Now he's heading to Nashville, to AmericanaFest, and before then he's taking some Australian artists on a short tour called The Road to AmericanaFest. When I say it was an honour to talk to Nicholson about the tour, AmericanaFest, his work as a producer, and his latest album, Hell Breaks Loose, I am understating the case. Thank goodness he turned out to be as smart and interesting as I'd always hoped. The Road to AmericanaFest tour dates are:
Thursday
1st September - Suttons House of Music, Ballarat
Friday 2nd
September - Baha, Rye
What does the term
‘Americana’ signify for you?
I consider it to be a catch-all phrase, like a big umbrella
term that covers so many different forms of country music – but not just
country music. Roots music, folk music, bits of rock ’n’ roll. It’s this kind
of weird melting pot of stuff. It’s been around for a very long time but it’s
obviously becoming a bit more known as a genre, I guess, and that catchphrase,
that term. Which is a bit weird for us in Australia because it makes us think
of the music as being American. But it’s not so much – we used to call it
‘alternative country’ but alternative country really to me is a subgenre of
Americana. It’s kind of what these people who are fringe dwellers on the
country scene are doing – they’re using a bit of rock and old blues and folk
and all these different kind of influences in their music. But I certainly
don’t see that there’s anything new. Neil Young was doing it in the ’70s, so
it’s been around for a long time.
My next question was
going to be, ‘In Australia, how do we define it?’ And I think it has been
called ‘alt country’ but I’ve certainly seen the label being used more for
Australian country music than it used to be.
There’s a real burgeoning alt-country scene in Australia
which has always been bubbling along underneath but now that it’s been
recognised at the Golden Guitar awards with its own category, the introduction
of Lost Highway – the label that I’m working with, which is pretty much a
boutique label whose whole mission statement is to try to recreate the feel of
what the American Lost Highway label did, which was really hugely instrumental
in the careers of people like Ryan Adams and Lucinda Williams who really have
pushed alternative country largely into the mainstream, certainly in American
and also internationally. So I think there’s a push now – there’s a bit of a
groundswell and a push for this kind of music and people are still gravitating
towards it.
There’s a lot of country-folk-blues-rock music to be made in
this country that hasn’t always had a home and I think that’s what’s good now:
it’s getting to that point where a community is forming of people and artists
who kind of know each other and get along really well and tour together, and
that’s largely what this show’s all about that we’re starting, with the Road to
Americanafest, which is going to become a bigger thing eventually. This is the
lead-up to us going to Nashville for the Americana Festival but I want to turn
it into the alt-country Americana roadshow and travel with it around the
country, and show that there’s that melting pot of artists. That’s why I’ve got
six people on the bill – the whole idea is that it’s seen as a community and
people working together and playing, which is largely what they do in the
States. All of our idols do that – they’ve all sung together and toured
together and done all sorts of things where they cross-pollinate with each
other, and that’s what I want to push in this country a bit more.
Certainly I’ve seen
at Tamworth those shows at the Tudor Hotel upstairs, the late night alt country
– it was really interesting to see that community coalescing. And part of
what’s so great about Australian country music and the communities within it is
that there’s so much respect for other sectors of country music, so those
influences are there to drawn on and they’re also really respected by younger
artists who respect older artists, so I think it means you can get all these
different types of people involved and all these great sounds – and it sounds
like that’s what you’re working towards.
Totally – and it’s got this outsider feel to it for a lot of
the artists and I think they enjoy that in a way. And I don’t mean outside the
industry, I mean outside other industry circles, and it’s a group of people who
are like-minded and love the same music. I think it’s interesting that the
public, listeners, music lovers are discovering music that they love and they
didn’t know what it was called, they didn’t know what alt country was or
Americana music was. But it’s always been here, you know – we’ve always been
listening to American music. Slim Dustry was a really great interpreter of
Jimmie Rodgers. It all comes from somewhere. So we’ve been listening to
American music for a long time, and if you want to put a finer point on it,
it’s actually Irish music in the first place.
I really get bored of the argument or the deciding about
delineating between Australian and American, because music is one of the two
universal languages, the other being mathematics, and I don’t know anything
about mathematics. The thing about music is that if it’s the universal language,
then I don’t really care where it comes from, who plays it – it’s all there on
the table and it’s all for the taking, so use anything and everything to make
the music you want to make. We do have to give it names to differentiate
between it, but maybe less now – there’s not really physical record stores any
more where you need to go in and find the pop section or the classical section.
