and he lives with his mother, and he’s very troubled and lives in a kind of fantasy world,” Englund says. “But the gimmick of the movie is that it’s all being made with lifesize puppets, and yeah, it’s strange! And they fornicate and swear and curse. It’s funny and it’s nasty and it’s sexy, so I’m really anxious to go back and do some more work on it, see how they’re doing.”

Despite the glut of work, Englund quietly carries Krueger’s gargantuan horror legacy on his shoulders, especially in the wake of Craven’s passing. He has signalled he will not be returning to the dreamscape of Elm Street, though he did have ideas for what could next befall the denizens of Springwood.

“My idea was that I wanted to bring back the memory of the character Tina [Amanda Wyss] from the original, and my idea was that she had an older sister, a college-age sister, who came back and researched the death of her sister and became another sort of card-carrying survivor girl in the pursuit of Freddy Krueger,” he says.

For now, that tale is just a dream from which Englund’s waking life keeps him. But the edges of the nightmare peek past his affable front, and Krueger’s nasty irreverence slips out when the actor is pressed on his favourite kill in the series.

“My favourite kill is the young lad from Part 6 [Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare] with the hearing aid, that Freddy goes after. I love that he’s a special needs kid and Freddy is an equal opportunity killer.”

Oz Comic-Con 2016, with appearances from Robert Englund, Daniel Portman, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Aaron Ashmore and many more, takes place Saturday September 10 – Sunday September 11 at Sydney Exhibition Centre, Glebe Island.

Post originally printed in The BRAG; available at http://thebrag.com/arts/robert-englund

Gender-Bending Revolution: An Interview with Kevin Barnes

“How do you identify?” asks Kevin Barnes in the opener of Innocence Reaches, the latest record from US indie-pop weirdos Of Montreal, finally articulating a question that’s been at the core of his performance practice for the last 20 years.

As stories of diverse individuals are becoming a mainstay of the pop cultural conversation and larger audiences are seeking out non-cisgendered art, Barnes has grown increasingly optimistic about the timbre of the broader cultural discourse.

“I wanted to give the album a title that was representative of my state of mind, which is that I’ve become more optimistic and more positive within my view of the world and my view of my life,” he says. “Where we are as a band [is] wanting to create a very inclusive, very open-minded environment within our world, within what we do as artists.

“I think it’s exciting, actually, that the transgender conversation is happening on a more mainstream level. Everybody is having to engage and we’re not trying to sweep it under the rug as much as we have in the past, or not trying to ostracise people, alienating people who are transitioning into other genders or considering it. I would like for society to get to the point where nobody has a fixed sense of gender or gender identity, and we can all just play with it and keep it sorta fluid and have fun with it. It’s more interesting than people having this strict sense of what it is to be a man or what it is to be a woman.”

Barnes follows Judith Butler’s thinking on gender, seeing it as performative, constructed and malleable. Since the band’s inception in 1996, Barnes has toyed with gender politics, eschewing the masculinist rock star form for a queer aesthetic that looks – and feels – transformative.

“There’s always been a gender-bending aspect to [our show], especially with my performance … and this tour is going to be even more drag-heavy than the last,” he says. “A lot of my friends have been getting more and more into drag and we’re making it more part of our lives.

“It’s sort of inevitable that once you put on a pair of fishnet stockings and high-heel shoes or something, you’re gonna take on this new identity. It’s like how Superman must feel when he’s actually wearing his cape; probably feels very differently from when he’s wearing his suit. It’s healthy to get into a new state of mind, and of course, you’re still yourself. Even if you create a persona, it’s still based on who you are – you’re just bringing different aspects of your psyche to the surface.”

Exploration of gender identity comes more naturally to Barnes than to his bandmates, and the glamorous performance style hasn’t yet stretched to everyone with whom he shares the stage. “I’m really the only one that’s really into it. I mean, to this point – maybe once they see me spending so much time on my make-up and my fake eyelashes and all the fun I’m having dressing up, then maybe they’ll wanna join in too,” he laughs.

“That’s really the aim: people can be what they want and they don’t feel any pressure. There’s not this bullying that has to go on either side, you know, as far as like, ‘How dare you just identify as what you’re biologically born, that’s so boring.’ That never happens, but it shouldn’t happen, either. Everyone should just be free on whatever level, explore it or not explore it, and let other people do whatever they want as well.”

With its electro/disco core and glam rock sheen, Innocence Reaches embodies Barnes’ desire for inclusivity by rejecting the gloomier tones and psychological exorcisms of its predecessor, Aureate Gloom. Darkness still lingers at the periphery – as well it should, given songs like ‘It’s Different For Girls’, in which Barnes directly tackles the everyday injustices faced by women – but hope and optimism ultimately triumph.

“I don’t really think of it as a feminist statement or an anthem necessarily, just sort of an observation from my perspective. I have an 11-year-old daughter, so I can kinda see things through her eyes and see how she experiences life. And just being a sensitive human being, I can see how it is for women … There’s just a subtle but often not-so-subtle misogyny that exists and that women have to deal with every day; the fact that they can basically get harassed constantly on so many different levels and in ways that men never are.”

While it’s an unpleasant truth to explore, Barnes thinks of it more as a contribution to the broader conversation around gender and equality, rather than a militant call to arms.

“It’s just another thread in the fabric of it all,” he says. “I haven’t really gotten into public outreach or putting a lot of time into different programs that are set up to educate and enlighten people. So I guess on a level, maybe I’m just too lazy, but I’d like for [change] to just happen organically, and in a subtle, sort of unconscious way.”

