INTERVIEW: BRIAN CADD – June 2024

INTERVIEW: BRIAN CADD – June 2024
By Shane Pinnegar

As I get Brian Cadd on the phone he immediately apologises for having a nasty cold, evident in his raspy voice and an occasional hacking cough. It doesn’t affect his natural good humour, though, which is riding high after another successful album release, though it (plus a terrible phone connection) did render the audio of our chat difficult to decipher at times.

Released earlier this year, Dream Train, his thirteenth solo studio album (if you’ll allow one duo album each with lifelong friends Russell Morris and Glenn Shorrock) is the first true country music record he’s made, despite many a country influence to his songs over the years.

Don’t miss Brian Cadd LIVE around Australia, starting in Perth this week. 

100% ROCK: It’s good to talk to you again – it’s been a few years. I was listening to the new album this morning – all the press releases say you’ve gone full country and it’s a big departure for you, etc – whilst I agree with that to a certain extent, it still sounds remarkably like Brian Cadd.

CADD: Well… I guess you can’t take the… I forget the saying, hehe. Doesn’t matter. It’s because it is me, at the bottom of it all. If you remember when Bob Dylan did Nashville Skyline and everybody thought it was such a departure for him – but if you play it now it just sounds like Bob Dylan! I wanted to do this album differently, but I didn’t walk away from my own identity to do it.

100% ROCK: Well, I mean, you’ve written a lot of songs that have a country flavour to them, a bit of Americana here, and some country there, so it wasn’t a complete departure, was it?

CADD: No, in fact, you’re right. And way back in Western Australia, the thing that started the cycle which Dream Train sort of finishes, was a show back when I was about 7 or 8 or something – there was a programme on 6IX Sunday morning. Somehow I found it on my little tranny [transistor radio] and there’d be a couple of hours of absolute country, and I just loved it. I fell in love with it. It played all the Slims, and all the greats. It was amazing, this little programme, it caused me to fall in love with the genre way before I even had genres in my head… just about as early as I think you can influence somebody – and it’s taken me 70 years really to make the album which probably got started back then.

100% ROCK: Wow! And you’ve lived in America – in Nashville and whatnot – and worked in America a lot over the years. So I assume you were constantly being exposed to that country style, a lot of that time. Did it feel like a natural fit once you stepped into this?

CADD: I lived for about six years in Nashville and worked with some amazing country players. It was a unique experience, but in actual fact, what I needed to really understand was the feeling of those songs, you know. Some of those songs are just perfect in the simplest of ways. They might have the simplest of words, but those words are perfectly chosen. That was a very valuable lesson for me, one that I carried forward.

100% ROCK: What is it about the country genre which lends itself to songs of yearning and longing?

CADD: Well, I think in the beginning it probably was mostly just about the fact that they were all written by and played, you know, around the fire and whatever, by people who didn’t have any life experience or other than the really personal stuff. They couldn’t really write about Paris, for instance, because they probably wouldn’t have ever seen a picture of it, you know. They were really very focused on their own little family and their own relationships and that’s what they wrote about, I guess, because that was about the limit of their experience.

100% ROCK: You’re touring the record, of course. Is this a band setup or is it just you, solo?

CADD: No, it’s a band – a great band, actually, particularly the one which I’m bringing to Perth. They’re really good. I don’t have any desire to go and do the whole new album and I don’t imagine anyone would want that – I certainly wouldn’t! So, we’ll still do all the hits everyone expects, all the songs from all the eras. But then there’s a few newies that are slotted in along the way. And one of the things that’s so great for me is that they fit so well. You know, sometimes you do a new album and the songs just stand out. In this instance I think it’s probably fortunate, as you said in the very beginning, that there’s enough of me in them to make them fit in well.

100% ROCK: I was also gonna ask you, I think you’ve answered the question now, but have you rearranged any of your old favourites to sort of get more into the country genre?

CADD: No, I wouldn’t have the guts to do that – I think they’d murder me! You know, I think we can certainly expand on [the songs] a little, but I can see people connecting with the music and I feel a responsibility to play them like they remember them. When we’re playing Little Ray Of Sunshine, people who are in their 60’s or whatever, they stop and kinda look at each other and smile, and I know they’re thinking about the birth of their little kid – and that’s an incredible thing for a songwriter to experience. You’re very lucky if you have a few songs like that.

100% ROCK: Well, I remember when I last interviewed you, I thanked you for that song. My daughter was over last night, and I was just finishing off writing these questions – and she goes ‘well, what does he sing?’ So I played her a couple of songs and told her that Little Ray Of Sunshine was the very first song that her ears ever heard. I played that in the maternity ward when she was about an hour old.

CADD: Wow!

100% ROCK: So, yeah, yeah, it gives me shivers every time I hear it. Those personal connections to your music – it’s quite staggering, it must be a… I don’t want to say a burden, but a responsibility perhaps, because people expect a certain thing from you.

CADD: That’s right – and I’m so glad they do. The fact is that I have as much fun doing them live as they do – and they mean so much to me as well. You think back to the 70’s when those songs came out, some of them, each one represents a part of me – a moment. So when I get to go out and do 90 minutes in front of an audience, I just love to play, [so] you can imagine what a thrill that is. That’s wonderful.

100% ROCK: Very. You said earlier that you feel a responsibility to play the songs the way people remember them. That’s very different to Bob Dylan, of course. He just totally… you can’t even recognise some of his songs when he plays them nowadays.

