When The Rockpit last spoke to Andrew Farriss back in August 2019 he was excitedly telling us about his debut single ‘Come Midnight’ and subsequent works that we would be expecting to hear, as he explored his love of Country music. The second single from Farriss, entitled ‘Good Momma Bad’ still has those country undertones but with a much more of a funky vibe, which begs us the question just what we can expect from his forthcoming debut album, which is due for release later this year. His passion for experimenting with various instruments from days gone by has opened Farriss to a world of new sounds & vibes, which has helped lead to the announcement that he has been awarded with becoming a Member of the Order of Australia for his significant service to the performing arts as a musician, composer and producer.
Born in Perth but now residing on his working farm in New South Wales, Farriss still expresses genuine interest for the city he spent his youth, before returning years later with his former bandmate brothers Tim & Jon and front man Michael Hutchence as the then Farriss Brothers, finally making the transformation into the global superstars we know as INXS. We caught up with Andrew to discuss just what we can expect to hear on his forthcoming album, what made him so nervous when performing his old hits at the 2018 Hay Mate Concert in Tamworth with good friend Jon Stevens and just how incredibly humbled he is to receive his Member of the Order of Australia honour.
Sean: Hello Andrew. It’s Sean from The Rockpit over in Perth.
AF: Hey Sean, how are you?
Sean: Very well thank you. I’ve been listening to your second single ‘Good Momma Bad’ and it’s got such a different video to the first track you released.
AF: [laughs] Yeah right, well there most certainly is a difference between the two. I always wanted to combine that sort of groove thing with those old-style country instruments. I always thought that would be really intriguing to do that.
Sean: I really didn’t expect that funky groove to it.
AF: [mumbles] Sorry, I’m just stuffing my mouth with chocolate [laughs] Sorry mate. I’m so rude [laughs]
Sean: [laughs] If it wasn’t eight thirty in the morning here in Perth, I’d be joining you, believe me.
AF: So, how are things over in WA?
Sean: It’s great. We’ve had some beautiful weather over the summer and at Christmas. I’ve been out and about watching plenty of local artists. We’ve had some new venues pushing live music too which is fantastic. I hope you and your wife had a nice Christmas.
AF: Yeah, we did thanks mate. Marlina & I spent it in the US this year. She comes from Dayton in Ohio which is about five hours drive to Nashville. It’s really fortunate that her family live in that Dayton area because when they get sick of me, I can just drive over to Nashville [laughs] but we also bring them over into Nashville and they come and stay with us. It’s really good though because it’s not like just going to Nashville as we now have family & friends around there. So yes, we had a good Christmas this year thanks… we try to alternate each year between the US & Australia so 2020 will be here in Australia.
Sean: You’re in New South Wales, aren’t you?
AF: Yes, Marlina & I have a family farm in the North West near Tamworth which I’ve had for about twenty-eight years now. We have cattle & grains when it rains. I used to have sheep many years ago, but I sold them. Basically, we live in the bush and that’s part of my connection to all of this too… here’s me, a rocker guy living on a farm near Tamworth. Most of the country music community, they all come into Tamworth and most of them leave again and there’s me still hanging around [laughs]. So, all this time has gone by and I used to go down to the Tamworth Country Music Festival more as a fan… I’d have a poke around and check things out but now at this last one just gone, I’ve been performing there for the first time and had an incredible immersion into it where I was able to do some duets and really getting involved with the Australian Country Music community and I had the most fantastic week. I really loved it.
Sean: I was going to ask you that. With your huge success with INXS and the achievements as a member of such a globally iconic band, do you feel you’ve been accepted and that you’ve integrated into the Country scene, not just here in Australia but also in the US?
AF: I was a bit nervous about it at first. I think I’m still earning my stripes with it to be honest. Their radar is on me if I can put it that way but the main thing, I’m known for is for writing songs. In the country music genre & community wherever you are in the world as they say, it all begins with a song. For me, as a song writer it’s a natural place to start. Everything hasn’t happened instantly. There have been many years where I’ve been working with people from the community… quite a few years ago now Tania Kernaghan, who is Lee Kernaghan’s sister and is also a Country music star & song writer in her own right, asked me to produce an album for her called ‘Big Sky Country’ so I worked with Tania & Fiona her sister and met their mum & dad so I felt a real connection with all of those guys, especially when I worked with my brothers in INXS which was obviously a family thing too… its less of a showbiz thing and more of a family thing, you know?
