2019 marks the 45th anniversary of another of Australia’s iconic rock bands, ‘The Angels’. The band formed in Adelaide in 1974 under the name ‘The Keystone Angels’ and after recommendations from both Malcolm Young & Bon Scott the band dropped the ‘Keystone’ and signed to the now legendary Albert Production record label, under the guidance of George Young & Harry Vanda. The Angels made their mark on the music scene with their classic no-frills, hard-driving boogie rock. 45 years on and the band has continued to tour and write still with as much enthusiasm and energy as they had back in the 70’s. Brother John & Rick Brewster along with John’s son Sam (bass), Screaming Jets vocalist Dave Gleeson & Nick Norton (drums) are once again embarking on another Red Hot Summer Tour which sees them line-up with such acts as Suzi Quatro, Baby Animals, Jon Stevens, The Screaming Jets, Moving Pictures & Chocolate Starfish. The Rockpit managed to secure some time with John Brewster to discuss what it’s like to be out on the road with such a strong touring line-up, his memories of working with George & Harry and what the future holds for The Angels…
Sean: Hi John, thank you for talking to The Rockpit this morning. With such a long and successful career behind you, you guys are once more getting ready to embark on another Red Hot Summer Tour, this time on series two which kicks off on 16th February in the Barossa Valley. It’s almost the same line-up that played on Rottnest Island in 2018 but with the addition of Jon Stevens…
John: Hey Sean, yes it’s such a strong line-up again. We are looking forward to the tour as always and it’s so much fun to do. We love playing with these artists and Dave (Gleeson) gets to sing in two bands [laughs]
Sean: [laughs] I know, it’s incredible how he does that. I’ve spoken to the guys from Chocolate Starfish a few times now and they just reiterate what you’ve just said – such a great line-up and so much fun to do. But sadly for me The Angels have always been one of the bands that have eluded me – I always seem to miss seeing you live for one reason or another.
John: Oh really? We’ll I’m pretty sure we have some WA dates lined up this year so this could be your chance [laughs] although I’m not sure of the exact dates I’m pretty sure we are coming back to Perth in the middle of the year.
Sean: Fantastic. I’ll keep an eye out and lock it in on the calendar. I see that Series Two has nine shows, so plenty of dates for everyone to get to see you all.
John: I think that an extra show has been added now too on 17th March at Sandstone Point in Queensland.
Sean: Excellent. Obviously the major hits are what everyone expects to hear but how do you construct the rest of the set list?
John: Yeah, that’s a really good question because obviously we have a whole lot of songs. This year is our 45th year as a band and we are very fortunate in the fact that we have a lot of songs that people enjoy. We’ve been lucky that so many fans love what we’ve done. So we try and keep the show with the songs that aren’t singles, they are still big songs though – songs like “Skid Row After Dark” and “No Exit” which was never a single but is a great live number. But all the singles will be in there too.
Sean: How does it feel, thinking back 45 years to when you started writing these songs that have now become almost synonymous with Australian summer and see these huge crowds singing these anthemic songs with you and back at you?
John: It’s a wonderful feeling. It’s incredible really. It sometimes gets even more incredible, like early last year, back in July we got to play all our songs with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and a 40-piece choir. And we are going to be doing it again on 4th April at The Sydney Opera House and two days later on the 6th April at Hamer Hall in Melbourne (www.ticketmaster.com.au). It’s then that you realise that what you wrote back then, Rick & I were brought up in a classical music environment and we realised that must have rubbed off on us because we have kind of interesting chord changes so when you start putting orchestral instruments with it something really special happens. It works amazingly well – “Fashion and Fame” for example with an orchestra and a choir is absolutely massive.
Sean: Must be as incredible to see & hear as it is to play amongst these amazing musicians. I’d love to take you back if I may to where it all began, because I’m kind of following my own ‘Vanda & Young’ journey with some of the incredible artists I’ve been getting to interview. I was lucky enough to talk to Angry Anderson last year and he spoke with such fondness and at times quite emotional recalling those days. What are your memories of working and recording at Albert Productions?
