Aussie blues gem Ash Grunwald chats to John Goodridge about touring and the next exciting phase in his music career.
Hey Ash, how's the tour going so far?
Great. I've just finished a five week tour of the US with Xavier Rudd, which was really, really good and I got signed to a booking agency called The Agency. It's funny, it's a bit like a musician going "The Guitarist". So that's really good news and it looks like I'll probably have a career here. So that's kinda cool. Something I've haven't pursued before. It's big decision to make before you even try because you have to deal with the devil in a sense, because it's gonna be a big chunk of your next decade. But I've got the family support, you know, my wife can't wait to come on the road with our kids. They met me over here actually just recently and I'm here with them now. So it's cool, we're just gonna embark on that little adventure. It's kinda like what we did in Australia years ago.
I mean America seems like such a huge market compared to Australia. It seems like the perfect market to break into.
Yeah it's just like the cliché – I don't know how many, but it's just like ten Australias joined together and you can drive from one to the other. So yeah, we're just trying to work out what the tactic is now because you know I guess we did like 28 gigs and they all went really well. We're almost tempted to retrace our steps and just do that again. Just keep doing that and hopefully it gets to the level where we can afford the cool tour bus I did it in with Xavier. Just have the family, the kids being home schooled and just live that life. The taste that I had there was amazing, but there's a lot of hard work between that goal and where I am now. It feels encouraging. It feels like the time's right.
Your style of blues – how does that go over in places like Nashville and that? Do they warm to that alternate blues style?
I reckon we're almost racist in our view of American people. I'll put it a different way. The things that they would say to me, punters, after the gig, they would come up to me and say what they liked about it, but it was like they were a reviewer and the things that they said (and it would happen every night) would sum up exactly what I would love somebody to say. It's different in Australia because not everyone is a savvy blues fan who gives a shit or even cares.
These people wouldn't necessarily identify themselves as blues fans. It's their culture that blues comes from so everybody knows it. You know, I say I'm gonna play "Crossroad Blues" by Robert Johnson, that's his most famous song, but everybody knows it. So to me, it's like I'm playing in a blues club constantly. They've said that they like the respect that I have for the old blues masters and they feel like it's something fresh and new that they don't have there in the states.
That's what I was thinking that your style of blues is not the traditional style of blues – you mix in a bit of percussion and different sounds and I imagine that they would find it fresh and new and exciting.
You've also got the fact that you're Australian too. I always imagined it going against me but it doesn't. When I was a kid I used to love listening to John Williamson and Redgum. I had friends when I first started who were being naysayers with me about singing in an American accent, telling me off for it, so I always wondered how they would receive an Aussie singing in an American accent when I went over there, but that's totally forgetting the fact that they think you lose your accent when you start singing. And that's what they say to you, 'Ah you got such a thick accent but you lose it when you start singing.'
Haha that's funny.
Isn't that a funny example of perspective – the different perspectives that you can have.
Yeah. So looking at the tour map it looks like you almost did two laps of America. Do you get burnt out or do you manage to rest in between?
Well being in that tour bus, it was easy. Really easy. Too easy, that's the problem, 'cos now I gotta go back to driving.
Because your next stage is touring Canada - doing festivals in Canada?
Yeah and touring Canada is like touring Oz but things are further apart. But I'm doing a lot on Vancouver Island, which is not too much trouble. When I do the winter tours in Canada that's the hardest tour anywhere in the world. 'Cos you can sometimes drive for eight hours in the snow, set up and then play a late gig, starting at 11 or something, just does your head in.
It was nice, because Xavier and I are very good friends, so he spoiled me a bit and I was on the bus with them, so I didn't have to do that hard slog you normally do being a support. It was just luxurious on the bus. The biggest luxury of all is not the surroundings but it's that professional driver who's been sleeping all day. So you know that you're safely getting to the next destination. You just put your feet up and go to sleep and wake up refreshed and just go 'Where am I? What?'
It sounds like the ideal tour.
"Living the dream" tour, for sure.
What I will do in the future after this experience, as quickly as I can afford it, not so much worry about the type of vehicle, some sort of motor home with multiple beds, don't care how fancy it is, but plow the money into the driver, so that you can just sleep and somebody will drive you overnight to your next destination. It's just amazing to tour that way.
So now that you've got this new contract, how much time do you think you'll spend in the states?
Well, it's a big commitment, time wise. I'll be coming back to Oz, but as long as I have my family with me I don't ever really need to come home.
So how does it work with visas and things like that?
Yeah that's my manager's problem, it's a headache but I'm choosing not to open that can of worms. But it should be fine. We do everything by the books. Should be cool. But it's very expensive to do. That's the other thing, once you've flown yourself over there, if you fly your family as well, it's over 10 grand in flights or whatever, you might as well stay for a while and gig your arse off.
So this upcoming east coast tour of Australia that you're doing will probably be the last time we'll see you for while then?
Um, well, quite possibly, yeah. I will probably be away for most of the next year. We'll just see what happens with that. I'm gonna go back to the States and Canada, record in America, the next album and just embark on that little adventure and just see where that takes me. It's sort of like an indefinite time span at the moment. But I'll probably go crazy missing Australia and want to go surfing again. Because there won't be much of that.
So where will you be based in the States?
In that bus!
But when you record you won't do that on the road obviously.
I don't now where we'll record. There are two options at the moment - just like these venues we played – a place you never thought you'd record. A place you didn't think you were good enough to record in – a place your heroes recorded in - you know these are the things that are possible there. I don't think I ever really thought about that so much. I spent a lot of time making up reasons why I never wanted to go to America, but I never really put much thought into the reasons to go to America.
I saw one of your Facebook posts and you played on the same stage that Jimi Hendrix had played on. That type of thing is always exciting, reaching the pinnacle of doing the things you never imagined you could do.
