Russell Morris has done it all. A career in pop, award winning blues albums, rocking it out with ‘Black and Blue Heart’ and now gracing the stage to perform his back catalogue surrounded by a 65-piece orchestra, backing singers and live band. Add to that the release of a double live album to celebrate this wonderful event and you get a real sense of the remarkable career he has had… and with no intention of stopping just yet.
We caught up with Russell to discuss how these remarkable shows came together, the work needed to rearrange some of Australia’s most recognisable hits and what it feels like to be out there performing them backed by such incredible musicians. With a brief insight into Jack Chrome, as well as The Fabulous Caprettos added in for good measure, we managed to make up for lost time with Russell, before he heads out with his Real Thing Symphonic Tour, hitting Perth, Adelaide, Sydney & Brisbane before the year ends.
Ladies and gentlemen, the incredible Russell Morris!
Sean: Hi Russell, how are you?
Russell: I’m good thanks Sean. Great to chat again.
Sean: Thanks ever so much for your time. It’s always an absolute pleasure getting to talk to you, even for a few minutes. I really don’t know where to start this Real Thing Symphonic concert. It just looks and sounds incredible and I’m so glad Perth gets to see it as well.
Russell: I wasn’t sure if it would get to Perth, so I was pretty happy when we announced we were doing it. It’s quite amazing. It’s an incredible experience for me. Working with David Hirschfelder is just out of this world. The guy’s a certified genius. He would send me each track that he had completed and I was just gobsmacked every time. People asked me if I advised him what he should do? I told them that’s like talking to Einstein and trying to advise him about relativity, so it was a little bit like that. He was just fabulous a people always talk about The Real Thing, The Real Thing is just the tip of the iceberg. All the other stuff is fantastic.
Sean: Yeah, I managed to see that little clip and we tagged it into the press release we put up when the shows were announced on the website. Its the clip where they’ve put that beautiful high-res footage together of you doing five or six clips of songs and it just sounds out of this world.
Russell: Yeah, that’s pretty good. It was pretty good. I am pretty happy because when they said we should do a live concert I was worried because I hate doing concerts. Every time I hear them I hate them. And they recorded and when I listened back I thought, “Wow, we don’t have to do anything” because we were worried that you might have to redo a vocal here and then put a guitar tracking in there and we’d do something that was wrong but for some reason on the night because the band is exceptional, everything was just perfect.
Sean: Incredible. And of course it’s been released on both double vinyl and CD. I’m going to be grabbing the double vinyl because it looks a stunning thing to add to my collection. With twenty-two tracks on the album, how did you even begin to put that setlist together?
Russell: Well, I didn’t. I was too scared to [laughs]. When they asked me to do it and I said, “Listen, I can’t pick songs that I want to do.” And it’s almost like if you were standing in front of a mirror with your nose pressed against the mirror. You can’t see everything clearly, all you can see is your eyes. So I can’t see myself clearly, I can’t see how other people perceive them. So I left it in the hands of Tim Schwerdt. He put all the songs together. I said to him, “You find the songs in my catalogue and you work out what we should do.” And he went through all the songs and picked those songs.
Sean: Incredible. It is a wonderful, wonderful setlist and as I say we’re just so blessed to get it around the rest of the country because I’ve not been to Hamer Hall yet and I’ve still never been to the Sydney Opera House to see performance.
Russell: They are pretty special places. All those big places are great but Perth will be pretty special too.
Sean: It’s got a wonderful vibe and sound in the Crown Theatre, as well. And of course you’ve announced Melbourne and Adelaide as well, so certainly is a country wide show. Was there much that had to be tweaked? I know I’ve talked to your good friends, John and Rick Brewster about when their music got symphonized and put into that fantastic Symphony of Angels show, that I saw which was just breath-taking. Was there much to be done to the songs by the way of rearranging?
Russell: Not really. What would happen is I would send a track to David, some of them I just recorded with an acoustic guitar and he would just do the arrangement. The difficulty was with the players. The orchestra, fortunately had a magnificent conductor. And he knew where the pitfalls were. There’s one moment in particular with the band are playing four-four which is “dum dum dum dum” one-two-three-four and over the top of that the orchestra are playing one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three. He said to the players, “Listen, all you string players and brass players? Do not listen to the band [laughs]. Watch my hands. Don’t look at anything else but my hands and on the third beat make sure you’re on that third beat every time!” And it was just magnificent. There they were firing away and one was playing in three-four and the others are playing in four-four. And the way it worked was that it was this incredible chaos. It was fantastic.
Sean: You must have goosebumps standing there, out front hearing songs that you’ve played and performed a million times but now hearing them in this different light.
Russell: I feel like I’ve been tied to the front of an express train. That’s how incredible it feels. And that power is just absolutely magnificent. And like I said David’s arrangements, some of the songs are like wow, wow, that’s incredible. What he did is a lot of fun. And the rock band which is on the floor, are also exceptionally great players. It is very trying and I do feel very blessed and I feel like someone just presented me with a Ferrari and said would you like to have a drive? I’m used to driving a car with four cylinders. It’s fabulous.
Sean: Well, what a wonderfully well-tuned four-cylinder car you have, because I’ve been very lucky to catch you live about four or five times now and I just get blown away every time, Russ. It’s just fantastic.
