James Blundell

“The statements that last longest are most simply put ..........” JAMES BLUNDELL ARRIVES AT RING AROUND THE MOON It’s the perspective he was able to call upon that gives Ring Around The Moon – which he describes as “The most mature and satisfying record I’ve ever made” - its conviction, its command and its sheen.Two decades, nine albums, country fame, pop hits, a national top five album and ones that came nowhere near, nine Golden Guitars, an ARIA Award, songs written and recorded in Nashville, New York, Los Angeles, London and Dublin, collaborations with good earth riders and metal muthas, years as a bona-fide Queensland cattleman, the embrace of Vietnam vets, a highly visible Qantas ad, gold and platinum plaques, national recognition, exultation and disillusionment, glowing reviews and occasional indifference, a tour with Kris Kristofferson and a chin wag with Johnny Cash, uncountable shows on the road that goes on forever, wrong turns and right ...... all with his curiosity, intuition, good humour and dogged determination intact. As the Grateful Dead once sang: “What a long strange trip it’s been.” “Half your career is devoted to getting on your own road” James contends, twenty years after he won the Starmaker competition, fresh-faced and eager to conquer country. “I’m a very different person from that young bloke - I’ve learned a helluva lot along the way, most of it from making mistakes and going through tough times. Now I’ve reached a personal place of comfort where I’m relaxed about pretty much everything. I know I’m no ‘man of the moment’, I’m not a current artist. If I had to describe the sort of music I’m making now I think it would be songs of experience leading to clarity. Musically I’m a very definite product of an evolving Australian psyche.” Though he’d always kicked against the traces to some degree – particularly when it came to his dealings with Nashville and its firmly set notions - it was after seven albums with a major record company that James Blundell set out to make one that would reflect more accurately what he was listening to and aspiring to equal; that would in effect reposition him. He even established his own indie label, Revenge Records, to release 2005’s Deluge, which broke a six year drought of new material. Not only did it carry the stark, affecting and admired Postcards From Saigon, it featured contributions from Kirk Pengilly of INXS, Cold Chisel legend Ian Moss, David Leslie of the Baby Animals, Chris Bailey of the Angels, Phil Soussan from Ozzy Osbourne’s band and, gulp, Eddie Clarke from Motorhead. It was new terrain, to be sure. “I want to get away from the classification of a country artist,” the man who was playing guitar at 4 and writing lyrics at 7 told one interviewer. “My style of music is forever evolving and now is somewhere along the lines of Tom Petty, Steve Earle and John Mellencamp. There was a period about two years into the process where I thought ‘I don’t know if we’re going backwards, forwards or sideways’. In a way, artistically and creatively, it was very liberating.” The reviews were not unkind, even if the sales were not overwhelming. “Deluge sits comfortably in a place that touches on rock, country and old school R&B” wrote Polly Coufos. To another reviewer “James Blundell is one Australian artist who has taken his fans on a meandering musical journey throughout his career. One thing he has always done is follow his instincts and feelings.” Instincts and feelings that have, two years on, been given full reign, though with greater focus and a somewhat different approach. “Had I not made that album” he reckons, “I don’t think I would have been in the headspace to have made this one.” It being album nine, Ring Around The Moon, which brings James to Compass Bros, the label that he and many others see as his natural home. And to label head Graham Thompson, who may well be his natural producer. “I think it has a great sense of place,” says James. “It was put together with minimum fuss and massive amount of respect for everyone involved. There are only six players on it – it’s tight and concise. I’ve thrown kitchen sinks at albums in the past - I’ve tried to be and do everything but I’ve been wide of the mark most times. The process with Graham was the best artist-producer relationship I’ve ever had. I liked him instantly; he has the most rounded view of anyone I’ve ever worked with. I know now that secret of it all is to get good people surrounding you and take your hands off the wheel. Working with people you trust is essential. I think it’s the perfect boutique label. It has a real sense of family and in a label that’s an important thing.” Recording in Sydney, Graham opted for a lean and keen, somewhat Rick Rubin sound that emphasised the heart and soul of the creative centrepiece – the songs. “I was open to his choice of players, they’re just an amazing group of musicians,” explains James. “With them I was able to achieve a sort of earthy honesty. I didn’t want to lose the charm of the songs as they were written and with James Gillard [bass], Mark Punch and Glenn Hannah [guitars], Terepai Richmond [drums], Clayton Doley [keyboards] and Trent Williamson [harmonica] I didn’t.” It was James who located and enlisted singing twins Jesse and Michaela Curran, from the Mildura band Harem. “I heard Jesse singing at the Broken Hill races and she just floored me. You can find great talent in the most unexpected spots. Graham and I spent a lot of time on the backing vocals and apart from the girls we used James Gillard and Mark Punch, old friends that I have recorded on and off with for twenty odd years. They have this great blend when they sing together. ”Label mate Dianna Corcoran also joined James on Four Feet Tall... “that voice comes straight from god” enthuses James....as did Chris E Thomas on Let’s All Get Together. Ring Around The Moon is a collection of new and (in at least one case, the driving title track, which was penned in 1999) old originals – with the exception of two contributions from Cold Chisel’s Don Walker (This Is The Truth and Let’s Have A Party Anyway) and Johnny Cash’s bare’n’spare tale of vet’s alienation, Drive On. The latter’s inclusion inspired by the memory of an unexpected interaction when James was presenting at the CMA Awards in 1993. He was assigned a dressing room with a couple of other performers – Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins. “It