Of Skins, Hearts and Bedrooms

Appeared in Printed in Revolver (Sydney) 4th May 1998, Time Off (Brisbane)
by Steve Gordon

It was right after a memorable outdoor gig, held in the eerie shadows of the imposing, convict-built asylum that is now the Fremantle Arts Centre.

A woman carrying a small baby who was way past has bedtime, was in full flight: "I was just soooo disappointed you didn't do Winter Coat. I brought Barney along especially to hear it. He was conceived the night of your concert here last year. We went home and did it to that song."

Paul Kelly, who was on the receiving end, seemed as bemused as three month old Barney. He's used to it. People are always telling him how closely they relate to his songs, or more to the often-missed point, the characters in them

"I've had that conversation a few times" he says later. "The most common comment I get is "How did you know my story?" I take it as a compliment because that's exactly the way I've always related to music. Music is a way to get you through life, to make your life richer and also, sometimes, just to get you through. I've always listened to a lot of music and I just fell in love with it - from lying in the dark as a child listening to music and just having it take you somewhere else. That's why I do this, that's what made me want to make music".

That passion, however, caused him a modicum of grief later that same night.

"I was walking from the Arts Centre down to Gino's" (a legendary Freo coffee house) "and I was looking at a record store and walked straight into a pole" he recalls. The resultant lump on his head is immortalised in Spencer Jones' sketch for the song I'd Rather Go Blind, one of an eye catching series from the artistically gifted guitarist that illustrates the new Kelly LP Words and Music. The album, released this week, comes hot on the heels of the greatest hits collection Songs From The South, far and away Kelly's biggest selling disc. It's past triple platinum (210,000) and still going strong after nearly a year.

Surprisingly, and despite the almost universal critical acclaim garnered by each album since 1985's Post, only Under The Sun and Gossip (which took the best part of a decade) have reached even the single platinum (70,000) mark.

the bulk of Words and Music was recorded before the release of Songs From The South. "We started it in May and we had about nine songs down but we got busy and didn't get back to it 'til November, when we did three extra songs and mixed it. It was a quick album to make, we only spent three weeks all up in the studio, including the mixing.

Although eleven of the fourteen songs are credited to Kelly alone, the songwriting process has become more collaborative than it appears on the surface. "A lot of the songs were worked up at rehearsals with the band after I'd pretty much written them on just two or three 'floating' chords. I had this melody and phrasing and we'd just play them over and over again - this band's strength is finding a groove and making a song sound interesting. It took me a while to write the words for them - I didn't come into rehearsals with the songs written".

While there's more band involvement the actual method hasn't changed all that much. "Even when it's just me at home with the guitar" says Kelly, "I've generally got a kind of arrangement of a song in my head, or the phrasing of it, long before I've got all the words. I've usually got a title, a line, or maybe a phrase or something, but it's always imagined in my head musically before I get the words. In the past it's been more me at home doing that but in this case I was doing it more on the spot in the rehearsal room and jam". The band likes jamming so whenever we got a chance we'd just get into the rehearsal room and jam".

Kelly broke up his previous band, the Messengers, in 1991, feeling the style they'd forged together was in danger of becoming formulaic. Over the next three years he played solo and spent a stretch based in Los Angeles. His current band of Melbourne musicians, Peter Luscombe, Steve Hadley, Bruce Haymes, Shane O'Mara and Jones, has been with him since late 1994.

"I love being in a band" he enthuses. "It's like going to work and making this thing that's bigger than you could've done by yourself. I think that's what makes life rich and mysterious - when you work with people an you all come up with something that none of you could've done on your own. That's a religious impulse" he adds with a laugh.

And while the lyrics and voice are unmistakably Paul Kelly, musically this band is a very different sounding beast to it's predecessor. "I'm glad you say that because I'm always trying to be different. As a writer, you always try not to repeat yourself but you've always got your own limitations, the way your voice sounds, the general way you phrase things, the words you tend to use or the images you use again and again. I'm very conscious of that and do try to make something that actually sounds different from record to record".

Another area in which Kelly , who says he's "probably more of a crooner than a screamer", has developed notably in the recent years is as a vocalist, something I thought accelerated during the period he played solo. "singing in that situation, solo, you probably hear your voice more, so I became more aware of the dynamics, of light and shade, of going soft and loud - all that kind of thing. But I think it's more just the accumulation of time - I'm from a school of singers that had to get better as they got older. Well, that's my theory and I'm sticking to it" he adds playfully. But there's more to it than simply racking up the birthdays. Kelly, who's never had a formal singing lesson, "just a few early tips" from his opera singer grandmother, says "Singing is like any physical activity. If you want to get better at it you have to do it a lot, so by doing it night after night on a tour it gets better.

" I'm lucky. My voice doesn't wear out, it's stood me in good stead, it doesn't full apart on tour". The vocal chords will be tested again when Paul Kelly and his band next tour Australia in July, but before that they're heading for the U.S. where Words and Music also comes out (on Vanguard) this week. "We're going to the States in June. It'll be the first time I've taken the whole band. I've toured there in the past solo or as a duo, just because of economic, but this time I thought, fuck it, we're all going to go over".

Maybe he's just thinking of his own safety. Y'know, the more he takes, the better the chance one of them will be on hand to stop him wandering into that wrong way traffic while his eyes and mind are transfixed by the window of some American music megastore.