Russell: Well, this is very different. I just know you’ll love this. If you’ve liked the stuff that I’ve done before then this is going to take you to another realm. I feel really privileged. I know how it feels now to be on stage with a great big band and a great, fantastic orchestra. I’ve never really experienced something that sounds so great.
Sean: Can’t wait! Well, the album was released on the sixth of October and has sailed high in the charts, which is a testament to the back catalogue of hits and songs you’ve created. If I can keep you for another couple of minutes I would love to catch up on some of the other stuff that’s been going on because we’ve not spoken for so long. And come to think of it, it was ‘Black and Blue Heart’ last time we spoke. It was when you released that, so we got to miss out on talking about the fabulous ‘Jack Chrome’ material. Another incredible chapter those were for you, musically.
Russell: They were a lot of fun for me because I decided… Look, what happened was I wrote a song and record… because I love Day of The Dead and I wrote a song called ‘Carmelita’s Dance’, put some Day of the Dead make-up on and my wife filmed me on an iPhone. We put it up on YouTube and Donna asked me what I wanted to put it up as. I said that I couldn’t put it up as me and she said we can’t put up as unknown or else no one will find it. So I said, “Jack Chrome” and she said, “Where did you get that from?” I said, “I don’t really know, it just popped into my head!” So we put that up and Rick Springfield saw it and he contacted me and said, “Listen, I am obsessed with Day of the Dead and I’m obsessed with this song. Would you like to do an album with me?” And that’s how we ended up doing the album with Rick.
Sean: Fantastic. Again it is something so different because in the short time I’ve got to speak to you I’ve seen these different chapters of your career from the earliest stuff when we spoke about your career starting off to the quite rock-infused ‘Black and Blue Heart’ through to this The Morris Springfield project was just just wonderful.
Russell: I’m one of those people in that I look at music as a smorgasbord. And if I walk in and there’s a table laid with all these different styles and colours, I’m not gonna walk down to the end of the table every time and just have chops, peas and potatoes. I’ll look at the other end and go oh, oh that’s middle eastern food and I might like to try that. Or there’s some Thai food and music to me is like that. I like to delve into different styles and have a go at it. That confuses listeners. People go, “What the hell? We just getting into blues stuff and now you’ve changed. So I just feel like I’m on a journey of exploring… exploring all sorts of music and I love it. I love finding something different to do and it does confuse people sometimes.
Sean: Well, we love hearing you trying different things. I remember first listening to your trilogy of blues albums and you signed that lovely box set for me, which I will never never take off the shelf in my office – it’s a thing of beauty. Something else I would love to quickly talk about is the latest addition to The Fabulous Caprettos. You have a new goat in the form of Dave Gleeson.
Russell: Yeah he’s a character is Dave. He’s one of those guys who is just fabulous onstage and it’ll bring a different musical dimension to the act which will be fantastic.
Sean: Well, it’s been an incredible show with the first line-up and I’ve been to see it both times you played the Astor Theatre. Each time you’ve come to Perth, I’ve taken a different friend every time and they’ve come out with their jaw literally scrapping the doorstep as we leave. It’s such a wonderful show. And I beg anyone around the country who hasn’t seen it yet, to get their tickets early because it’s just great to see you all up there having fun. There is a genuine chemistry, which you can really feel in the audience.
Russell: Yeah, we do. We do have a lot of fun. We’re all good friends. And to me, it’s a great privilege to be able to work with Jack (Jones) as well. You know, it really is. It’s fabulous. And then Dave, it’ll be just great. And we all get along very well. So it’s a lot of fun.
Sean: It’s not a bad backing band either. When you got people like Jackie (Barnes) and Jason (Vorherr), who both have fabulous voices they really add that something special to it.
Russell: I feature Jason on the album that I’ve just done – The orchestra album. I gave him a song to sing by himself. You want to hear him singing it. It’s beautiful. It’s a song that Peter Robinson and I wrote and the stage director said, “I wouldn’t mind you doing this song.” He said, “Would you like someone else in the band to sing it while you go off and change?” And I said that would be great. He said, “Who?” I immediately said, “Jason!” He does a great job of it.
Sean: Fantastic. Well, we can’t wait to see you. I hope November comes round so quickly.
Russell: I’m looking forward to it to. People will be won’t be disappointed. I can put it that way.
Sean: Brilliant. Russell is always an absolute honour to have a chat with you. Just to delve into a little bit the history of the amazing music you’ve created is just an absolute privilege. Just before you go, I always love to ask this, but what was the last album you listened to?
Russell: The last album I listened to was Ian Moss’s new one, it’s brilliant.
Sean: It’s wonderful, isn’t it? I reviewed it when it came out and Mossy shared it on his Facebook. And I was so honoured that he did that as it is just such a wonderful album. I loved it.
Russell: I sent him a text and just said, “Wow. Fantastic.”
Sean: Incredible. Well, Russell, thanks so much for your time. I won’t take any more of your evening. We look forward to seeing you when you get back out on the road, especially when you get to Perth.
Russell: I’ll see you in person Sean and thanks for your time to. Us artists always appreciate the time you take to talk to us, so thank you.
Sean: Thanks Russell. Take care, bye.