CADD: Yeah, I don’t think he recognises them either! The last time I saw him – it must have been 10 years ago in Sydney – and he came out and there was a beautiful piano over on the side of the stage, barely lit, and I thought well someone else will get on that during the show. And he came out, and he faffed around, then he put his guitar down and went and played the first song on the piano. And then after that, he came back and he started with his guitar again and the next song he got back on the piano. He spent the entire evening playing all of his songs on the piano. In the semi-darkness. You tell me – is that a person who doesn’t have respect for his history?

100% ROCK: Yeah, well, very much. You can make the argument that he certainly doesn’t have respect for his audience.

CADD: Well, that might be true… well, it is true. Because that’s the sort of personality he is – what my grandmother would have called contrary.

100% ROCK: Yeah, yeah, most definitely. Dream Train features a veritable dream team of country musicians. How did you go about recruiting that group?

CADD: I came back – I lived in New York for a few years – and I came back to the Gold Coast, where I lived before and I found this wonderful studio on the Gold Coast very much focused on the country scene, used by everyone from John Williamson and Troy [Cassar-Daly], everyone. So I first of all found the studio, and then found that the studio itself – like a lot of studios do – have a kind of a house band of these great country music players. So I got these pure country music players in a pure country music studio! I came along with my little bag of songs, and I thought, you know, this is going to be a lot better than I thought it was because I’m not going to have to teach rock ‘n’ roll guys to do it [play in a more country style]. And they just played their beautiful magic behind it. It was one of the great experiences of my life, actually.

100% ROCK: Fantastic. Vika and Linda Bull guest on The Truth Is, and their voices, of course, are amazing. And now after listening to it, you can barely imagine the song without them. Were their voices and that vocal pattern in your head when you wrote it?

CADD: Yeah. Not necessarily them, but it had to be a kind of a more soul-y voice. And I know them so well. And then you’re right – once I heard it for the very first time, it was impossible for me to hear any other way. That’s exactly right. It’s the perfect vehicle for them.

100% ROCK: You’ve also got the incomparable Jen Mize from The Rough & Tumble on board, that’s a bit of a coup! She’s awesome.

CADD: You know her?!?

100% ROCK: Ohh yes, Brian. Loved their album which came out, oooh, whenever that came out – earlier this year or last year – and it’s just amazing, awesome stuff.

CADD: She’s a phenomenon. She comes from, originally, Louisiana or somewhere, I think, and she sounds incredibly soulful, and also unbelievably soft and gentle country harmonies. And she goes so quickly between one and the other. Some of the songs when I would normally have had two or three singers, she just sang all the parts and blended with the songs perfectly. I think she’s fantastic, I really hope she’ll go far.

100% ROCK: When she sings you know she feels it in her blood, right?

CADD: Oh, when she sings you can just hear it. I love her, she’s so good.

100% ROCK: Great. So, do you think you’ll do another country album after this one?

CADD: It’s hard to tell with me. It’s hard to tell. You know, I’m 77 years old. I don’t know that I’ll be doing this in another few years. But the thing is, Russell [Morris] retired recently – earlier this year – and within a month he was writing songs. I’m gonna slow down a few things, but there’s still songs, there’s still “What rhymes with …?”

100% ROCK: I can’t imagine there’s a lot of other genres you’d want to explore. You’ve done pop, rock ‘n’ roll, country now, you’ve always had some soul into your music. I mean, you’re not about to do a hip hop or a techno or a heavy metal album any time soon.

CADD: Nah. I’ll tell you what, if I was going to do another album, it would either be a country album, or it’d be an early soul sort of record, like Sam & Dave. Because I really adore that music.

100% ROCK: That would be a winner! Look, you’ve done so much – with the Flying Burritos, solo, with Axiom, with everything you’ve done. It’s amazing – you’ve played on The Real Thing, you’ve played with The Pointer Sisters and all these other amazing people. A Beatle [Ringo Starr] recorded one of your songs and there have been many other covers. What is there that’s still on your bucket list?

CADD: Well, this will surprise you, but I wrote a musical. And we’re talking to some backers that might get behind it. We’re very happy with it and it’s a real long shot, but if it’s something that was to come to fruition and that should appear on the stage, that would be the one thing left – the last dream. But it’s a very big maybe.

100% ROCK: Oh, fantastic. That does sound interesting. I’ve got one more for you, Brian, and then I’ll let you go. And I appreciate your time when you’re feeling a bit poorly. In regards to songwriting, where do you think the magic comes from?

CADD: That’s a great question! I think the magic comes from the time you get the start of whatever it is. It could be somebody saying something, and you just overhear part of their conversation. It could be something that you read in a book. It’s whatever you’re doing which gets you to arrive at the beginning point. And I think the secret is to make sure that whatever you think that song means, that you make sure all the words are the right words and all of the emotions that you get to give people with music are in sync with the meaning of your song. I hope I said that very clearly, but obviously the thing is that at the end of the day you get an original song.

100% ROCK: Fantastic. Thanks mate, I’ll let you get back to your sick bed and rug up.

CADD: Thankyou, have a great rest of your West Australian day!

Thursday July 18, 2024 | Duke of George – Fremantle, WA
Friday July 19, 2024 | Kalamunda Performing Arts – Kalamunda, WA
Saturday July 20, 2024 | Charles Hotel – North Perth, WA
Sunday July 21, 2024 | Gatsby’s Skyline – Manjimup, WA 4pm show
Friday August 16, 2024 | Frankston Arts Centre – Frankston, VIC
Saturday August 17, 2024 | Regent Theatre – Yarram, VIC
Sunday August 18, 2024 | Berninneit Cultural Centre – Cowes, VIC
Saturday August 23, 2024 | The Memo – Healesville, VIC
Sunday August 24, 2024 | Bunjil Place – Narre Warren, VIC
Saturday December 7, 2024 | Avoca Beach Theatre – Avoca Beach, NSW

Category: Interviews