Fifty years in one industry is a long stretch for anybody. When you have spent many of those fifty years challenging your musically creativity and at times direction, while still maintaining the highest of quality levels when delivering the end product… well, that is just a gift. Russell Morris is one of those wonderful artists. His ability to change styles & genres seemingly effortlessly, while still sitting at the top of the tree is a testament to the man who I found not only to be humble & level headed but an absolute pleasure to talk to. After releasing the ARIA Blues & Roots Album of the Year in 2016 with ‘Red Dirt – Red Heart’ he has spiced things up with a wonderful new album ‘Black and Blue Heart’ which goes back to a bit more of his rockier roots. As Russell prepared for a countrywide tour, The Rockpit managed to catch him for a chat about the new album, his influences and skipping school to watch The Easybeats…
Russ: Hey Sean. How you doing?
Sean: Great thanks Russell, hope your well. I’m going to jump straight into it because I have so much to talk to you about but let’s start by talking about your wonderful new album ‘Black and Blue Heart’. I’ve had it on for the last few weeks and it’s fantastic. You must be so pleased with how it’s come out.
Russ: Pretty well thank you. Ah, thank you very much. I’m glad you like it. Thank you.
Sean: It’s wonderfully diverse throughout.
Russ: I’d done the three blues & roots albums previously and they were historical, so I didn’t want to become predictable with my music. I want to do things that I love but I don’t want to do the same dance all the time. I’m not going to do the tango for the rest of my life… I’ll try and learn a new dance. But I have to be able to relate to it – it has to be a part of me so that what’s I did with this album. I purposely wanted to make it contemporary and almost on the edge of being street music… sort of a cross between Oasis & Powderfinger really. That’s why I went with Bernard Fanning & Nick DiDia, because I wanted that edge that they can bring.
Sean: So many wonderful tracks on there. I love ‘Sitting Pretty’ & ‘Black and Blue Heart’ but the one I’d love to ask you about is the final track, the gorgeous ‘Forever Remembered’… It’s incredibly moving.
Russ: It’s great that you say because when I wrote ‘Forever Remembered’ I told my wife that I thought this might be an important song because it’s going to touch people. What happened, when we played on the album, Ian Peres (Wolfmother) who’s just the best keyboard player ever, when we completed the recording he went to the toilet and when he came back he touched me on the arm and he tried to talk and he just suddenly teared up, turned around and went back into the toilet. When he came back Bernard Fanning asked him what was wrong, did he have hay fever or something. Ian said it was that the track was so emotional for him and that it had really rocked him. Just recently, the guy who took the photograph for the album cover came round with his sister because he hadn’t heard the album so I played it for him and we got to the last track and they both burst into tears.
Sean: It certainly is a powerful song. When I listen to it through headphones I can hear the emotions in the lyrics. The title track reminds me a bit of Roger Waters more recent work…
Russ: I’m not sure where all these songs all came from… I feel that when we are born we are like a bucket of marbles that are poured out at the top of a hill. As they roll down that hill they pick up different contours of the land and some roll right, some left and no matter how hard I’ve tried to steer to the left, the marbles have continued to roll to the right. When I started writing this album they were all the songs that just spilled out so there will be influences in there and Pink Floyd were one of my major influences and I remember seeing them at Wembley, which was sensational. The Rolling Stones are also a big influence as are all the blues acts, but there are other acts that I really love too like Oasis. The very first track ‘Ain’t no Angel’ was a bit of a hat-tilt to Steppenwolf… I loved them and especially that distorted organ sound they had and the full on nature of their songs.
Sean: So I have to ask, are you a fan of Chris Rea because I pick up a bit of that in a couple of the tracks, ‘Asleep at the Wheel’ & ‘Not My Lucky Day’?
Russ: Now isn’t that funny… someone else said that to me as well. I wish I could write songs like Chris Rea [laughs]. He’s an incredible songwriter but someone I’ve not really sat down and listened to enough of his albums.
Sean: So was writing the album a long process?
Russ: No, not really. I moved to Queensland and wrote all the songs in the space of four months. The only song that’s really old on the album is ‘Is There Anybody Out There’ which I wrote with Eddie Rayner from Split Ends and Crowded House.
Sean: And what about recording the tracks? Was that a long process?
