Multi-platinum, award-winning songwriter ANDREW FARRISS is back with new music as he gears up to release a new album. ‘The Prospector’ is set to drop in 2025 and once again Farriss delves into his love of country music and story telling. Latest single “Something Stronger” captures the raw energy and reckless abandon of youth, fuelled by hot emotions and a thirst for life’s wilder moments.
The Rockpit’s Sean Bennett spoke to Andrew about the new single, how his writing for ‘The Prospector’ is going and also received an unexpected surprise to start the interview off…
Sean: Hi Andrew, how are you?
(Silence)
Sean: Hello?
(Muffled voices)
Andrew: Hello, Sean! Ready?
Sean: Hey Andrew. Yes I’m ready.
Andrew: Go!
(A chorus of happy birthday breaks out down the phone from a few voices, the main one being that of Andrew)
Sean: I don’t know what to say – thank you all for that nice surprise.
Andrew: There you go mate [laughs].
Sean: I’m blown away Andrew. Thank you.
Andrew: You know, I usually just sit around at this time of night singing happy birthday to everybody. Just randomly ringing people out of the phone book. Of course. I mean, why wouldn’t I? [laughs]
Sean: It’s so great to talk to you again. It’s hard to believe its been three years since we last caught up.
Andrew: Yeah, what’s the matter? Where did that time go?
Sean: I know. Time just flies. And congratulations on the new single as well. ‘Something Stronger’ is a great track – loving it.
Andrew: It’s sort of a bit of a dark horse. I mean, it was kind of guys I worked with a lot. Australian country music royalty, Lawrie Minson, his dad, John and Laurie himself is a utility guy, like me. You know, I play multiple instruments and, you know, sing happy birthday to random people in the phone book. [laughs] But Laurie, he plays so many different instruments. And so it was sort of a bit of a no brainer. We live close to each other up in the North West, New South Wales. So we started playing together a lot when I’ve been touring. And then he said, “Listen, I’ve got this riff and an idea for this song” and he said, “Oh, you know, it’s got this idea for this lyric idea for this ‘Something Stronger’ thing.” So we sat down and we exchanged some chords around his house and I changed some of the lyric, added something, pulled something out, and we ended up with this song. But it was sort of really funny because it… I don’t think either of us took it that seriously at first. You know, it was like, and then people go, I really like this, you know, so I was like, oh, good.
Sean: It’s got that wonderful line dance kind of country dance feel to it as well. You could just see a room full of people going for it.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s it. Exactly. And, you know, hopefully dust on the floor, otherwise it’ll all fall over.
Sean: Well, of course, when we last spoke, you were still kind of trapped here with the pandemic stopping the world from spinning and you couldn’t get back to the US. I know we talked in the past of your horse rides out in the wild country with your wife Marlina, and that a lot of your influences come from the historical wild west and the Australian bush rangers.
Andrew: Where we were doing our horse riding was actually down the Mexican border. We had a lot of trouble there, actually, these days, but I wanted to get an education. I wanted to get an education on what that old cowboy history was like and dusty and dirty and gritty. So that’s what we did and that’s how we ended up down there. I just sort of, you know, I don’t know what you call it, but the sort of the city slicker cowboy thing, you know. I don’t live in a city. I live out in the bush in Australia. So, there’s cowboys everywhere around me. I’m really a cowboy in that sense. I’ve got cows out here, you know. Yeah. But it’s not just that. From the US and country music influences, I gravitated more to the sort of folk country, you know, early, old, historic country music.
Sean: I went back through some of the first tracks you had released because when we first spoke was for the debut single ‘Come Midnight’, which is still a great song. I put it alongside the new one, ‘Something Stronger’ earlier today. You’ve
always had that passion of incorporating those older instruments into these songs. Has that transferred on to these new singles and the material you’re working on for ‘The Prospector’?
Andrew: Yeah, that’s what it brings all the time, you know. When people are playing music to other people, it’s a huge movement and everyone’s just going completely tech orientated. But I don’t know. I’m not convinced. We’re just human beings. We’re not robots. I’m the very same. I stay well away from AI and all of that. I just hate the day that it sort of takes, takes that effort and creativity out of yourself, when it’s easier to type it in something and press a button. It scares me. Yeah, it’s weird. So it’s pretty good, you know. But in a sense, if you stop and think about it for a minute, you don’t really know who’s going to win. You don’t really know what’s going to happen.
Sean: Definitely. That’s the human element and one I hope we never replace. It’s very sad so see so much reliance on AI. But onto your song writing. I know you’ve always been so creative for much of your life. How has it been going, sitting yourself down, getting ready for ‘The Prospector’ for next year? Has it been an easy flow of songs coming out of you?
Andrew: You know, so far so good. I sit down and listen to it, so it’s all good. If it falls flat, you can get out in the bush, pan it out and strike gold that way. Yeah, yeah. I got my mule covered [laughs].
