Towards the end of 2017 I caught guitarist Brodie Rainbird on a rare day off and found out what he and the Wolfes, Nick and Tom, have been up to lately, and what's ahead this year.
Hello and how are you?
I’m good. The boys and I are enjoying a few days at home –
we haven’t had many of those this year.
Does anyone even
recognise you any more?
[Laughs] They still hear from us. We don’t let them forget.
How was 2017 – what
were the highlights? Were there any lowlights?
It’s been flat out. We’ve been over to Nashville for a
month. We’ve written a new album. Then we came home and we started touring with
Lee Kernaghan. So we’ve done his tour, which is now over. In between all of
those dates we’ve done our own dates. We started our own tour. And then in
between all of that we’ve been spending time in Sydney recording the new album.
Is it unusual for you
to record in Sydney?
Yes. We’ve recorded one song – it was with Matt Fell at Love
Hz Studios. We recorded one of the first songs we ever put out with him, seven
years ago. So we’ve done a full circle: we’ve been to Nashville, we’ve come all
the way home.
And Matt is a very
popular producer, especially for country music, so that’s a very good fit.
I’ll just say this, though: you haven’t heard Matt do stuff
like this before. This is all brand new. It’s really pushing some boundaries.
Is it pushing some
boundaries for you guys too?
Absolutely, yes. We said, ‘We want our boundaries pushed,
Matt. We want it to be modern and new, and sound cool and really sleek.’ And he
said, ‘Right, we can do this.’
Was that a decision
you made after the songwriting process or as you went into songwriting did you
think you’d push yourselves in a different direction – or into an evolution,
shall we say?
It’s been on our minds for a while but it sort of came after
the writing process. We came home and we weren’t sure who was going to do the
album. We weren’t sure if we could afford to go back to Nashville or not, then
decided not to. Then we thought, Well,
who at home can do this? We actually did a duet with the Baylou girls and
we heard that and thought, Oh wow – this
is not like what Matt Fell normally sounds like. And that got us thinking,
and it all worked out so well. The boys and I are incredibly happy with it.
It is a big decision,
choosing a producer. In this case it’s had a big impact on your sound but that
producer can also be a collaborator. And I would think that given you guys as a
band are so tight, you’re so used to working with each other, it almost gives
an extra significance to choosing a producer who can work with you and not
upset your band dynamic.
Yes, that’s totally true. And we wanted someone who could
grab the album by the balls and just do something with it. A lot of stuff we’ve
done in the past we’ve tracked the band live all at the same time, to capture
that live energy. And we were, like, ‘Nah, we’re going to do something
completely different [this time].’ With Matt we’d lay a couple of bass tracks
down, or guide tracks, then Matt would just go to town for three hours playing
synths or creating crazy noises, and messing with vocals and doing all this
crazy stuff that we’d never experienced before, and the three of us would just
sit back and let him do it – ‘That sounds great, mate, just keep going.’ We
didn’t even have a drummer in the studio until the first week was done.
Given how the band
operates, you’re clearly highly organised, and I wouldn’t say you’re control
freaks but there’s an element of that.
[Laughs] We’re under control.
It says a lot about
the three of you as individuals and about the band that you’re prepared to sit
back and say to someone else, creatively, ‘go to town’.
It was a completely new experience for us. It was like
opening the door to another room and it was completely pitch-black dark, and
we’re saying, ‘I don’t know what’s in here but I’m going in.’ As it unfolded
there were a lot of times when Matt was sitting with a keyboard in front of the
computer and we were sitting on the couch behind, and we would all look at each
other and go, ‘Oh wow – that’s cool! He’s created a whole other hook in this
song that we weren’t going to do.’ It quickly became evident that that was the
right decision – that it was working.
Again, what interests
me, having spoken to you – and Tom – over the past few years, as this band has
grown its audience and its sound, I do find this aspect really fascinating. It
seems as time goes on that you push yourselves. You push yourselves in terms of
your work ethic – you work super hard, you’re prepared to do some travel and
other things that some bands might find beyond them – and you keep evolving.