I guess you just look up the sections on your phone now, on iTunes or whatever,
so we still need categories so people know where to go to find something they
want to hear. But beyond that I think labels are a bit pointless, really.
Just listening to you
talking about mathematics and music – I think there is some science now that
proves that people who are great at music tend to be great at maths, so you may
know more about maths than you think.
[Laughs] Well, it hasn’t presented itself to me yet.
That degree in pure
mathematics awaits you.
Yeah, awesome, that sounds boring. I don’t think I can do
that [laughs].
You can look at the
numbers on the mixing desk, maybe. Speaking of which: you’re the house producer
for Lost Highway Australia, so I’m wondering how conscious you are of shaping
current and future sounds in Australian music. I think you’re in a unique
position as a songwriter, performer and doing this much producing for one
label. Are you thinking of that when you’re producing – that you’re shaping the
future?
Not really. Not on such a grand scale. What I’m really doing
when I’m producing is thinking about what sort of album they want to make and
is that what we’re achieving. Every record essentially is about what that
artist is trying to achieve and steering them down that path and around the
obstacles and trying to make that come to fruition. I don’t produce everything
for Lost Highway either – artists are able to use other producers. Most of my
work is separate to the label, but it’s still because of that. People still
come to me because there’s a certain sound they’re after or judging on records
of mine that I’ve made in the past or for someone else – they become your
business cards. [Those artists] come to you for a certain reason. I don’t get
pop artists coming to me wanting to do a Top 40 song – nobody’s got an idea
that that’s what I do because I’ve never done anything like that. So the people
who come to me are generally more in my vein or the Lost Highway vein, and I
think by virtue of that there is a knock-on effect producing a lot of those
artists where it does become a bit of a group. Interestingly I don’t really
think about it in those grand terms, I guess – it’s just about every record to
me. As long they’re really great and I’m super pumped about how great they are,
that’s as far as I think about it.
If you are
concentrating with every project you have, that becomes an aggregated whole
which is a great cultural contribution, at least from my perspective. But just
back to what you said about pop – I’d argue that on your first two solo albums
you showed extremely good pop sensibilities.
I guess it was a bit more pop back in those days [laughs].
You can write a
catchy tune – it’s nothing to be underestimated!
No, no, and I loved doing that. There’s still large elements
of those records in what I do now. The people you grow up listening to are
always the people who come out in your work and you end up using all those
influences as you get older. But obviously it changes over time. I find that
the latest record [Hell Breaks Loose]
is the first record that’s tying those earlier ones to the more recent records.
It’s actually got elements of every record I’ve ever made on it. That wasn’t
intentional at all but it certainly seems to have done that, from my
perspective as a writer.
As someone who’s
listened to your albums many, many times, I’d agree with that.
Cool. It just seemed to be that. It wasn’t till it was
finished and I had some distance from it that it occurred to me that it
references little bit of everything – It’s
a Movie, Faith & Science, all that old stuff, but then kind of
incorporates all the different shades of country I’ve tried in the meantime. It
was a nice surprise, when I’d finished it, to realise that.
One question I’ll ask
about this album before I go on to ask about AmericanaFest is whether you’ve
been back to Hermannsburg?
I haven’t. I’m going back in a couple of months to play a
show out there with Warren Williams – a big outdoor festival show, I think in
the historical precinct. And I want to feel a whole bunch of doco footage and
retrace my steps from my last trip out there. It was just a trip at the time
that I didn’t realise how pivotal it would be until later. It would be kind of
cool to go back and retrace my steps and have a keepsake of it. Try to drag a
filmmaker along with me, and play a show, which I think will be pretty special.
You’ll probably get a
lot of people. I interviewed Warren a while ago and I remember him saying that
if you put on a show in those parts of Australia, so many people come because
they’re so keen to hear music.
And they love their country music out there. Here’s a really
quick story: when I was walking through Hermannsburg one day on my own, having
a stroll, I heard music but it didn’t sound like a record. I thought, That sounds like a band playing. I
followed the sound and walked into this corrugated shed with a dirt floor and
there’s three guys jamming [with] this broken drum kit and this bass guitar
with two strings, they just had the shittiest equipment but they were going for
it and loving it. It was awesome. I sat there and watched them play for a little
while. It was really cool.