Through that experience I met a lot of the musicians who were recording and playing back then and some of them I’m still working with now. I’ve stayed in contact with a lot of them. Especially in the US, there have been fans of INXS who are song writers or performing musicians from the country genre and that’s opened doors for me that I’d have to say probably would never have opened for me if I haven’t done all that work with INXS. They are all aware of it and our music is still on the radio in certain places around the world including the US and so they know who I am so to wander in and out in song writing workshops I’m not a complete stranger if that makes any sense. I also feel very fortunate because it’s not normal to switch genres like I have – all I can say and others have said this to me before, if I asked you do you like other genres other than rock and blues or something else, what would you say to me?
Sean: I would say, of course.
AF: Yeah, you see? I often put that out to people. If you’re a fan of certain types of music, they aren’t always the same genre. I like some old folk recordings and some old jazz recordings too or heavy metal or hip hop. Whatever it is, I happen to like it not just for the genre but its maybe because of that particular song or piece of music. I may just love the musicianship on it. That thing is the same thing I do now – I may take my roots or inspirations from wherever I can get it and from any genre but the one I’m interested in now is the country music genre. I find it really intriguing; I love all the instruments… I’ve been having a really good time working with instruments like the pedal-steel, mandolins, mandolas, fiddles and even a flute which you wouldn’t even consider would be a country instrument. I had a flute player play with me at The Golden Guitars the other day and some of the old school country guys came up saying how great it was to hear the flute I there. A flute is an instrument that you wouldn’t think was to do with any specific genre but what I find intriguing is making sure that the instruments suit the type of song that I’m trying to record.
Sean: It’s so interesting because I remember when we spoke in August you touched on the fact you love experimenting with all these wonderful instruments. So, the debut album is due for release later this year which is pretty exciting but this second single really has thrown me a curve ball – I have no idea what to expect now [laughs]
AF: I’ve done a bit of a rope-a-dope on you [laughs]
Sean: If both tracks had been similar then we could all have kind of known what to expect in a way, so I am really looking forward to the results.
AF: Thanks mate. It’s kind of like a box of chocolates… I think that is the best way I can explain it. I had a lot of songs to choose from and a lot of recordings too. I thought very carefully about what constitutes my album and there are a lot of reasons why I chose these songs to go on this album because I think some people who know what I’ve done earlier in my life, especially with the INXS guys and I really wanted to make sure there are elements in there that they would recognize but at the same time it’s not about all that. It’s about my journey into the country music genre. You’ll hear my influences in there a little bit are going to come through – I’ve always loved funk music and always used to champion early dance music, what’s become EDM… the combination of funk & rock I’ve always loved and ironically on the INXS track ‘New Sensation’, if you listen to it very carefully you’ll hear I’m playing a banjo sample on that song. So for me, some of these instruments like banjos and the older style instruments have always intrigued me and I find there is something about the sounds of them and what they do in the bigger soup of the recording… it’s much more important than you think it is to your ear.
Sean: I never noticed that – I will have to go back and have a real listen now to try to find that sound in that song. It was great to catch Jon Stevens performing the hits from your incredible INXS song book on his tour last year. I ended up seeing that four or five shows on that tour and to see these sell out shows with everyone in the room singing every single word to these monumental anthems was incredible. It just goes to show how timeless those songs have become.
AF: It’s funny because when I performed at the Hay Mate Concert back in October 2018 for the drought benefit there in Tamworth, Jon and Tony (Kopa) were fantastic and we all ran around together organising ourselves… but I’ve got to tell you I was nervous – like, really nervous because I never had a chance to perform the songs I had to play that night with the rythmn section. So, if I looked really tensive and nervous on stage that night it’s because I was [laughs]. When I walked out there I knew they were good musicians and I knew it was going to be fantastic but in the back of my mind I thought that this could be really awkward if it doesn’t come together because we never got the chance to rehearse – so we just walked straight out there and did it, which I thought was pretty ballsy of us really, I’ve got to say.
Sean: It was great and for me it one was one of the highlights of the day. If there was anyone watching who didn’t recognise you, they may have thought, “Who’s that guy there who doesn’t know these songs”, when you’re actually the guy that wrote them! [laughs]
AF: That’s right. Exactly [laughs]. I guess, especially with the INXS songs Michael (Hutchence) deserves so much credit there. We must have co-written around three hundred songs together, Michael & I. An interesting thing with Michael is that his voice and his lyric was always so spot on with so many things. I wrote lyrics but because he never actually played physical instruments, I felt a huge responsibility all the time to come up with the grooves, the feels & the music to make sure the songs had the right attitude to suit whatever it was we were doing. Very much all of those experiences that I draw from going into my album are really important to me because they help me to understand when I can add something a little bit different. One of the reasons I say that is because when I first started thinking about doing a country music album in this genre one of the questions I asked myself is, “why am I doing this?” What went through my mind was that it’s because I’m a songwriter and then I started thinking what could I possibly add to a genre full of such incredible artists & music that has gone before me? What could I possibly add to anything that would be of any value?