You respect your core audience but you keep finding ways to challenge yourselves,
to challenge your audience, and it’s all quite seamless. I suppose it could
seem like an organic development but I also think there’s that real
consideration of your audience there. You want to pay them the compliment of
giving them something new without annoying them.
I couldn’t have said it better than that! I think as an
artist you have to grow. There’s always exceptions to the rule, like AC/DC, and
you don’t want them to change – you want them to have that sound – but there
are other artists who need to evolve and grow, otherwise it becomes stagnant. It’s
something you have to do. And we’ve want to do this for a long time. We’ve
talked about it at length so many nights: ‘How are we going to do this? What
are we going to do? Who’s going to do it?’ Eventually it all just unfolded in
this beautiful way and we’ve got this fantastic album.
And for you as a
musician, when you first started playing guitar – as a child, probably – were
you always quite curious about doing new things, what was next, wanting to push
yourself as a musician?
It’s funny you say that, because since I can remember – I
started playing in primary school. I think we all did. We met each other in
high school and started hanging out. We were the ones who went back a
generation and wanted to hear old music, from the 80s and the hair metal. Van
Halen and Def Leppard and Metallica – we wanted that stuff. We were so
old-school for so long, then we’ve skipped and we’re now looking ahead. And
I’ve only just realised that.
But I think it’s the
case that you can look ahead because you’ve gone backwards. Having that lineage
and that foundation as artists – even from a technical point of view, as a
guitarist – to know what’s come before gives you the opportunity to play
around. On a really basic level, if you now your scales and you can do your
drills, then you’re free to improvise.
Absolutely. One thing, just as a personal thing on this
album, previously – I’m not sure if Nick’s the same but I’ve always wanted to
be a bit flashy on the guitar. As the albums have gone on I’ve matured a bit
more and that has dropped off to the point where with this album, all the solos
are not really solos, they’re just new melodies and new ideas to introduce to
the song. There’s no shred, there’s no fast stuff, I just really enjoy adding
to what the song is already.
Well, I’m very
excited to hear the album – do you have a release date planned?
Not really.
I imagine you have to
carefully slot it in around a whole lot of other things that are already carefully
planned for next year.
It’s so funny – you pick a date and then look into it and
go, ‘Oh no, that’s coming out then and this is on then. What about the week
after? No, well, that’s happening …’ And eventually you push it so far back
that it’s so far away it’s so pointless. Why is it so hard to find a good week
to release an album? It’s weird.
I’m genuinely curious
about whether you all sit down and open up your calendars and plan twelve
months ahead, or a little more. You seem to be highly planned well in advance.
The key with that is Stephen White Management. We’ve got
such a great management team – we’d be absolutely screwed without them. They do
the bulk of that work while we’re out creating and playing and just being
artists. They’re in the office organising all this stuff and researching,
booking stuff and things like that. We wouldn’t exist without that.
Also, of course, your
schedule has to integrate with Lee Kernaghan’s a lot of the time. So another
year of playing with Lee and also playing your own stuff – I keep expecting you
guys to keel over but I can only imagine that you’re extremely fit.
[Laughs] I feel like we’re about to keel over now, actually,
we’ve been so busy. In the last three weeks we’ve only had a handful of days at
home. The last month, actually. And before that it was just fly-in, fly-out
constantly every week. I changed my insurance and rang my insurance company to
say, ‘I don’t drive to work any more so I don’t need to pay extra money for
that.’ They said, ‘Well, how do you get to work?’ I said, ‘I catch planes.’
Some day in the near
future there needs to be a Wolfe Brothers jet.
Oh, now you’re talking.
And you need to find
a little airfield in Tassie somewhere, where you can park it and you can just
leave your cars there in the meantime, come and go.
That would be so handy.
Now, I’d better move
on to your Tamworth show. You’ve got the one at Blazes, which is, of course, a
key venue. So what can your fans expect?
We really want to turn it on for Tamworth. The boys and I
get more and more excited for Tamworth as it goes on. It’s almost become a bit
of a thing for us. It used to be a lot of work and now it’s, ‘Oh Tamworth –
party time.’ [Laughs] Because we’re only doing the one show we really want to
focus all our energy and attention on that and make it something really worth
remembering.
