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Ash Grunwald

Author: Tex Miller

The evolution of Ash Grunwald’s blues sound throughout his career has been an interesting journey to follow. Having already played a stellar set at the Wool Exchange in February this year, Ash is set to get you grooving again this Saturday night at the Torquay Hotel. The gig at The Wool Exchange (February) prominently featured the rhythm section of The Living End, and this was seen as a one-off performance. Yet, given the explosive energy and chemistry between the trio, they are on the road for the Gargantua tour. Although he was in the airport, jet-setting around and getting ready to tour once again, it was great to talk to one of the legends of the Australian blues scene.

“We’re really excited about the Torquay show. I used to live there for five years, so it is always fantastic to get back down there and soak up the atmosphere. Hopefully, fingers crossed, there will also be some waves, which would be good,” Ash said about the homecoming show.

Having written a stack of songs over the last decade, the decision of what to play on the upcoming tour must be hard; yet given the party atmosphere of the majority of Ash’s songs, there is definitely something to get you moving on the dance floor. From just a quick YouTube, if you have nothing on this Saturday night, Torquay is the place to be. To coincide with this tour, Ash is releasing a new album entitled Gargantua, which was born out of this collaboration. The first taste of this album, ‘The Last Stand’, went live on social media last week to rave reviews and steers away from his 2012 release, Trouble’s Door.

“The sound of this record is as far away removed from the last few albums as possible. It’s still got a lot of bluesy elements to it, but it’s the classic rock band setup. We started off recording for a few hours and that turned into six solid days of work. There’s two new songs, two covers and some reworkings of my older tunes. Playing with The Living End guys is fantastic because it is a lot more high energy than what I would usually do. The recordings were a lot more raw and original with everything done live. They are definitely one of the best rock rhythm sections in Australian music.

“The way that the Living End work is that they practice and practice; and Chris Cheney is an amazing guitarist and taskmaster, so that was definitely an interesting concept within the recording process because I am the complete opposite,” Ash said about the new collaboration.

The first single off the release, a cover of Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy’, started out as just a bit of fun as a promotional piece of material for the tour; yet after receiving airplay on commercial radio, the response from Ash’s fans has been extremely warm and positive. “It’s always good to change things up when you’re playing someone else’s song. Cee Lo is a great singer and I wanted Andy to go really rocky and arse-kicking in the chorus, rather than being smooth. Looking back now, it’s a lot more high energy than we first thought, but it’s going be epic to throw down live.”

I’ve got my tickets, have you?

When & Where: The Torquay Hotel – June 15; The Corner – June 27; The Prince – June 28.

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This Is Not The End

Author: Izzy Tolhurst

Surf roots bluesician Ash Grunwald has taken his collaboration with The Living End bassist Scott Owen to the next level, inviting the band’s drummer, Andy Strachan, to join them in the studio.

Ash Grunwald and Scott Owen, notorious bass-straddler with The Living End, allegedly forged their friendship and founded a musical collaboration over furlongs of soy sausages. As it happens, their respective wives play together in a band with Kram called Mr Cassidy, so social mingling was inevitable. The first fruit of that friendship saw Owen join Grunwald on a track from his most recent album, Trouble’s Door. However, the speedy acquisition of The Living End drummer Andy Strachan to join Owen and Grunwald on their latest endeavour, has resulted in a full collaborative album, which the boys are about to launch an album via a national tour.

The project and tour preparation is now in full swing, and following the commercial success of their cover of Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy, the trio have announced that their debut album, titled Gargantua, will be released late June.

“It has been a truly fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants expedition,” Grunwald admits of the whole process. Particularly the mere six days this band spent at St Kilda’s Hothouse Studios – which boasts a worldclass Neve console, featuring 24 Neve 1073 mic pres, on which albums by AC/DC, Midnight Oil and Rose Tattoo were recorded – to create the album.

Grunwald describes Hothouse as “an Australian Sound City”, referring of course to the documentary directed by Dave Grohl that details the history of Los Angeles’ Sound City Studios. But Grunwald is making specific reference to the Neve 8028 analogue mixing console that the St Kilda studio utilises. Craig Harnath, the longterm owner of Hothouse, also has an overwhelmingly “massive collection of guitars here,” says Grunwald, like a kid in that sort of store. But amidst the multitude of guitars sits a Neumann U47, the microphone apparently manufactured “for the perfect broadcasting of Hitler’s voice”. And it‘s Harnath’s Neumann U47 that Frank Sinatra allegedly sang into when he was here when Bob Hawke was Prime Minister and he got in trouble for calling that news reporter a ‘two-dollar whore’, a member of the recording team discloses excitedly.

