Australian actor Alan Fletcher is one of the most instantly recognizable faces on television, not only in his home country but also across much of the world. After brief stints on the US show Love Boat, Fletcher has gone on to become the third longest serving actor in Australian television history with his character, the ever-popular Dr. Karl Kennedy, having first appeared on Neighbours back in 1994. Add to that a variety of theatre appearances over the years as well and it’s difficult to see how Alan could find time for much else.
But Alan Fletcher has another passion other than acting and that is his love for music. A chance encounter at a live venue back in 2004 eventually lit the fuse for Alan to begin a remarkable journey with his resulting band Waiting Room, which eventuated in an album, tours of the UK as well as a twelve year residency at The Elephant & Wheelbarrow in St. Kilda. The Rockpit tracked Alan down to his home town of Melbourne during the start of the pandemic that has now gripped the world and discussed how he is giving back to struggling artists with his Cameo video shout outs, how Waiting Room ended up touring the UK and his memories of the Perth live scene…
Sean: Good afternoon Alan, thank you so much for your time for a chat.
Alan: You’re most welcome Sean.
Sean: You probably won’t remember but we bumped into each other at Palms at Crown in Melbourne, back in 2018. It was a Jon Steven’s Greatest Hits show and I came over to say hello. We briefly got chatting about your love for music and joked that we’d catch up to talk about it during an interview. I totally forgot and then saw you were doing Cameo messages so booked you to do one for my wife who was stuck over in the UK during the COVID lockdown and that jogged my memory to reach out and get in touch. Thank you so much for doing that for her because it really put a smile on her face during a real low & tough time she was having over there.
Alan: It was a real pleasure mate and thank you so much for booking it. It’s been great to be able to raise money for charity through it. I’ve been donating money to musicians & artists here in Australia whose careers have been trashed through the Corona Virus and the government hasn’t been doing it’s bit to look after the entertainment industry.
Sean: It’s been tough for the arts industry. People can still book them and I believe if they subscribe to your website at www.alanfetcher.net they can order a Cameo shout out with 50% discount. So, of course you have had a fantastic career so far and everyone will know the main character for which you are known for but I was really interested to talk to you about the music side of things because your band ‘Waiting Room’ had such a long & fairly successful run, especially at The Elephant & Wheelbarrow.
Alan: It was funny how it started really because I was just out for dinner one night with my wife and bumped into a couple of musos, Chris Hawker & Tommy Rando who were singing… my wife claims I asked to get up to sing with them and I claim that they invited me up [laughs] but we sang a few songs and the boys suggested we got together, form a band and play some gigs. My problem was as a working actor I couldn’t be out gigging for three forty-five minute sets. I just couldn’t do it so the wonderful guy who ran the Neighbours nights, a guy called George Josevski suggested we play at The Elephant and it just took off – people loved it. In the early days it was very much just playing covers, as you could well imagine but we wrote & produced an album very quickly and then all of a sudden they heard about us in the UK so we got invited over… and it just went off! We did two tours a year for the first couple of years and then for the next four years we did just one tour a year, so it was highly successful and hugely enjoyable. It was such a great experience and all the while playing in Melbourne with a Monday night residency and as you know, musos don’t normally work Monday nights so for the boys in my band it was an absolute bonus at the highest level so they were rapt. We did really well – we made some good money and now we have been playing the occasional gig, but we just primarily play originals now which is very enjoyable. Sadly, the Neighbours nights eventually just died off.
Sean: It really went big quite fast. I was listening to ‘Live at The Elephant’ just yesterday and I’ve got to say for a set of mainly covers on there, it’s a cracking track listing.
Alan: We loved playing our residency set list because it was a nice mixture of bands like The Killers, Foo Fighters and Oasis who I’ve always thought of as being one of the great UK rock bands, well Oasis & The Beatles actually… I remember doing pantomime in Malvern, Worcestershire and I was driving across from my accommodation over the Malvern Hills to the theatre and I heard The Killers song ‘Somebody Told Me’ for the first time and I pulled over at the top of the Malvern Hills, called the guys back home and told them we needed to get the chart for ‘Somebody Told Me’ because we have to learn that song and add it to the set [laughs]
Sean: It’s a great cover but one of the stand outs for me is your version of ‘Tainted Love’.
Alan: Yes, we did that as a bit of a homage to The Living End.
