Kelly's Heroes An interview with Paul Kelly.

Rip It Up, Issue 218, 1 October 1995, Page 10

Kelly's Heroes An interview with Paul Kelly.

Since Paul Kelly broke up the Messengers four years ago, it’s been hard work keeping track of the various projects he’s been involved in. Collaborations with Mark Seymour, Christine Anu, Vika and Linda, writing songs for Kate Cebrano and Rene Geyer, plus his two solo albums, last year’s Wanted Man and the new Deeper Water, have made him almost as prolific as that other great Australian outsider, Ed Kuepper. Deeper Water is the main reason behind this strictly limited, 20 minute interview, from what sounded like Kelly’s home — unless record company reception suites come equipped with background kids’ noises these days. Anyway, Kelly’s two solo albums reveal a remarkably similar personnel line-up, a sign that Kelly is evolving another band. The boys are back in town.

"It’s great being back in a band, and it’s something I’ve been working my way back to for a couple of years now. When I left the Messengers, the last thing I wanted to do was be in a band, as I wanted to play with other people and float more freely for a while. Things came up, like writing for the theatre and doing a film score, and I did a lot more solo shows. As I thought it would, the wheel has turned, and I’ve got the yen to be in a band situation again. I don’t know whether it will be the exclusive situation, like the Messengers, where we worked with no one else. But I’ve built a history with some of the people I’ve worked with over the last three years: like the rhythm section of Stephen Hadley and Peter Luscombe, and Bruce Haymes, the keyboard player, has been with us on the last couple of tours.” After a break of three years from the studio, Wanted Man’s diversity sounded like an attempt at blowing the cobwebs off a few rock ’n’ roll styles, to link up with R&B and even jazz and reggae. “Yeah, I write in an open style, so the songs could go anywhere depending on who plays them. There’s not a helluva lot of method to the way I make my records, or a grand plan. The big influence on Wanted Man was American guitarist Randy Jacobs, who’s got a very distinctive style and he puts his stamp on a lot of that record. My songs lend themselves to that because I don’t write basslines, or guitar riffs, or tell the

drummer what to do.”

One of the best songs on Wanted Man was 'God’s Hotel’ — a meeting of classic rock chords and Nick Cave’s compassionate sentiments.

“I was talking to Nick a couple of years back and I remember seeing that song in his book of lyrics, King Ink, but I hadn’t heard it on a record. Nick said it was just a blues and I could do it if I wanted. I loved the words, as they sounded like a hymn, and although a lot of people tried to read it in different ways, because it was Nick Cave, I saw it and sang it pretty straight.” Deeper Water may be entitled a Paul Kelly solo album, but it has the distinct ensemble feel of a band effort, particularly on the fine riffs that form the basis of ‘Blush’, ‘Give in to My Love’ and the title track. There’s more input from others in the writing credits into the bargain. “I’m pretty open to that,” explains Kelly, through a mouthful of food. "That’s just the way things turned out. A couple of tracks I wrote with Randy Jacobs, and ‘Queen Stone’ was written by Maurice Frawley, a friend who used to play guitar with me. The music of the last song was written by jazz pianist Jex Saarlaht, and he’d given it to Vika and Linda. I wrote the words to it and called it ‘Gathering Storm’, and Vika and Linda actually recorded it, but it didn’t make their record, so I used it.” The record was done in two sessions separated by nine months — not the accepted approach in recording protocol. “Right. With the Messengers we did four or five albums in a row, and we did them all at once, in two to three week sessions. Wanted Man was the biggest change, as we didn’t have a regular band and I’d teach the musicians the songs just before we went into the studio. The new record was like Wanted Man in that it was done on the run, but it was different in that before each studio session I’d played live with the band that did the songs.” To another song, and ‘l’ll Forgive but I Won’t Forget’ has an unusually bitter verse from Kelly: ‘I can’t believe she fucked you here / Then fed me full of lies / Why don’t I go and get her now / So you can fuck her again right before my eyes.’ “It’s not that unusual,” explains Kelly.

“It’s been in my songs in the past, as often my songs are conversational, they might be what people have said. ‘To Her Door’ had the F word in it, and ‘Little Boy Don’t Lose Your Balls'. It’s no big deal. In ‘To Her Door’, the woman’s leaving and says: ‘l’m walking out the fucking door.’ It was just the way it was said.

“What happens on ‘l’ll Forgive but I Won’t Forget’ is the music drops away on that verse and there’s nothing but the bass, and it sounds more shocking. There’s always one song on each of my records that my mother dosen’t like, and I think I know which song it will be on this album.” Kelly has a reputation for being an avid reader, particularly of American writers like Raymond Carver, Cormac McArthy and Ethan Canin. He spent most of 1993 in LA. Did America live up to the myths of contemporary novelists and media lore? “Yes, it did live up to my expectations. It’s a country I strongly imagined as I grew up, and often when you imagine something for a long time and then confront the reality of it, you’re disappointed. But America is not like that. It does more than fulfil your expectations. I remember clearly the first time I went to America, how well I knew it, as I’d dreamt it before I got there, and that’s from being bombarded with it all these years through music, film and TV.” How well are you doing in America and Britain?

“I’m doing OK in America. I’m known there in some parts of the country. In Britain, it’s harder to tell. I can always sell out in London, where there’s a lot of Australians, but I haven’t really played out of London, except when I did one little run with Nick Lowe last year.” Is your music seen as essentially Australian and indifferent to fashion like Kuepper’s, Forster’s, Cave’s, et cetera? “I suppose so. In Britain, there’s a constant craving for the new, which isn’t here to the same extent. And having listened to music on the radio in America, a lot of it is over-blown. There’s a lot of over-singing, especially in American soul and R&B. The singers have gone crazy, they’ve taken over and the songs have got lost. It’s not in the Australian character to do that bravura singing. It’s too showy and ostentatious for us.”

GEORGE KAY