I think I told you last time we spoke about when I rode horses down the Mexican border with Marlina about five, six or even seven years ago. It was down in the old cowboy country, down where the old Chiricahua Mountains are and there’s an area down there near New Mexico & Arizona where this couple Craig & Tam Lawson had a cattle ranch. Because I live on a farm and I’m used to that kind of activity, I just got really intrigued with riding horses through the old national monument areas where the old stagecoaches travelled, places like Tombstone and the other cowboys towns… just riding around and picking up the history and learning about the Mexicans, the Apache Indians and going to places like Apache Pass. We rode our four horses right up to the top of this mountain to a place that was Cochise’s Stronghold – the Indian chief Cochise used to fight the US Cavalry from this stronghold. I went back a couple more times after that and I began to realise as I went back into Nashville that I didn’t want to write Nashville pop songs anymore but what I wanted to do is to start singing and writing songs about culture and what I mean that from old west cowboy culture in the US and how much of a parallel you have with bush rangers and all the crazy gold rush things that have gone on in Australia – there’s a real parallel there and that’s how a real fire built up in me as to how I was going to approach my album.
I realised I didn’t need to worry about the pop side of it or competing with all these other people with whatever they are all trying to do. That’s great they want to do that, its fantastic but that is not what I want to do. What I want to do is use these different country instruments with my song writing background and try to put in some flavour from the old west and the US cowboy histories & Australian bush history and put these things into my album, you know? Both Australia & the US have very similar beginnings in that sense in that you had these cowboys, bush rangers and people like sheriffs & marshals and the meetings of the indigenous cultures and I just thought what a fantastic platform to write about.
Sean: I can see what you mean about the parallels with the US and cowboys & Indians and our country with the Indigenous people and the early settlers.
AF: Exactly and then I looked around me and no one else is writing about it.
Sean: Well, before we run out of time, I have a question from one of our readers who is a huge INXS fan and also really enjoyed our last interview. Dan asks, “Arguably one of the greatest INXS songs to never be release as a single was ‘Johnson’s Aeroplane’. With the song’s origins about the struggles of farming and with you owning your own farm, have you ever thought of re-recording it with that country feel?”
AF: That’s interesting actually… you know what? That’s very intriguing because yeah, that’s a very good point Sean because in the years when I was doing a lot of this sort of stuff the last thing my band I think ever wanted to explore, and I don’t mean this negatively I mean it was just not what we were doing was to do country-style songs. But that is a very interesting idea and I will give it some thought.
Sean: That’s great – I’ll be interested to see if anything comes of it. One other rather exciting bit of news is that you have been awarded with becoming a Member of the Order of Australia for your significant service to the performing arts as a musician, composer and producer. A huge congratulations from us all here at The Rockpit. That must be an incredible feeling for you?
AF: Ah mate, it was just enormous. I’m still trying to find out if means Average Male or Average Musician [laughs] (The prefix for this honour is AM – Editor). But in all seriousness, I really take this one on board, I really do. The Governor General, the Australian Government and the Australian people awarding me an honour like that is beyond my wildest imagination to be honest with you. I couldn’t believe it and I really want to thank my wife Marlina, my kids Grace, Josie & Mathew, the INXS guys, my brothers, Chris Murphy the band’s manager at the time… all these things that have come across into my life, all the people who have supported me through the years when other people may not have… all that sort of thing. I just want to say a huge thanks.
Sean: This is the second time we have spoken now and I’m guessing you aren’t the kind of artist who feels the need to stand at the top of the highest mountain with a loud t-shirt with Member of the Order of Australia written across the front… so seem such a humble person, which makes it even more deserving. I can hear the utter pride in your voice – it’s so wonderful to see someone who has given so much of their life to this industry and to see you receive such an incredible accolade and the recognition that goes with it.
AF: [laughs] Yes and that’s real nice of you to say that. I really appreciate that Sean, I really do.
Sean: It’s been a real pleasure once again & thank you for your time Andrew. We wish you & Marlina all the best, look forward to hearing what the rest of 2020 holds for you and hope to speak again.
AF: Likewise. Thanks mate and take care.