was real comfortable” James recalls. “We discussed a lot of stuff, we laughed a lot. Drive On just seemed so right for this record – it’s dry, laconic, edgy and has an attitude that I share. It’s a song I’m proud to be associated with.” Just as he’s proud to sing the Walker offerings. “I love Don’s songs. He’s laconic and honest in the way he writes. This Is The Truth came to us as a basic demo with a gravelly modal type vocal that sounded very 2AM. When I first recorded it I thought ‘this is too pretty’ so I did it again keeping in mind James Gillard’s good advice, ‘Don’t sing this too much’. I made Let’s Have A Party Anyway kind of swampy, I felt it that way. It’s a song that will be readily understood by any hard living man ... or woman. It’s the party everyone has been to at some point.” One of James’ favourite cuts is the album’s mood-setting opener Learning To Roll, which was inspired by a line proffered by the ever-beaming James Gillard. “He once said to me ‘Anyone can rock but rolling, that takes a lot of practice’. Well it’s taken a while but I think I’ve learned to roll.” Perhaps that self-evolution accounts for the effectiveness of Higher Than Heaven, which takes the tunesmith back to his rural realm at Stanthorpe. “The time spent there is not enough, particularly now that Dad’s over 70. There’s two properties, Mount Malakoff and Wobur, which is Aboriginal for crest of a hill, and the river Severn that hums with life, and in that incredible environment I considered my life and found myself thinking, “How did I let it all get so complicated? The last visit there was a cathartic experience. I woke up one morning with that chorus in my head and that doesn’t happen very often, let me tell you. You hang out for fertile writing seasons and you can’t ever take it for granted. Something I always tell young acts is: write everything down.” There is a distinct personal connection to every one of his songs. Nature’s Gentleman is about a man he thinks of as “a surrogate father”, one Ernie Collins who worked on the family property for 27 years. Moderation is “about a very dear friend by the name of Robert Bryett, one of a pair of twins who I met on a Toowoomba football field when we were both ten. I introduced him to my boys a few years ago with the words ‘I’ve never met a more honest man and I’ve never met a wilder one’ and he just smiled and said ‘Nowdays I’m a man of moderation except for my extremes’. I told him I’d use that in a song one day and give him a credit.” James sees Four Feet Tall as “Autobiographical, about running from the best parts of my life for so long. It’s a simple set of values that wound up in a song.” The Poet and The Queen is “about Lidia, the lady I married in 1997, a very colourful relationship. Believe me, during periods in the creative process you put love well and truly to the test.” So much so that, as he explained in 2005, “One of the reasons I spent years not writing love songs is that I got so sick of the ‘I love you, why don’t you love me?’ thing. So I wrote more about social issues and other things for a long time, then people told me ‘don’t avoid the issue just look at it a different way’ and so I began to write about relationships again.” We have that shift to thank for the tender The Sound Of Your Smile which, James admits, “just fell out. I made up the bridge while I was playing it for Graham. It was the last song selected for the album.” Perhaps as a counterpoint Ring Around The Moon tackles change, drought and the challenges facing the hardy species who make their living from the land. About the gently self-deprecating Too Old To Die Young James just says, “To have an untarnished reputation you’ve got to get off the planet pretty quickly. Otherwise all you can do is live with the most honest intent and accept that you’ll make mistakes.” And perhaps endure them. Beautiful Day In New York came out of getting some unsettling news in the Big Apple, looking at that skyline and being grateful for what you have and accepting of what you can’t. There is a summation he offered in 2005, about some of his earlier work, that applies just as accurately to Ring Around The Moon. “I guess what ties the songs together is that they are all thought-provoking in one way or another. And if I can make people think a bit harder and look a little deeper into themselves I’ve succeeded as a songwriter.” As he told Country Music Capital News’ Sue Jarvis a couple of years ago, “I’ve always loved music but was never very good at the politics of the industry, and that meant that I trod on quite a few toes along the way. It was all totally upside down – I had so much success and fame and adulation at the beginning and was given so much say in the creative process when I really wasn’t ready for it. By the time I knew what I needed to do, that had all virtually disappeared.” Now it has returned and James is ready, willing and able to go with whatever flow comes his way. “This is a period in my life where I want to address music in any form” he insists. “Once you know who you are and what you are then you can use that to interact with the planet. Now I’m taking a longer view of things. I don’t worry a lot about what other people think of me. I’ve gone way past the stage of being bothered by that attitude of because you come from the sticks you’re a dumb arse hillbilly. “I have half the next album ready to go. I’m committed to being an artist again and I want to stay here for a long time.” Indeed, there is something he said way back in 1995 about his ambitious double Earth and Sea CD set, that seems to apply here, “If your instincts are all driving you in one direction, I think it’s a disaster if you fight it. I’ve always been a musical junkie; I’m comfortable in a lot of grooves. In Australia you can do what you want and that sort of creative freedom is such an adventure. One of the freedoms of making an album is that, if you use your brains, you can put out whatever you want.” And what James Blundell wants and what he puts into his music is never going to be ill-considered. He has high expectations of the craft of music-making. “I think it’s the last apolitical, non-denominational platform of speech left to free thinkers and, as such, should be treated with absolute respect. It crosses barriers that other communications can’t. The meaning will make itself clear to anyone who understands the language in which a song is written.”