That sounds like it
will be an amazing show and experience – and also good for you to return, just
going on what the song is like on your album and what the place meant to you.
Basically, it was more having the perspective for a little
while and going away from your bubble. I wasn’t going to write. It was the one
time I’d got on an aeroplane without an instrument. It was weird getting on a
plane without an instrument. The plan was not to play music at all because I’d
been recording so much in the studio and I was a bit all musicked out. But I
guess that’s why and how it happens. On my first day there I sat down outside
this church and started writing ‘Hell Breaks Loose’, ironically, steps of the
church. And then I had to go and find a guitar off a local – I had to get
Warren to find somebody who had a guitar so I could keep writing that week. So
it’s just the way it works – nothing ever goes to plan.
You created the
vacuum and nature rushed to fill it, I guess would be the physics way to put
it.
That’s a good way to put it.
Now, to this tour:
you’re heading off with Lachlan Bryan, Gretta Ziller, the Weeping Willows and
Andrew Swift. Mr Bryan has been known to wear a three-piece suit on stage –
will you be joining him?
[Laughs] Absolutely not. If I wanted to wear a suit, I
wouldn’t be a musician [laughs]. It’s just not comfortable enough for me. These
days I will wear a bit snappier jacket or that kind of thing. But, you know,
I’m a musician and I’m quite happy wearing my jeans forever. That’s getting
dressed up for me anyway. Right now, I’m working in the studio today and I’m
still in pyjamas, because that’s what I love about doing what I do: I don’t
ever have to get dressed.
You could probably
wear pyjamas on stage and it would be a fashion statement.
[Laughs] Maybe so. I don’t know that I’ll go that far. But
I’ll leave the suit to Lachlan because I get too claustrophobic and can’t sing
in a suit. If I was an accountant, maybe I’d wear a suit.
Well, he can wear
suits for both of you. I presume you chose this line-up for the tour?
I did. Because this is a Victorian one, I wanted to choose
some of my favourite Victorian artists who are working consistently in this
world, in this genre, in Americana/alt country. And I’ve played with all of
them before. I took the Weeping Willows on my Victorian Hell Breaks Loose launch tour and I’ve done some shows with Swifty
as well. And obviously Lachlan over the years. It was a really nice group to
put together, all being fairly local to Melbourne. Then the idea is that I’ll
move it to another city at another time. I’ll do a Sydney one and have Sydney-
or New South Wales-based musicians come and do it. Then one in Brisbane. That’s
the whole idea: move it around eventually. This one in particular is just the
three shows down there. They’re some good people who are really good to hang
out with on the road, and I thought it would musically be a pretty fun night.
And also quite a good
balance of acts, because the Weeping Willows are traditional country, Gretta
has her very distinctive and fantastic thing going on – and every time I think
of Lachlan I think of Alfred Lord Tennyson and The Highwayman.
He’s probably cool with that.
He’s got that
every-song’s-a-novel thing going on.
Yes. He’s a very intelligent bloke too. And he’s been around
a long time – he’s been something of an alt-country stalwart. He’s made a mark.
I once presented him and The Wildes with Alt Country Album of the Year at the
Golden Guitars. So they’ve kicked a lot of goals in the past. So I think it’s a
pretty good line-up and it’ll be special night, really. And there will be
guests and other musicians – it’ll be a bit of fun. In the future we’re going
to expand it and have American barbecue food – make it a travelling road show.
To conclude I’ll ask
you about AmericanaFest in Nashville. You’re going over there to play. It’s a
big industry as well as fan experience – once you’ve done your shows, or in
between shows, will you be a fan or industry focused or both?
I’ll be both and mostly a fan. I’ve got a few different
things I have to do over there. Just one showcase but a few other performances.
It’s a gathering once a year when all of my entire record collection descend on
the same city for a week, so it’s impossible not to enjoy yourself. You never
get to see all the shows you want to see or see all the people you want to see
– and also a lot of Australian friends living in Nashville. There’s so much to
do in that way. I’ve done this festival twice before and I love it, I really love
it. It’s got an incredible vibe and I’ve never done a music week festival
anywhere in the world that’s anything like it. It’s always exciting to be
there.
Hell Breaks Loose is out now through Lost Highway Australia/Universal.
AmericanaFest in Nashville runs from 20 to 25 September 2016.
AmericanaFest in Nashville runs from 20 to 25 September 2016.
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