Soulshine Interviews Ash Grunwald

22 May 2009 by Richard Wilson

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Ash Grunwald

After more than six months of relentlessly touring of his latest album around Australia and the world, Richard Wilson chats with Ash Grunwald about his unique live show, his ubiquitous appearances at festivals, the recording process and what the future holds.

I get a call at about two in the afternoon. Ash Grunwald's calling from Margaret River in WA. While I get ready to start the interview Ash takes a moment to spread out in the back of his van and we're good to go.

Starting out as pretty much an acoustic musician with his influences firmly routed in traditional delta blues, Ash Grunwald has since expanded his sound to create a unique blend that mixes elements of blues, hip hop, industrial, funk, groove and more. But where does Ash Grunwald himself see his music?

"I think it has a bluesy foundation, but it's influenced by groove music, and funk and electronic forms of music, and hip hop and anywhere you find a groove in music. And as things have gone by it has become a bigger and bigger part of the music. And in a live sense, it's sort of dancing in a way but it's usually solo."

Despite this unique blend, Grunwald doesn't really set out to deliberately combine so many styles.

"I'm gonna explore different genres as time goes on but that's what I see as sort of my main contribution to what's out there, with those kinds of combinations of that groove kind of thing and the bluesy thing."

Anyone who has been to any Australian rock, blues or folk music festival in the past six months will likely have seen his name on a lineup or two. Asked why he plays so many festivals, it's as honest answer as you'll get.

"Why do I do it? I mean it's super fun! If I could play at a festival every day I'd play at a festival every day."

Despite his growing profile and fanbase, it's not uncommon to see Ash Grunwald playing sets early in the day at festivals where normally you might see a much smaller artist playing. But this isn't exactly his choosing.

"I'd prefer to come on to a ready-made crowd. Rather than have to light up things to get start. But that seems to be a niche they love me to fill at times, but you know. I mean those Bluesfest gigs were pretty fun so I've got no complaints."

Despite the early slots, Ash says, "It often works out well and people are fresh. Not that I have anything against drinking, but you know people aren't drunk or anything. Often they're more receptive earlier on. So it can be a sort of blessing in disguise."

Given the choice between festivals and gigs, Ash says he ultimately prefers festivals, but of course his own shows do have their own special place. Plus with his own crowds often drawing heavily from festival-goers, they can be much of a muchness.

"Just the thing is, when you've done a lot of festivals, people come to the gig with that sort of festival idea in mind with what they're going to experience. So over the years I've noticed the gigs get easier to get that atmosphere going."

The format of his own shows however does give him a lot more slack to try something a bit different.

"Yeah, I mean it's obviously compressed in a festival so you do play more of your I guess excitement kind of stuff. You do have time to muck around a bit more in a solo gig, so in your own show you take your time and you do a few different things. So yeah, they're just different animals. And I mean some gigs that I do -- occasionally -- are you know, actually sit-down, theatre gigss and stuff. And that's when I'll take my tine and you know, do a bit of old blues, and have a bit of a chat to the audience."

Probably one of the unique aspects of his live shows lately has been the two drummer/percussionists he has touring with him. Why choose two drummers over a drummer and another instrument?

"I want to sound... different to every other band. You put bass and drums up there next to each other, the standard rhythm section, and it's cool. There are so many bands that are great, but it's a sound we've heard a lot of, and I want to do something different than that when I add more players."

With one drummer playing an assortment of junkyard instruments, and another handling the electronic drums, Grunwald feels he has the bases covered for the sounds he wants to get out of his live show.

"[I have] Kanchana (Karunaratna) getting the electronic kind of feel going, but he's playing it completely live so it can still change tempos as my stuff does. And then Benny (Owens) is doing the junk percussion thing. Because on my albums I'll have electronic stuff, I'll have a bit of kit stuff and a fair bit of junk percussion."

Benny is perhaps best known for the car door that he beats the crap out of on stage. The story of how it ended up on stage is as matter-of-fact as it comes.

"People really love to see him smash a car door... it's fun!"

Elements of Grunwald's love for junkyard instruments seems at least partly inspired by Tom Waits -- who was enough of an inspiration to see Grunwald cover two of his songs on early albums. With the way his sound has since evolved, does Grunwald still see himself with the same influences?

"Yeah, I think you wouldn't hear them as much now, I mean I think probably hear them every time I sing or play guitar though. I guess the other thing is I'm trying to do something new now, whereas then I guess I was doing something a little more traditional. It's not that I have anything against trad -- I love C.W. Stoneking for example -- but for myself I feel like I've done a couple of albums like that and you want to keep moving with the music to do something new every time. And think the way it's coming together at the moment is someting that I haven't heard on an album before -- it's a different kind of music. I like that factor as well, to be doing something different."

His latest album, Fish Out of Water, was produced by TZU's Countbounce. You might expect a more traditional musician and a hip hop producer to work all that cohesively, but Ash says it worked from the very start. In fact he asked him to produce the album because he knew it would work.

"Yeah, well that's why I wanted to do it with him. Because I knew from his personality that he'd be a good guy to work with and just from the one song -- we wrote Fish Out of Water together -- and after that I knew we'd work together well."

Despite his traditional background, Ash Grunwald has always recorded on computer, and Countbounce is well versed in more traditional songwriting and playing instruments, so there really wasn't any issue with coming from different places musically.

Ash doesn't really see the hip hop produced album as a one-off thing; but rather a path he'll travel down further.

"You know I'd like to keep going down that path for sure. And keep doing little collaborations with people here and there. Maybe on one album collaborate with more than one person. You know, different tracks, different sounds. I think that'd be interesting."

Having recently returned from touring in the UK, Ash has come to realise just how Australian his music is.

"You know the further away you get, the more you realise it does have a very Aussie feel about it. It's probably a very Aussie pub style thing to do when you're playing solo to make it more dancy and try and make it so big. It's not like a delicate acoustic thing at all. So that does stick out to me overseas."

And the reception from audiences?

"The overwhelming thing that strikes me, actually, is how similar all the audiences are. Even in Japan and France where they don't talk much English. Generally the sort of gigs I did they ended up sort of partying and it gets roughly a similar kind of feel. I guess the only difference is when you do theatre gigs [over there] and nobody talks at all, which very rarely happens in Australia."

Having toured this current album extensively across Australia and the world, Ash Grunwald isn't ready to kick back just yet. He's got more shows in England planned, a three week jaunt in Canada and even some touring in South Africa lined up before the year's out. And he says he'll hit the road in Australia at least once more.

But new material is most likely on its way. "I'll probably start doing a bit of jamming I think," Grunwald ponders.

"I think I'll be thinking about a new release next year for sure.... actually, it's good your asking me these questions because I need to start thinking about it."

Ash Grunwald is currently touring across Australia. 'Fish Out of Water' is the third single and title track off Ash's forth studio album.