Ash Grunwald

It’s all happening for Ash Grunwald. A few weeks after the birth of his second baby girl, he has a new album in the works and is about to kick off on a tour of Australia with Scott Owen and Andy Strachan of the Living End.

Though this may seem an unlikely trio, Grunwald is well-known for his multi-faceted solo set-ups, and the spirit of jamming has always been alive and well in his career. Something that becomes clear as he explains how he came to record his rocking version of Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy’.

“Scotty [Owen] and I played in a band with Ben Gilles from Silverchair and we did a cover band one-off for the Starlight Foundation. We did Aloe Blacc’s ‘I Need A Dollar’, a Creedence song, and we did ‘Crazy’,” Grunwald recalls.

“I just kept doing it after that because I loved it. And then when Scotty and I played at the Falls Festival with Rob Hirst on drums, we did ‘Crazy’ there and people dug it. It’s been such a big hit that I think if you do it justice you can have the whole room singing.”

With such a great response from audiences to his teaming up with Owen, the pair thought it would be a good idea to make a tour out of it.

Despite his love of sharing the stage with other talented Aussie musicians, Grunwald admits it’s quite controversial for him to consider playing a whole tour with a band.

“It might be a bit more structured than usual,” he laughs. “Well, it is a bit about jamming also. I’ve been putting the reins on myself for the last decade. Often in a long guitar solo the person most enjoying it is the guy playing it, and I’ve been very aware of that, but I might actually indulge in the odd guitar solo for a little bit longer on this tour.”

The dynamic of a band performance is something Grunwald looks forward to, as well as the opportunity to really immerse himself in his guitar-playing. The instrument most associated with Grunwald’s Delta-style blues playing is his National Steel, but as this tour is more of a band performance, and a precursor to the new trio’s Gargantua album, he’ll be taking a different approach. “One thing that probably held me back from ever playing with a bass player is I have to sacrifice one of my favourite things, which is the fact that I play with bass effects.”

“One thing that probably held me back from ever playing with a bass player is I have to sacrifice one of my favourite things, which is the fact that I play with bass effects as well and do all these thick, chunky, bass lines,” Grunwald confesses, laughing; “Basically half the time I actually play like a bass player.”

“I find myself in a very different position when I have a bass player, so that’ll be interesting,” he adds. “It’ll be good for my playing just to actually get into the solos and leave the bass alone a little bit. I’ve got this beautiful Gibson 137 which is a big-bodied kind of thing, say like what Chuck Berry would play, and that’s one of my favourite guitars of all-time, perhaps my favourite electric guitar. I might even bring that out.”

Last year marked the 10th anniversary of Grunwald’s first album, (2002’s Introducing Ash Grunwald) and the muso acknowledges there have been some great movements in popular conception of blues music since then.

“I can’t say I know many other people who are doing [what I’m doing], but I did hear one thing where they were chopping up and kind of glitching a bit of a harmonica sample, and some bluesy singing. I can’t remember what it was but I thought it was really cool,” he says.

“But I do it the other way round because I actually am a blues player, so I use that beat stuff but I make it the backbone of a whole song rather than just sampling the blues content.”

“I don’t know if appreciation for my blues has grown!” he chuckles good-naturedly. “But then again I’ve been varying from the righteous path. Although Gary Clark Jr. came to Australia recently and he’s somebody who’s just come up on my radar. He’s kind of like a cool hipster, but he does big guitar solos so that was pretty inspiring. Also the Black Keys going so huge has been great.”

“I mean I love it when another act like that makes it,” Grunwald enthuses. “They’re on so many Hollywood movies, and then I found myself getting on Hollywood movies, and I’m sure it’s in no small part a bit of [them] busting down the door a little bit.”

“Trends come and go, but I don’t think bluesy kind of stuff will ever go, it’s kind of got a cool thing to it I think. Well I think it’s cool anyway, that’s why I play it!”

Grunwald’s track ‘Walking’ from his 2010 album Hot Mama Vibes – which was nominated for Best Blues & Roots Album ARIA – featured on the 2011 film Limitless (starring Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro), but Grunwald is keen to get more involved with the world of film.

“I would love to score a film, so much! I’ve had a few tries at things but at this point I’ve been unsuccessful,” details Grunwald. “Actually, there’s a new Arnold Schwarzenegger film out now. Last year I was asked to do the theme song for it, but I didn’t get it. I did it, and they obviously went with something else, but I was so stoked to be asked.”

The film in question is The Last Stand – Schwarzenegger’s return to a starring role; “I don’t know, some people might think that’s cheesy to do something for an action film with Arnie or whatever but for me it was like ‘wow, here’s our mission statement, think about this guy when you do the song’. I just made it really muscular,” he laughs.

“I really enjoyed not writing for myself, notrecording for my own album, and I think it actually produced a pretty cool song,” he adds. “Well that’s what we think, Arnie doesn’t think that obviously!” “There’s a new Arnold Schwarzenegger film out now. Last year I was asked to do the theme song for it… a pretty cool song – well that’s what we think, ARnie doesn’t think that obviously!”

This doesn’t mean that Grunwald will give up or let good material go to waste. “It’s certainly not in the rubbish bin.” In fact, the track appears as the opening track on Gargantua, the collection of covers, originals, and reworked tracks from Grunwald and the Living End rhythm section.

The song, ‘Last Stand’ also took an active role in the fight against Coal Seam Gas Mining in Australia, Grunwald’s music once again providing a great platform to get the wider community interested and involved.

“Because I’ve been pretty active in the coal seam gas mining issue and trying to raise awareness about that, it’s funny that the lyrics kind of play right into that. I had to incorporate the title of that movie into the song and it was ‘The Last Stand’, so it kind of works for me,” he says.

“I went to Tara and Chinchilla where the most CSG is happening and interviewed people and went and saw first-hand some of the devastation that’s occurred there. I really wanted to document it, and document myself being there on the spot.

“I was already anti-CSG… but I thought there’s nothing more effective than turning up and saying ‘check this out, here’s me at the Condamine River’ and watching it bubble with methane as a result of CSG,” details the musical activist.

“People can see that image, and see me interview a resident whose kids constantly bleed from the nose and have learning difficulties and have headaches and could end up with cancer in 10 years,” he notes.

“To see me talking to those people I think my words have a bit more meaning then. You know, rather than people just thinking it’s an opinion at a barbeque, or just jumping on a band wagon because you thought you needed a cause.”

Gargantua is out June 20th via Shock Records, read more info here. Grunwald will be taking his environmental message and rocking blues music around the country with Scott Owen and Andy Strachan this June. Dates below