John: Yes it was special. I don’t get teary but I certainly get close to it when I think back and those memories will never die. We learnt so much from Harry & George – George was amazing and Harry was his off-sider but the two of them together as a team were incredible. George was probably the person I would listen to more than anyone and he just had this way of talking where he would never tell you what to do but he would just throw in ideas – like throwing a C sharp minor in there or something subtle like that – and me and Rick would walk out the room and try it and suddenly realise how fantastic it made that piece of music sound. He just had this way. I don’t think there would ever have been an AC/DC without George Young and Harry Vanda and I don’t think there would have been and Angels for that matter either, even though they handed production over to Rick & me. And that showed George & Harry at their best right there too – they saw something in us… I mean when they first handed production over to us we thought they had lost interested in The Angels, as we hadn’t even made it & we were very much struggling at that point. So they handed it over to us and we thought it was going to be all over but it was far from the case. What had happened was that they had seen something developing and they wanted to give us a free reign to develop it ourselves and as George said at the time, they were only down the hall. Every time we did a take of a new song we would get them to come over and have a listen and give it the thumbs up – wonderful times.
Sean: I love hearing these little bits of history coming directly from those involved. I feel really honoured so thank you. It reiterates what Angry was saying about it being a magical experience…
John: It was magical. To be in a stable of artists like ‘Ted Mulry’, ‘John Paul Young’, ‘Rose Tattoo’, ‘AC/DC’ and ourselves and also with what George & Harry were doing themselves with Flash In The Pan… I mean we were there when ‘Stevie Wright’ was recording “Evie”… just incredible stuff.
Sean: I’ve made it a kind of unofficial personal project to look into it more and getting to talk to people like you just makes me want to find out even more.
John: Have you discovered ‘The Marcus Hook Roll Band’ yet?
Sean: I have, but as yet have not listened to them. I believe it’s George & Harry with a pre-AC/DC Malcolm & Angus Young on there.
John: Yes it is. You’ll love it. There is some great stuff on there. It’s fascinating and there are some things you find out listening to it – one of them is that Harry is a great rock singer and the other is that the tracks that George sings on are just fantastic. It’s pretty raw but it’s just great. I hope you enjoy it Sean.
Sean: I’m looking forward to listening to it even more now. Back to ‘The Angels’ and I’ve been listening to your last album, 2014 release “Talk the Talk”, which is great and with the fact that you guys are regulars on these hugely successful Red Hot Summer Tours are there plans to record and release an new albums in the foreseeable future?
John: We’ve got one at about 75% – 80% done right now. We are also releasing the ‘Symphony of Angels’ live show on album too. And they when we can get ourselves back in the studio we will finish this other album which I have to say sounds fantastic so far. It’s an interesting thing about making an album. The best way I can describe it is that it’s really good for the soul of the band – to keep on writing songs and I really encourage my son Sam to write too, as well as our drummer Nick, who is a fantastic singer-songwriter. We’ve also got Dave to write too. He didn’t write much for the Screaming Jets but he’s a terrific lyricist so we give him some rhythm tracks and sees what he comes back with. So it’s all very creative and it’s very good for the whole creative workings of the band. There’s an argument to say our repertoire is set in stone because we know what people want to hear from us so why bother being creative but we still care about our music so we work through our tracks like a journey – we want to choose a good opening song then by track four do we want to take it back down a little, you know? Just like how we did it in the first place. Reality now is that people go online and stream one song rather than listen to the album in its entirety. Being old fashioned I find that a bit sad really but on the other hand people are still accessing your music which is great.
Sean: I do stream but mainly to listen to music before an interview – I will always try to buy hard copies of albums and I think it’s still apparent that fans do to judging by the way the merch desks are kept busy at gigs. Certainly vinyl copies seem to be the first thing to sell out at a gig, which is great.
John: And that’s the wonderful thing about being in a rock n roll band for 45 years and doing so much live work like we do. People can access those things and we have a lot of fun doing it too. The band is as red hot today as it ever was.
