Ash Grunwald - Another diamond from the soul of his blues

With his latest release Give Signs vastly different to anything he’s done previously, Ash Grunwald is surprisingly calm about how it will be received.

“I was adamant, it’s my fourth album, I thought ‘well you just cannot come out with a crappy fourth album. Its got to be the best work you’ve ever done by far. It’s got to be the strongest song you’ve ever done’. And I think it is. It’s a lot more listenable than the other albums that’s for sure. It bears more repeated listens. That’s what happens with well recorded albums I think. Whereas the other stuff, that was one of the negatives of doing it in the really stripped back way I don’t know how many people would chuck it on everyday, and listen to it all the time. It probably gets a bit much."

As recipient of pretty much every blues award in the country, it’s a bit of a change of tact for Grunwald. A change, but not a total departure, influenced partly by his role as Triple J’s Roots 'n' All show, partly as a natural maturing, and partly out of necessity.

“It’s taught me a lot and it’s helped my music too. I think that’s also why on this album I’ve gone a bit broader. Not worrying about what genre the music is, or whether its blues, or what it is but just trying to make good music. That had to be my criteria with taking over Roots 'n' All. I can’t be listening to something and going ‘ok the blues-iest thing is the best thing’. I’ve just got listen and the best thing is the best thing. I started listening to music for it’s own sake, not for how bluesy it was. That changes the way you make music, when you start thinking that way.

"I don’t really want the sound of a studio. I’d rather the sound of a house on a recording. On ‘I Don’t Believe’ I was already working on the bang and the clang and the clash of tools, and bits of metal and stuff like that. So I just took that to the next level, hopefully, with just layering the stuff up. I made myself up a drum kit. I brought a conventional drum kit and gaffa taped bits of metal to it, and other drums to it, and made this crazy contraption. I play along to a lot of the songs with that. That’s what I like about playing solo. It turns you into a mad doctor. It forces you to innovate, you don’t have to try.

"I realized before making this album that is now my sense of self, or the way I do things is so set, that it’s ok for me to just do, in a way, whatever I want. Because I’m always going to do things that will fit together on an album without me having to think about it. If you’re a really eclectic player then you might have to worry about it because a reggae song isn’t going to sit very well next to a death metal song. For me if I do what comes naturally then it all site together pretty well. It’s just because I can’t do much. And that’s the way I have almost purposefully directed it too. I hope that I end up with a sound that is distinctive. That after a few bars you go “I know that’s Ash”. That would be the Holy Grail for me.”

And the Grail isn’t really that far from his grasp. The same themes run through the song writing on Give Signs’. External aspects have crept into the usually introspective lyrics, any yet somehow, it’s still Ash Grunwald.

“It is true that it’s the first time I’ve ever spoken out about anything, but the context that I wrote those songs in is still a personal one. I guess it’s something that I avoided in the past, but you can’t avoid that forever. There comes a point where there’s certain things if you’re a songwriter, you say what you think when you write songs. So I say what I think about Iraq on one song. (‘Think Tank’ is about) that general feeling of feeling like there’s a right-wing think tank that stops everything and controls things, and you can’t stop getting run over by it. Situation’s about being a soldier and feeling ripped off. Feeling like you shouldn’t be in danger and you shouldn’t be forced top be at war. In a situation that when the guy in question was told that they were going to find weapons of mass destruction and they found that there weren’t any, so he’s pretty pissed off.”

Not that he’s turning into a tree-hugging, left wing, hippie. For Grunwald it’s all about the music. Exploring the sounds, process and ultimately himself, through playing and innovating. Growing in his own confidence, and broadening his listening pool, has led to an evolution akin to that of the traditional blues music he’s known for.

“The grooves that I love the most, aren’t organic at all. They’re hip hop sort of stuff and rap sort of stuff. I love loops and always have. In my actual music that I record I don’t know how much I’ll go in that direction. I don’t know if I’ll split it into a side project or if it’ll come more into my normal music, but I love that stuff.

"I love jamming and laying down some grooves on the laptop and getting something that sounds cool, and then playing some guitar and some lyrics over that. That’s my probably favourite thing of all. So I do a lot of that in my spare time. I work on trying to get these really badassy kinda grooves and heavy beats in there. To me that’s the ultimate. It’s just going to be interesting to see what I end up doing, or how I end up putting it all together in a couple of years time, because it might come to a head.”

Ash Grunwald is touring nationally pretty much for the rest of the year. His new album Give Signs is available now.

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