I like the way you
say you really want to turn it on for Tamworth like you haven’t in the past.
Just another 10 per cent. Every year another 10 per cent.
I’ve even seen you
play the Peel Street Fanzone, three songs in the middle of the day, and you
guys were on. I don’t imagine it’s
easy to switch on that energy but it seems like you have a good mechanism for
switching it on.
We come from the school where you play for three hours in a
pub. That’s hard work. Then you get up on Peel Street and play three songs and
it’s, like, ‘This is so easy.’
I would even suggest
that one set at Blazes seems easy compared with three hours.
It’s so cool – we’ve worked so hard and done those
long-hours gigs. Consecutive, too. I remember one weekend we went up north – we
did a Friday gig, we came halfway down and did Saturday at the Lakes. We all
got very drunk and were very hungover. Then on the way home we did a three-hour
gig at a fair on a Sunday. That’s where we’re from, that’s what we do. So just
to have a bit of success and just to do that one set, that’s so cool. That’s
where you want to be.
The challenge with
that is that you’re several albums into your career and you have a new album
coming. Is there any argy-bargy over the set list?
Not really. It’s one thing we all tend to agree on, because
we all know what works and we’ve done it a lot now. It’s an experience thing, I
think. Nick and Tom especially are really good at reading crowds, so when we
change the set list and it does or doesn’t work, they’re usually pretty
switched on and they figure it out pretty quick.
Again, that’s a level
of dedication to and awareness of your audience, and I think that’s been key to
the Wolfe Brothers the whole way along, that idea that you are there to
entertain, and certainly when I’ve seen you play that seems to be the mantra.
It’s almost like you stand backstage and chant, ‘We will entertain.’ It’s that
humility of the long-term artist as well – realising that you are in service to
your audience. You might think, I really
want to play that song, but if it’s not resonating with the audience it has
to go.
Exactly. That’s so important, to be able to connect, because
once you have that connection with an audience there’s a beautiful energy
exchange that happens between artist and crowd. And everyone wins when you
really nail a gig -it’s awesome.
Sometimes egos get in
the way – not so much in country music, but a lot of artists can hang on to an
idea of This is what I want to do. So I do think it is an
achievement to get past that.
I’ve never really thought of it like that. There’s three of
us, so we have each other to keep us on
the ground.
And with this show
you have Jody Direen on the bill with you. She was on your This Crazy Life tour
a little while ago, so obviously you all got on.
We love Jody. We absolutely love her. We were her band as
well when we played that tour, and to me one of the highlights of that tour was
playing her songs, sharing the stage with her. She’s just electric. She’s
amazing. Such a voice.
I interviewed her a
little while ago and she has a really interesting story too. I think she’s a
terrific artist.
Have you heard her song ‘Spitfire’?
Probably. But I
listen to a lot of songs and I don’t always remember their names!
Honestly, the best part of the entire night was playing
‘Spitfire’.
So you’re Jody’s
band, you’re Lee’s band – who else are you playing for?
Who haven’t we played for? We’ve been Gord Bamford’s band
when he comes out. We’ve played with Troy [Cassar-Daley], Lee obviously, TaniaKernaghan.
I think the moral of
the story is that you guys just love to play.
Yeah. We’ve been James Blundell’s band, which was really
cool. Heaps of stuff. It’s kind of one of our tricks, that we can do that.
It’s more than a
trick, it’s an artform. It’s extra rehearsal time too.
It’s at the point now where we can all learn the songs at
home, go to the gig and at soundcheck, if it’s only a small appearance, we can
run the songs at soundcheck and it’s all good, we’re ready to go.
That is such a hard
thing to do. But you’re professionals, so you can do that. But my time’s about
to run out so I’m going to take a hard turn and ask you two things about
Tasmania. The first is, what is the best thing about Tasmania?
The first thing that comes to my mind is when I get off the
plane in Hobart, when I first step out of the plane, and that cool, thick,
fresh air hits your face. That is the best thing.
And the thing you
miss the most about Tasmania when you’re travelling?
The fact that there’s no traffic. We spend a lot of time in
Sydney and it is ridiculous.
The Wolfe Brother's latest album is This Crazy Life.
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