Sean: The covers are great, but your originals aren’t too shabby either. You released ‘So Wrong’ as a single but I noticed that you co-wrote a great number of the eleven tracks on the debut album ‘In The Waiting Room’.
Alan: They are quite eclectic in the sense that it’s because of my own taste of music covers such a broad style and stylistic parameters, often I find myself writing in different styles, I suppose. The boys were great because they would come along with that because they are all song writers in their own right – I mean when they write their own music, they are writing very different stuff. So, they take their lead from me when we write our music. One of the first songs I ever wrote, which I’m really proud of and I wrote it with Chris Hawker is called ‘I Wasn’t There’ – it’s actually a song about depression, loneliness & isolation. There’s another song called ‘Little One’ which was very much written because my daughter came home from school one day to tell us that one of her school mates had passed away from an asthma attack and when I asked her how she felt about that she said to me that “Her heart’s in the clouds, her face in the Sun” and I incorporated that into the lyrics. Tracks like ‘So Wrong’ and a few of the others have that lovely slightly choppy punk style that I love… I’m a huge fan of punk, particularly Elvis Costello, The Sex Pistols… that late 70’s English punk era.
Sean: I noticed on your website and as you just mentioned the band have reformed and are playing the occasional shows but is there any new music on the horizon? Could Waiting Room release a follow-up album?
Alan: Well, we always talk about it. We’ve actually got four songs sitting in advanced stage of production that we have performed live but never recorded and all it’s really going to come down to is us all getting our act together and getting in the studio to record them [laughs].
Sean: I suppose with the virus there’s no filming going on right now so plenty of time to write [laughs]
Alan: Well, that’s exactly it. I am working on some songs but I’m also working on my guitar playing at the moment too. I’ve got an opportunity to work on improving my playing which is pretty rudimentary if I’m honest, so I’m doing a fair bit of work on that too and really enjoying it. I’m also jumping on the piano a fair bit as well. I used to play the piano when I was young, and my son plays piano, so he is actually teaching me [laughs].
Sean: If I may, I’d love to talk to you about your younger days, which takes us back to my hometown of Perth. Where did music first come into your life? Was it through school or did you grow up with music in the home?
Alan: The music I liked and listened to came from my brother who was two and a half years my senior so he would start collecting his music, which I would then listen to of course and that gave me guides into what I liked and what would interest me. The very first album I bought was in the 60’s. It was Canned Heat’s ‘The Canned Heat Cookbook’ which is classic blues rock and my brother’s influences took me to The Doors, which for me where the seminal band of that era. Obviously, there was The Beatles, but it was bands like The Kinks and that Brit-rock sound of the 60’s that I loved, and The Doors were just poets really, just incredible poets. The change for me was when I got to University and that’s where I really opened up to bands like Elvis Costello & The Attractions and punk and that sort of music. I remember seeing Elton John play live at the WACA in Perth around 1972, I think. It was the ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ Tour where he played the album in its entirety. There were some wonderful bands like Santana & Deep Purple and I saw Led Zeppelin in Perth in ’74, so my introduction to music was really solid in terms of some of the best bands in the world were coming to play in Perth. It was brilliant.
When I was young, the big thing in Perth was the Sunday Session, which ran from three in the afternoon until around seven or eight in the evening and so Perth became a real hub for live music back then. One of the bands I used to love going to see was Dave Warner’s From the Suburbs, their biggest hit was probably ‘Suburban Boy’, which was released back in the 70’s. Also, the Nansing Quartet who used to play with a band called The Jam Tarts – they were four girls, I think two of them were sisters, one of which ended up marrying comedian & writer Ben Elton actually, who now lives in Fremantle. In the Nansing Quartet was one of my most favourite slide guitar players in the world in Lucky Oceans, who also lived in Perth for a very long time and did a radio show there. Lucky was a co-founder of the incredible Texas swing band Asleep at the Wheel.
Sean: It’s wonderful to hear these bands that are new to me and I will certainly try to dig back into a history books to find out more and even try to hear some of their music.
Alan: I don’t even know if you’ll find any recordings of The Jam Tarts or Nansing Quartet because I don’t know if they ever recorded to be honest. I did see Sophie (Gare now Elton) play recently with her brother who was in the Nansing Quartet and he is an incredible mandolin player & falsetto singer – Adam Gare is his name. Adam is a stalwart of the country scene all through Australia and was in a number of bands. They were all exciting musos to be exposed to and to watch play and just enormous fun too. We’d have a few bevvies on a Sunday afternoon and then head back to the church that a lot of them lived in and have a huge slap up meal at night… they were great days.