Russ: Well, I gave Bernard & Nick the songs on a USB stick and said to them not to waste my time because I’m too old and been in the music business too long and don’t want it to be a project just to turn some income over for them. And they just told me straight that that’s not how they work and if they didn’t like it they’d turn it down. So two days later they rang me and told me they loved what I had put together and thought they could make a great album from the material I had sent them. So we sat down and discussed how I wanted to do it and I wanted to try do it like Bob Dylan had recorded ‘Blood on the Tracks’ – I didn’t want the musicians to know the songs that well when we all went in the studio. I wanted it to sound spontaneous – I don’t want the guitar player having it for four weeks and working out all these intricate parts that wring all the life out of it… I want him flying by the seat of his pants. Bernard & Nick knew exactly the guys to pick to play and they went in a recorded fourteen tracks in only a week, then the keyboards went on the following week in just two days and then I did the vocals in just one day after that. So, it was a very quick album to record.
Sean: I love it when things are recorded with almost that ‘live’ feel. I don’t want to sound disrespectful when I say this but there is maybe the odd ‘off’ note in there or something like that…
Russ: Oh they are definitely there, believe me [laughs]… there was only two notes I made them take out to be fair. They were just too annoying to me – one was in ‘Black and Blue Heart’, it was in the first verse and sounded so flat and I was like “that has got to go” [laughs] and ‘Asleep at the Wheel’ had one of the longer notes I held and it was just a bit “how’s ya father” so to speak [laughs]… there were others but they refused to take those ones out and there a couple of guitar notes that are questionable but we decided to leave that all in.
Sean: I love hearing that because it makes it all so much more ‘real’. So, you have plenty of dates around the country to support the album I see but with such a long and wonderful career behind you how do you go about selecting songs for the shows?
Russ: It is difficult because there is always someone in the audience that doesn’t get to hear a song they love and with the sheer amount of material I have I just can’t be on stage for five hours [laughs]. So we have to pick and choose what we are going to play and just hope that the crowd will enjoy what we have selected. Depending on the venue and crowd size I will pick songs accordingly. We recently performed in a church in Adelaide and it was a great gig and it was called ‘The Trinity Sessions’. Everyone has worked there and it’s great, all the best acts have played there – it’s just mighty. But as a venue you can’t hit it too hard musically so we changed the songs up accordingly and brought in different songs that would work in that environment. So I will do that now and I have that luxury to be able to bring in other songs.
Sean: I’m guessing acoustically you get to hear your songs in a completely different way when playing somewhere like that…
Russ: Yes it does. It gives you that lovely feel. You get to hear a wonderful echo on some songs, as long as the echo isn’t too much and you can’t pick out any clean notes because it’s all bouncing around too much.
Sean: Changing the subject slightly, I was hoping to ask you about your memories of starting out in the industry because I’ve spoken to both Angry Anderson (Rose Tattoo) & John Brewster (The Angels) about their early days working with George (Young) & Harry (Vanda) at Alberts Productions but your beginnings were very different with EMI and Johnny Young & Ian (Molly) Meldrum.
Russ: There were so many great artists around. I was a little bit self-conscious because when I started off in the first band we were playing blues music & Tamla Motown and that was my love. Then all of a sudden Ian Meldrum came along and said he wanted to manage us and produce our songs but he said we had to become a little bit more commercial so when the band split up and I went solo Ian wanted me to go even more commercial and so I became like a teeny-bopper hero. I followed what he said because at the time I thought he must know what he was talking about because he got us up there & got us the deals but halfway along that road I suddenly wasn’t sure I wanted to be that kind of artist and thought to myself “what am I going to do here”? Ian and I would have terrible arguments about it until we finally ended up splitting, so I went out on my own, decided to write everything myself and if it sunk then so be it but I was going to live on my own strengths. It took me a long time to shake the teeny-bopper image and I was envious of all those other bands… although The Easybeats were a teeny-bopper band but they had more credibility. I just felt that I had gone a bit too soft and I needed to change it up.
Sean: I just hear these wonderful stories from all you incredible artists and the one phrase that comes up time and time again is “how magical it all was”.
Russ: It was magically. I remember wagging school once to go see a lunchtime concert by The Easybeats and that was the galvanising moment. I had heard the Rolling Stones, which had blown my mind with songs like ‘I’m a King Bee’ and ‘Can I Get a Witness’ and all that, so when I saw The Easybeats I suddenly thought “Wow, I would love to do that”. They were phenomenal and the music that Harry & George produced was out of this world and to this day their influences can be heard everywhere. If you listen to all those songs recorded on Alberts, because I’ve talked to John Brewster about this a fair bit, the guitar sounds… they had the best guitar sounds out of any one. The Angels, Rose Tattoo, The Easybeats, AC/DC, John Paul Young – their guitar sounds were the best over everybody! They were fantastic because they knew how to record & capture that sound. John also told me that they were just all so generous with one another and they would share ideas – he said it was all just magnificent.