Several tracks on the album have already been previously released by Grunwald, including Walking and Breakout, both ‘fist in the air’ songs that have been reinterpreted with Owen and Strachan. And throughout the speedy process, Grunwald says he’s “learnt the value of professionalism. Because I’ll tell you, these guys are as tight as a fish’s arsehole.”

But for drummer Strachan, it’s Skywriter, taken from Grunwald’s 2006 album, Give Signs, which speaks most of their experience together. “That song sums everything up for me. The first time we played together was in Geelong and I didn’t know what we were doing… but Ash just said, ‘It goes kinda like this,’ and as he played it we started tracking it, and that’s the final product.”

“There’s no bullshit. That’s the whole thing [about] working with Ash – if it doesn’t sound good and if it doesn’t feel good then don’t do it! It’s kind of where this whole project is at; we’re only doing it because it sounds and feels right. We’re not trying to be anything or anyone else, and we don’t think too much about what’s been done in the past, but rather inject what we feel is required to make it different.”

Smack-bang in the middle of the ten-track album, Gargantua is a cover of Black And Blue, a song by seminal ‘70s Aussie act Chain, who Grunwald jokes were “pretty much Australia’s biggest-ever blues band. They were the panel van driving, VB drinking, wife-beater wearing, going to Sunbury in ’73 kind of riffy ‘70s band.”

But perhaps the most enticing track on Gargantua is Last Stand, a song first composed by Grunwald and his regular producer Fingers Malone as a pitch for the latest Arnold Schwarzenegger film of the same name. And while it didn’t gain Grunwalda film credit, his wife was persistent that the song be included on the trio’s album, saying, “Do that Arnie song! It’s catchy, and evil and heavy!” the dreadlocked singer recalls. “Then I realised we really should. And it’s probably one of the rockiest tracks on the album.” Running through the analogue Neve desk to get that essential warmth, the album tracks have gone through Hothouse’s ProTools HD3 Accel system on Mac Pro with 24 96k inputs and outputs, the digital part of the process allowing for the speed necessary to get the whole thing done in the six days the trio had to deliver the album.

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Grunwald brings it back to Torquay

Author: Ali Deane

SURF coast’s adopted son Ash Grunwald has just embarked on an Australian tour, and will be touching down in Torquay this weekend with special guests.

He has teamed up with long time friends, Aussie rock legends Scott Owen and Andy Strachan from The Living End and their show is expected t rock at the Torquay Hotel this Saturday night.

Despite growing up on a diet of blues, Grunwald has been known to mix things up, jamming various collaborations for shows and albums throughout his musical career.

He has shared a stage with Adelaide hip hop crew Funkoars, performs all the biggest festivals, but is known mostly for his solo work as a blues and roots master.

Grunwald’s solo sets at the Wool Exchange and the St Kilda Festival back in February were hijacked by a new sound, when he put it to The Living End bassist Scotty Owen to jam. The rest is history.

“I’ve never genuinely spontaneously clicked like that, and the heaviest stuff I was into when I was younger was Hendrix.

“I just asked Scotty, it was sort of a spur of the moment thing. And it had never really occurred to me to play with Andy. Because then it would be like me, and The Living End.

“Being a soloist, I do things like this.

“The jam was amazing, it was so fun.

It was huge, and then we went straight onto St Kilda Festival playing to well over 5,000 people, and we’d never done a rehearsal.

“We were friends a long time before playing together, Scotty lives near me up near Byron Bay, but it’s just cool when things happen, and one thing flows to the next.

“Certain types of music just go off live, and if you can do that, the genre doesn’t matter.”

From there Grunwald asked if the guys wanted to join him on his national tour, recorded a promo song, then recorded the album Gargantuan the day after that.

“I was stoked. When we recorded we stayed up all night, then surfed Winki. It was insanely crowded, but we just wanted to be out there.”

Grunwald even snapped his brother’s board.

“I hate missing out on waves, but it keeps my stoke for music.

“I’ll be bringing a board to Torquay for sure. I was there for five years and loved it, and I love coming back.

“I froth on surfing, and being a frother, it makes me play better.”

It’s not all about rocking out and riding waves for Grunwald who raises serious issues in his music.

“I’m anti-coal steam gas mining. There’s never been a more important issue to face Australia. We recorded ‘The Last Stand’, it’s really rocky and heavy. I want everyday people to know about the issue and get onto it. The perfect people to pick to play it with were Scotty and Andy.”