Sean: I’ve spoken to musicians in Perth that told me of the wonderful venues that were here. Places like The Castle and others that just aren’t around anymore.
Alan: It’s a great shame and of course this virus is smashing live music. None of us are prophets so it’s hard to know how or when it’s going to come back or if it’s going to come back in a big way. I suspect that audiences are going to be gagging to get to gigs again. I’ve heard the government are saying there won’t be any mass gathering events until they find a vaccine. Now that could be a long way off… that’s if ever they find one. Just having a muso noodling in the corner of a beer garden with the appropriate social distancing would be fantastic.
Sean: We just mentioned venues that are gone, is the Elephant still in existence?
Alan: No, they actually closed the Elephant. The band used to play in the front bar for a while then eventually they closed the venue down then they renovated it and turned it into a more up market bar but it’s still got the backpacker accommodation above it. So, I don’t know what’s going to happen because its actually got a fantastic band room. The big room at the back where we used to play could hold up to three hundred people in there and it used to just go off.
Sean: I was lucky enough to be taken on a guided tour of The Espy last time I was in town – what a fantastic job they have done with the renovations there. It’s great to see the Gershwin Room still there.
Alan: Yes, they have. Everyone was a bit worried to be honest with what would happen to The Espy. They were a bit worried about what it would look like, but I’m thrilled with it. I’ve managed to see some gigs since it reopened in the Gershwin and they went off… they were great. Really encouraging.
Sean: The basement room was great too. Caught a couple of Melbourne bands in there – such a good vibe and sound. I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but I just have a few regular ones to finish off with if that’s ok.
Alan: Yes, of course.
Sean: If I booked you a restaurant table and you could invite three guests from the music world, dead or alive, who would you invite?
Alan: Well, Lennon would have to be there, unquestionably. Another person I’d love to have there and who is an enormous influence of mine is John Prine, the country artist who passed away earlier this year from the corona virus. A buddy of mine & I got together to play at Tamworth the year before last doing a John Prine tribute and that was really enjoyable especially to be around & among so many Aussie country musicians. So, Johnny Prine would be there… oh wow [laughs] when you are limited to three you have to be pretty picky don’t you… the third one is tough because I’d love to have a female voice in there because it’s so important. Two of the female artists that meant a lot to me when I was younger were the McGarrigle sisters.
Sean: I’m sure I can let you have them at the table as they come as a pair [laughs].
Alan: Thank you [laughs]. They have been so involved in a whole range of music and performed with the likes of Rufus Wainwright and Loudon Wainwright III… there’s a musical dynasty right there.
Sean: More new names for the restaurant table which is always good. So, what was the last album you listened to Alan?
Alan: Oh, it was only yesterday, and I listened to Nathaniel Rateliff. I go out walking a lot, so I listen while I walk. It’s Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats and it’s their fabulous 2015 album, which is my favourite one of theirs and it’s just their self-titled album. Have a listen – I love his music. He’s an American artist. I saw him in London at a music festival and was immediately turned on to what he was doing musically.
Sean: I’ll check him out.
Alan: He has a few albums out and they are all great.
Sean: So, the final question… If you could be credited with writing any song ever written, what song would you choose?
Alan: Oh [laughs]… It would probably have to be ‘Imagine’ I suspect. Yes, it would have to be ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon.
Sean: A timeless classic to end on. Alan, I can’t thank you enough for your time. It’s been wonderful to talk to you. I’ve been hoping we could chat ever since the day we met at Palms at Crown.
Alan: Thanks mate, you really are the best. I really do appreciate you taking interest and talking to me about the band but also you grabbed an album off the website, you bought the Cameo vid for your wife… all of that is so supportive. I really do appreciate it.
Sean: An absolute pleasure Alan. Take care mate.
Alan: Brilliant mate. You too. Great to chat.
Visit Alan’s website http://alanfletcher.net/ and subscribe for free to get a 50% discount code to use when booking a Cameo video message from Alan at https://www.cameo.com/alanfletch
All the proceeds raised from Cameo videos go to charities supporting artists and musicians whose careers have been devasted as a consequence of COVID-19