Sean: John put me on to The Marcus Hook Roll Band recording with George & Harry and a very young Malcom & Angus Young…
Russ: Wonderful stuff. I remember John telling me this story – he said they would all sit around and play guitars and what-not. Well one of the guitarists from Rose Tattoo walked in and Angus was playing something and he said to Angus, “Wow that’s great, what’s that song?” And Angus said to him, “oh, it’s nothing really, I’m just fiddling around making up some riffs. If you want it you can use it”. And so he took it and that riff became the start of ‘Bad Boy for Love’. It’s just unbelievable stuff and the fact they all shared their ideas is why they were such a healthy company.
Sean: I love hearing these amazing stories – quite incredible. Another highlight of your career was playing Simon Zealotes in the Jesus Christ Superstar production that broke records all around the country in 1992. You are now the third member of the main cast I’ve managed to interview after Angry & Jon Stevens. I’m hoping for the full set – just John (Farnham) & Kate (Ceberano) to go [laughs]. What was that like to be in that incredible production?
Russ: [laugh] ‘Simon the Likeable’ they liked to call me. Remember Max Smart from the TV show Get Smart? There was a character called Simon the Likeable who was a criminal… it was great [laughs]. It was a wonderful production to work on. Did Angry tell you what we used to do? We were terrible for playing tricks on each other. There’s a point in the show where Angry (Herod) has to confront John (Jesus) and sing to him. Well, Angry would get people to write on his head in ball point pen, which the audience couldn’t see of course saying things that are probably unprintable in this interview [laughs] (Russell tells me – and he’s right…it’s totally unprintable but extremely hilarious)… So John used to have to hold him during the song and then let him go. Well, some of the nights John wouldn’t let Angry go [laughs]. We’d put water in each other’s shoes…itching powder in our clothes… we had so much fun [laughs].
Sean: [laugh] If only the audience knew back then what was going on. Another of my favourite stage shows that you appeared in was The Rocky Horror Show.
Russ: Yeah, I was Riff Raff the good looking one [laughs]. In all seriousness I really loved playing that role. When I first started out I was going to college and in the back of my mind I wanted to be an actor and I wanted to be a horror actor – I wanted to be like Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff or Vincent Price – that’s what I really wanted to do. I never got the chance to do it so the closest thing was Rocky Horror which isn’t really horror at all – more like a huge, camp, wonderful party. It was great I enjoyed it very much. When I was in LA many years ago I was lucky enough to get invited to see it at The Roxy with the whole original cast just before they made the movie – Meat Loaf, Tim Curry and all of the rest of them in this tiny little club on Sunset Boulevard that held around three hundred people.
Sean: As we near the end of our chat I always like to finish with some regular questions, if that’s OK? If I booked you a restaurant table and you could invite three guests from the music world, dead or alive, who would you like to join you?
Russ: Good question. Nat King Cole would be my first one then probably Ray Charles and Robert Johnson. I think that would be a really interesting evening with those people. If I was allowed a fourth one I’d invite Hank Williams.
Sean: Nice table – Nat & Hank are new names I’ve not had before. What was the last album you listened to Russell?
Russ: The last album I listened to was Oasis’s ‘What’s the Story Morning Glory’. I had it on in the car earlier. It’s an absolutely perfect album – there’s not a dud song on there – sensational.
Sean: Great album indeed. If you could be credited with writing any song ever written what song would you chose?
Russ: Another good question… ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ by Bob Dylan. There are so many great songs lyrically like ‘The Boxer’ by Paul Simon which is astounding and even ‘The End of the Innocence’ by Don Henley which is another exceptional song – some songs that lyrically just want to make me what to weep.
Sean: This question brings up some fantastic answers… I’d forgotten how much I used to love ‘Vincent’ by Don McLean until Suzi Quatro picked that as her song.
Russ: That’s a song that used to bring me to tears because I almost kind of identified myself with Vincent Van Gogh because I thought the poor guy had such a horror of a life, towards the end he started to sell a few things and his brother had supported him for so long but he was so tortured and so many people laughed at his artwork – he would have been so chuffed with the power & emotion that song creates. Imagine if he had known someone in the future was going to write such a beautiful song about him that would bring people to tears. He would have been so happy.
Sean: It’s been wonderful to talk to you and thank you for sharing such fantastic stories – it’s been a real pleasure. On behalf of us all here at The Rockpit we wish you all the best for the new album and subsequent shows and I look forward to catching your gig in Fremantle on Friday 3rd May.
Russ: It’s been great Sean. Make sure you come and say hi to me and the guys after the show. Thank you for your time & support.
Sean: Thank you Russell.
For more visit: http://russellmorris.com.au/