“There’s a pretty strong kind of underground revolution that’s working its way up into the mainstream more and more. And that’s exciting.”

On their current tour, Of Montreal are bringing their newfound buoyancy to international audiences – and hopefully soon to Australia for the first time in six years – pulling together deep cuts and fan favourites in complex, seamless medleys.

“The songs are all connected together, like a collage,” says Barnes. “It’ll be very theatrical, and visually very immersive and psychedelic. We’re very excited about hitting the road with this stuff.”

Innocence Reaches by Of Montreal is out now through Polyvinyl / Create/Control.

Post originally printed in The BRAG; available at http://thebrag.com/music/montreal

Being Your Own Villain: An Interview with Adam Murphy

A story as ancient and timeless as Aladdin carries a strange sense of simulacra as it comes to the Sydney stage.

This mammoth production, itself an adaptation of Disney’s latest Broadway musical, finds its roots in both the animated film that enchanted a generation and the mythos of One Thousand And One Nights.

Naturally, finding one’s own voice within such a wealth of tradition and history is a daunting task, but especially when it requires making a character as iconic as the villainous vizier Jafar your own. It’s a role that Aussie performer Adam Murphy has taken to with delight.

“It was the laugh in the film – and me trying to find my [own] evil laugh – where the voice started coming,” he says. “It was actually a prerequisite in the breakdown of the character: ‘Must be able to have impressive evil laugh’.”

As with many elements of the production, Murphy’s scheming sorcerer takes cues from Jonathan Freeman’s vocal performance in the film without being beholden to imitation.

“Jonathan Freeman had all those levels of darkness, and the feigning to the sultan, his public face and his lair face – you know, his actual persona,” Murphy says. “You can hear that in [my] voice, and it’s not a copycat but it’s in the same land. If it was on a musical scale, it’s in the same few notes. So that was the starting point, and I also found that looking at the animated film, [I was] working out how I could do that physically – he’s so lean and angular, so that gives you ideas, but you can’t exactly copy that.”

Like Julie Taymor’s staging of The Lion King before it, the musical Aladdin is no mere duplicate. Under the direction of Broadway legend Casey Nicholaw (best known for co-directing The Book Of Mormon), it’s become an iridescent spectacle loaded with intricate choreography, and the primary cast members have been given considerable freedom.

“It’s not a cookie cutter sort of production where we’re doing exactly the same thing as Broadway,” says Murphy. “We’re being given the chance to inject our own personality and ideas into it as well, so it’s been a really great experience. I met [Nicholaw] in the audition process very briefly, and it was a little daunting. He knows what he wants straight away, so almost as you walk in the door, you’ve either got the job or you haven’t. Or it’s yours to lose.”

Murphy is of course humbled and honoured to have received the role, and jokes that Nicholaw may have cast him simply because he was “the tallest guy there”. “I’m six-foot-one, and with the heels in the shoes and the hat that I’m wearing, I’m gonna be like six-foot-six or something. And the staff is taller than me! So it’s very impressive and a little bit scary to move in. And with flowing capes and menacing, maniacal laughter and all that sort of thing, it’s a fun character to play.”

The height element does make it tricky for Murphy’s primary stage partner, his nefarious sidekick Iago, portrayed by Aljin Abella – who, contrary to the film’s representation, is human. “I’ll tell him to stop parroting – ‘Why must you parrot everything I say? Stop squawking!’ – so there’s references … the relationship is the same, the character is the same, it’s just not a parrot,” Murphy says.

“There’s not much they don’t do together, you know – they’re a duo. They’re a partnership. There’s obviously the hierarchy … and that’s where a lot of the comedy comes from – the way Jafar treats Iago, but without Iago, Jafar wouldn’t get to where he is because he goes nuts. And Iago’s the one who’ll just pop over his shoulder and place a little nugget of information in his ear.”

As for Aladdin’s sidekick Abu, he’s been transformed into three human friends – Kazim, Babkak and Omar. Murphy explains that the choice keeps the production uniform and distinct. “If [Abu] was a monkey, then you’re trying to create exactly the film, and this isn’t what this show is,” he says. “There’s new songs especially for the stage show. I think there’s old songs that weren’t used for the film that have been put back in and used, and it just gives it more of a musical theatre experience than a pantomime.”

It’s a reminder that this version of Aladdin is designed for a broad audience, not just for kids. Part of the appeal is the elaborate stagecraft – including a legitimate flying carpet – and even primary actors like Murphy aren’t privy to the tricks. “There’s a few magical elements that I’ve not rehearsed in properly yet, and I’m really looking forward to it,” he says. “Apparently it’s knock-your-socks-off stuff.”

Murphy may be crafting his own take on the villain, but he already has two fans parroting his efforts: his two daughters, both Disney fanatics who’ve been more than willing to help their dad rehearse. “They’re more excited about Frozen: The Musical,” he laughs, nodding to Disney’s next major Broadway development. “But yeah, they’ve been very excited about Dad being a villain. They tell their teachers I’m Jafar and none of them believe it.”

It seems Murphy has made his own Faustian pact: sure, his daughters may have stopped singing ‘Let It Go’, but now they’re becoming their own little villains. “They’re both really good at the laugh,” he says, with more than a hint of mischievous pride. “That was a surprise.”

[Main image: Aladdin – Adam Murphy in rehearsals Photo by Rupert Kaldor]

Aladdin starts Wednesday August 3 at the Capitol Theatre.

Post originally printed in The BRAG; available at http://thebrag.com/arts/aladdin