Ash Grunwald with Scott Owen ad Andy Strachan of The Living End will hit Torquay Hotel this Saturday night June 15, before heading to Melbourne and then hitting Queensland.

Tickets $30, head to Torquay Hotel or oztix.com.au.

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This Is Not The End

Author: Izzy Tolhurst

Surf roots bluesician Ash Grunwald has taken his collaboration with The Living End bassist Scott Owen to the next level, inviting the band’s drummer, Andy Strachan, to join them in the studio.

Ash Grunwald and Scott Owen, notorious bass-straddler with The Living End, allegedly forged their friendship and founded a musical collaboration over furlongs of soy sausages. As it happens, their respective wives play together in a band with Kram called Mr Cassidy, so social mingling was inevitable. The first fruit of that friendship saw Owen join Grunwald on a track from his most recent album, Trouble’s Door. However, the speedy acquisition of The Living End drummer Andy Strachan to join Owen and Grunwald on their latest endeavour, has resulted in a full collaborative album, which the boys are about to launch an album via a national tour.

The project and tour preparation is now in full swing, and following the commercial success of their cover of Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy, the trio have announced that their debut album, titled Gargantua, will be released late June.

“It has been a truly fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants expedition,” Grunwald admits of the whole process. Particularly the mere six days this band spent at St Kilda’s Hothouse Studios – which boasts a worldclass Neve console, featuring 24 Neve 1073 mic pres, on which albums by AC/DC, Midnight Oil and Rose Tattoo were recorded – to create the album.

Grunwald describes Hothouse as “an Australian Sound City”, referring of course to the documentary directed by Dave Grohl that details the history of Los Angeles’ Sound City Studios. But Grunwald is making specific reference to the Neve 8028 analogue mixing console that the St Kilda studio utilises. Craig Harnath, the longterm owner of Hothouse, also has an overwhelmingly “massive collection of guitars here,” says Grunwald, like a kid in that sort of store. But amidst the multitude of guitars sits a Neumann U47, the microphone apparently manufactured “for the perfect broadcasting of Hitler’s voice”. And it‘s Harnath’s Neumann U47 that Frank Sinatra allegedly sang into when he was here when Bob Hawke was Prime Minister and he got in trouble for calling that news reporter a ‘two-dollar whore’, a member of the recording team discloses excitedly.

Several tracks on the album have already been previously released by Grunwald, including Walking and Breakout, both ‘fist in the air’ songs that have been reinterpreted with Owen and Strachan. And throughout the speedy process, Grunwald says he’s “learnt the value of professionalism. Because I’ll tell you, these guys are as tight as a fish’s arsehole.”

But for drummer Strachan, it’s Skywriter, taken from Grunwald’s 2006 album, Give Signs, which speaks most of their experience together. “That song sums everything up for me. The first time we played together was in Geelong and I didn’t know what we were doing… but Ash just said, ‘It goes kinda like this,’ and as he played it we started tracking it, and that’s the final product.”

“There’s no bullshit. That’s the whole thing [about] working with Ash – if it doesn’t sound good and if it doesn’t feel good then don’t do it! It’s kind of where this whole project is at; we’re only doing it because it sounds and feels right. We’re not trying to be anything or anyone else, and we don’t think too much about what’s been done in the past, but rather inject what we feel is required to make it different.”

Smack-bang in the middle of the ten-track album, Gargantua is a cover of Black And Blue, a song by seminal ‘70s Aussie act Chain, who Grunwald jokes were “pretty much Australia’s biggest-ever blues band. They were the panel van driving, VB drinking, wife-beater wearing, going to Sunbury in ’73 kind of riffy ‘70s band.”

But perhaps the most enticing track on Gargantua is Last Stand, a song first composed by Grunwald and his regular producer Fingers Malone as a pitch for the latest Arnold Schwarzenegger film of the same name. And while it didn’t gain Grunwalda film credit, his wife was persistent that the song be included on the trio’s album, saying, “Do that Arnie song! It’s catchy, and evil and heavy!” the dreadlocked singer recalls. “Then I realised we really should. And it’s probably one of the rockiest tracks on the album.” Running through the analogue Neve desk to get that essential warmth, the album tracks have gone through Hothouse’s ProTools HD3 Accel system on Mac Pro with 24 96k inputs and outputs, the digital part of the process allowing for the speed necessary to get the whole thing done in the six days the trio had to deliver the album.