Melding together the sounds of an array of styles – blues, funk, hip-hop – Ash Grunwald has come from Down Under for a tour of Western Canada.
The Australian roots musician plays Wild Bill’s in Banff, Tuesday (Feb. 7), his third time playing the venue. He spoke with the Outlook from his Queensland home last week.
“First time I played Bill’s was with Current Swell, a Victoria band, and then I came back last year and played my own show,” he said. “It’s a fun room to play in and it usually goes pretty well, so I’m looking forward to it again.”
As many of the towns on the tour are known for their skiing facilities – such as Banff, Whistler, Revelstoke and Golden – Grunwald confessed a passion for winter sports.
“I do love snowboarding, which is absolutely amazing in Canada,” he said. “Sadly, I only have two days to go riding, one in Banff and one in Whistler, because invariably my tours always end up so compressed.
“There’s so much to fit in, the only regret of being a touring musician is you go to these beautiful places and only get to spend a day and sometimes less.”
With a solo career that began in 2002, Grunwald has over the course of the past decade released five records, including most recently 2010’s Hot Mama Vibes, which was nominated for Best Blues and Roots Album at the 2010 ARIA Awards. Now hard at work on his sixth album, he hoped to have it done before embarking on this tour.
“I’ve been recording a new album and I’ve been in the studio for the last week, trying to get it finished before I come to Canada, and I think it’s going to happen,” he said, explaining he’s built a studio into his home. “It’s been a really interesting process.
“My first album I did all myself and, after working with different producers for four or five years and playing around with technology a lot, I still find my beats a bit cheesy and it’s amazing how even simple beats take a lot of expertise. I’ve gotten a really good friend of mine, Fingers Malone, to help me on the beats, to make it sound more organic and less programmed.”
The new album will be a cross of different styles, he said.
“My style of music is a great example of not fitting into any categories,” explained Grunwald. “In Australia, I’ve been able to get it to quite a reasonable level, just doing my own thing.
“It’s got that cross between blues and hip-hop. There’s more emphasis on the vocals than before, so down the soul road.”
As to the content, he stressed a political feel to some of the work.
“Some of the early stuff I did was a bit more political; questioning our systems and ways of going about things,” he said. “Questioning how we all try to make money with what we do and how we live in this democratic society, which works really well, but rampant capitalism seems to be the cause of so many of our problems and wrecks the planet.
“Our society works really well, but not at the extremes, and I’m wondering how you go about changing that. That theme has popped up in about three or four songs, but apart from that I’m working on good time songs. Whenever I work on a single, it tends to have less overt meaning.”
While Australia to Canada is quite a long way to travel, Grunwald is eager to make the journey, he said.
“I’ve always loved Canadian people, and it’s a good territory to come to and I’ve had good response, so it’s a great scene,” he said. “It is a long way to come, but I love it. Eventually I’d like to make inroads on the festival circuit.
“I played my first folk festival 10 years ago in Salmon Arm and it went really well, but haven’t really gotten back to it.”
For more information, visit Grunwald’s website at www.ashgrunwald.com