Absolutely! And it's just so good for your music because you get this extra shot of adrenaline and you think, 'Okay well what next for me now?' I'm the tiniest little minnow in this very big pond but I am in that pond that Jimi Hendrix was in. So what do I do now? What music am I going to do now and good do I expect that music to be? What are my aspirations? It's good for you musically as well to just get that little bit of encouragement of being alongside and thinking of all those legends that you worship. As soon as you something the same, you pee in the same urinal. 'Wow, why couldn't I do something cool?'
You've worked with a whole host of Aussie artists like TZU, Funkoars, Pete Murray, so I imagine every time you work with someone different you'd take away a little bit of inspiration from them?
Definitely.
So it must be the same sort of feeling in the States? You're on a new level of taking inspiration from a whole host of new people?
Definitely. And then there's that cultural thing where pretty much most of my influences are black American musicians and people. Then you're hanging out with the guy from security. And he's like, "Are you from Orstralia man?" To me, it's like being in a movie. I'm loving it. Even that I could feel working it's way into my music and making it blues-ier. I get a kick out of that. If I was a classical musician I wouldn't care about that, bit I'm in the home of where it comes from. I grew up a weirdo being into blues. In my era, I was a teenager in the nineties, what kid was into blues then?
Yeah back in the nineties, blues was not mainstream popular. You were definitely one of the trailblazers when it came to that style of music.
Yeah it was almost like a fetish, like being into model trains or some bizarre thing that everybody else is like 'What the hell? I know there's a few people into that but I mean jeez, it's a bit strange.' I mean music appreciators in Oz, you'd know it yourself, take it seriously because you're in a minority with sport and that. But there, I guess because there's so many more people, but they're really into their music. So it's a good place to be playing music. I mean these are things that people have told me over the years, but I didn't really get it. You've got to turn up somewhere to get it in any country. Once you walk those streets you go 'Ah yeah, that’s what they told me. Now I remember.'
So is this your first foray into the States?
No I have had – I did SXSW, I went in 2004 into Memphis, a little blues competition. I loved that as well but at the time, I was pretty lifestyle focused and I was in these adventures of going surfing all the time. It was different, I was just in a different phase of my life.
So what's been the highlight of the tour so far?
My first gig in Austin, Texas was my highlight. I was nervous about playing in America. I hadn't been nervous about a gig for as long as I could remember. I felt the weight of expectation and everybody telling me it would go well but I really doubted that. I was scared that they didn't know what they were talking about, that they'd misjudged my music and they were just getting excited, it wasn't them who had to actually go out and do the business. I could have cried when I finished my first song and they just went crazy singing along and just getting into it. It felt like I was headlining the gig but it was just the support. I felt elated by that and I thought, 'Wow!' I thought what I ended up thinking a month later - that I could have a career here.
It's good to break out of that comfort zone and grow like that.
I really don't want to stop like that. I got really influenced by Xavier and the boys killing it every night on this tour and I felt that it really helped my music. When I get back I've got Ian Collard supporting me, who's one of the musicians who I respect most in Australia and probably one of the best blues and harmonica players in Australia, or even the world. He played on my Live at the Corner album and was a big influence on me and my music when I was starting out. He's gonna be doing my whole Oz tour with me. I wanna keep that going every time I play – have people around me that I look up to, to help keep making that buzz going.
Well, good luck on the rest of the tour and glad to see you're making it to the Gov in Adelaide.
Yes. Cool, thanks John.
For more information on Ash Grunwald visit his official website HERE
Ash Grunwald National Tour 2014
Friday, 15th August
Townsville Cultural Festival, Townsville QLD
Tickets: Cultural Fest
Saturday, 16th August
Springwood Hotel, Springwood QLD
Tickets: Ticketmaster
Sunday, 17th August
Blue Mountain Hotel, Toowoomba QLD
Tickets: Ticketmaster
Thursday, 21st August
Golden Vine Hotel, Bendigo VIC
Tickets: Venue
Friday, 22nd August
Chelsea Heights Hotel, Chelsea Heights VIC
Tickets: Ticketmaster
Saturday, 23rd August
Village Green, Mulgrave VIC
Tickets: Ticketmaster
Wednesday, 27th August
The Kooroora Hotel, Mt Buller VIC
Tickets: Oztix
Friday, 29th August
Swindlers Tavern, Hotham Heights VIC
Tickets: Oztix
Wednesday, 10th – Thursday, 11th September
Big Sound, Brisbane QLD
Tickets: Q Music
Friday, 12th September
Sound Lounge, Gold Coast QLD
Tickets: Sound Lounge
Saturday, 13th September
The Originals Music Festival, Noosa QLD
Tickets: Moshtix
Thursday, 18th September
Mona Vale Hotel, Sydney NSW
Tickets: Oztix
Friday, 19th September
Collector Tavern, Parramatta NSW
Tickets: Oztix
Saturday, 20th September
Entrance Leagues, Central Coast NSW
Tickets: Oztix
Sunday, 21st September
Dirty Roots 2 Festival, Towradgi NSW
Tickets: Moshtix
Friday, 26th September
Bramble Bay Bowls Club, Woody Point QLD
Tickets: Oztix
Saturday, 27th September
The Gov, Adeliade SA
Tickets: Oztix
Thursday, 2nd October
The Cambridge, Newcastle NSW
Tickets: www.bigtix.com.au
Friday, 3rd October
Carmens Nightclub, Miranda NSW
Tickets: Oztix
Saturday, 4th October
Great Southern Blues Festival, Narooma NSW
Tickets: Blues festival
Sunday, 5th October
Wildwood at Cassegrains Winery, Port Macquarie NSW
Tickets: Oztix