Sean: You touched on the fact your son Sam is in the band, how does it feel when you look across and see him standing up there alongside you?
Jon: It’s always wonderful. Sam came into the band for sad reasons – because of Chris Bailey dying. While Chris was off having operations and when he was recovering Sam stepped up to the plate and filled in for Chris. But sadly we eventually lost Chris, although he did come into the studio and record on the “Talk the Talk” album, I think it was about five of the twelve tracks with Sam playing on the other seven. He wasn’t well at the time but he came in with his young son Ollie, which was a great memory for us and the day that Chris died, Sam said he felt he shouldn’t be playing with us, he didn’t feel it was right. And I told him that Chris had handed Sam the baton and that’s what we do – life goes on.
Sean: Incredible to see three Brewster’s in the line-up.
John: We do some shows as The Brewster Brothers, which is Rick, me and my three sons! Tom plays drums, Harry played guitar, and Rick jumps on the keyboards so we can be a complete band as The Brewster’s [laughs]
Sean: I love to ask which three guests you’d like to invite to a two hour restaurant reservation from the music world, dead or alive, just to rack their brains about whatever you like. Who would you invite John?
John: George Young in a heartbeat. Bob Dylan would be there too. I’m a huge Dylan freak. Let me think about the third one – probably Russell Morris. I’m a big fan of Russell Morris; I think he’s a good guy. I reckon he’d round it up nicely.
Sean: Dylan’s an interesting one…
John: He’d probably rewrite the menu [laughs]
Sean: What would be the last album you listened to?
John: ‘Miles Davis’ “A Kind of Blue” – I like that stuff. Aside from that I’ve been listening to ‘The Beatles’ a lot lately. I love ‘The Beatles’ – it’s just wonderful classic music that never gets old.
Sean: I love The Beatles too and I don’t mind a bit of McCartney’s solo stuff but for some reason my wife can’t stand him…
John: I can kind of understand what she means so tell her I have some empathy for her [laugh]… for me there’s something about that Lennon & McCartney combination that was incredible. These things can just happen naturally – it’s hard to analyse but I do get what she means because I’m not a huge McCartney fan either. I think he’s brilliant at what he does as a solo artist but for me anyway, I think Neil Finn took over where ‘The Beatles’ left off and I think Neil Finn is better than McCartney. I mean the ‘Crowded House’ stuff is pretty amazing.
Sean: We are so lucky that we are in a strong place as music fans at this point in time. There are some wonderful new bands out there but also with the experienced musicians like you still out there doing it.
John: We are very lucky people really. We have all been through some rollercoaster rides in our careers but the passion for the music was the thing that started it all for us – we listened and grew up on some great music and that laid the foundations for us to be able to write some great music too. None of that spirit ever goes.
Sean: I’m looking forward to hearing what The Angels have for us next on the new album.
John: We were sitting in my house the other week and my son Harry was over from Sydney. We were heading off to the studio later that day and we’d just had breakfast when Harry grabbed a guitar and stated playing a song he’d written – I told him we were going to go straight to the studio and record it. So we did. We still need to write & add the lyrics to it yet but it’s just fantastic.
Sean: It must be a proud moment when you see the next generation of Brewster’s continuing what you’ve been doing most of your life.
John: The last two to three weeks of the tour in 2018 I was playing a wonderful Les Paul that Sam had made. It’s a beautiful instrument so I’ve been playing that. It’s great that this generation not only digs our music but can make this beautiful Les Paul guitar too. We get a lot of young people at our shows which are great too.
Sean: I have one final question. If you could be credited with writing any song that’s ever been written, what song would you like your name credited for?
John: “Desolation Row” by Bob Dylan, it’s one of the greatest songs of all time. It’s amazing.
Sean: I shall add it to my play list of answers. John, thank you so much for your time and behalf of all of us at The Rockpit we wish you and the guys all the best wishes for the Red Hot Summer Tour as well as for the rest of an exciting 2019 ahead for The Angels. Hope to catch you in WA later this year.
John: Thanks Sean, it’s been great. All the best.