Sean: Well, of course, you say striking gold. The debut album struck gold. It was a wonderful body of work. And of course, ‘The Kelly Gang’ picked up a Golden Guitar nomination for Heritage Song of the Year. And that really has been wonderful, you know, not just as it is the instruments of the Heritage times you’re using, but you know, some of those vibes and stories are just things that should never be forgotten.
Andrew: In 2024, you know, I wanted to talk about what used to go on 50, 100, 200 years ago because I think some things ironically haven’t changed, even though we’re in the future. Some things are exactly the same. You know, there’s still outlaws, there’s still crazy people, there’s still, there’s still whiskey, there’s all this other stuff that goes on. And that just happened to be in what we call the modern world. But you know, like, I was saying on my first album, so I don’t want to bore anyone to death, life was different 100 years ago. And it’ll be different 100 years from now. And we’ll just be old people in the background of some era of life. But I think the continuity, if I can put it this way, of continuing these stories and folk stories and songs, is exactly why I say people still sing a heartfelt song like ‘Will The Circle Be Unbroken’, which is really a gospel song about someone’s mother passing away. Everyone has a mother and you can’t come into the world without one so that was valid 100 years ago it’ll be valid in 100 years time. What I’m talking about is a little less pop and a little bit more focus.
Sean: We’ve spoken before we’ve talked about Perth and your early days here and obviously your time with INXS as well but where were the initial influences coming from for this type of music because I remember you saying you presented ‘Come Midnight’ to the band back at the time of ‘Kick’ being written and then you sat on it for all these years.
Andrew: Yeah, you know it was our most commercially successful record. I don’t even know how many million records it sold but it was a lot and it was a really good record and I think ‘Come Midnight’ just sort of fell in the gap do you know what I mean? It was like, “Oh well, we don’t really need a country rock song on ‘Kick’.”
Sean: There must have been some incredible songs being banded around at that point between you all?
Andrew: That’s interesting you say that because just to digress away from my own solo work for a minute and talk about that ‘Kick’ album with INXS, it was a really big… not just a big commercial success but it was one of those albums that stayed in people’s consciousness even now. It was a big album internationally and actually you know artists like Beck, would you believe he re-recorded it. He decided to record the whole album.
Sean: I didn’t know that – I must have a listen.
Andrew: Yeah he did the whole thing. So it’s had its fans and because we had five top five hits or top ten hits off that one album around the world in various countries and it’s just a big album. So to come back to what we were talking about with my solo work now I always wondered and I thought you know ‘Come Midnight’ was a good song so when I started my Andrew Farriss sort of country folk rock journey or whatever I’m doing I thought I’ll go look at that song again but this time I took it from being a pretty rough demo that I had, same sort of chords, same lyrics, same groove but just wasn’t a great recording and I re-recorded it in Nashville and then I cut my vocal again and that’s what you can hear now with ‘Come Midnight’. I re-recorded it basically but I’ve still got some of the songs that I’ve recorded and I’ve still got some songs left from that older time but most of the songs that you’re going to hear on ‘The Prospector’, most of those songs, they’re new songs that I’ve worked on more recently so it’s better too because with ‘The Prospector’ when I say better, it’s better for ‘The Prospector’ album is what I mean. It’s better for that album because I set myself a goal directly with ‘The Prospector’ to not so much dwell on just outlaw country but the very word ‘The Prospector’ and about digging for gold and it’s not just digging for gold, it’s about searching for things. The Prospector – I’ve tried to write and record songs and use songs on this album that relate to people searching for things, like for example, one of the songs I had out just recently as a single ‘Someone For Everyone’ is about that I believe in life that out there in the world even though it may not seem like it sometimes when we’re lonely or we’ve broken up from a relationship or someone’s passed away, that there is someone out there for you. It may not seem like it and you might be depressed or give up hope but there’s always someone for everyone but you have to searching for that. You can’t give up you know and that’s part of what my album concept is with ‘The Prospector’ – its digging in and searching for things and that’s why ‘Something Stronger’, I think this could suit my album because it’s about, well, searching for something stronger, in this case it happens to be youth culture, you know, whiskey and cars you know. That’s what you’re searching for but the whole album is not about that. It’s just that particular song but what people can hopefully understand, what I’m sort of trying to say is that there’ll be other songs that I’m talking about the same sort of subject of looking for things, searching for things.
Sean: Well it’s a fantastic single and a great video to go with it to. We can’t wait to hear more new music coming from you this year as you close in on the release of the album. As always Andrew, thank you so so much for your time. I always
love having a chat and in fact our last interview, you were my one hundredth interview for The Rockpit. You were my centenary interview and I think you’re about my 175th now tonight.
Andrew: Well I’d love to hear what you think about about the new music as it’s released. And maybe we can line up interview number 200 when the time comes?
Sean: That would be great. I’ll keep an eye out as I close in on that one. Hopefully we get to see you back out West soon to play some shows?
Andrew: Just on that subject, I’m actually going to try and head West later this year so we’ll catch up then.
Sean: Sounds great. I’ll watch out for dates. Thanks Andrew.
Andrew: Have a great birthday Sean. Speak soon.
