INTERVIEW: ADALITA, THE ROLLING STONES REVUE – September 2024

INTERVIEW: ADALITA, THE ROLLING STONES REVUE – September 2024
By Shane Pinnegar

Magic Dirt Queen and solo artist extraordinaire Adalita Srsen dons a different guise this weekend as she heads to Perth with Tex Perkins, Sarah MacLeod and Steve Kilbey for The Rolling Stones Revue’s homage to the classic Sticky Fingers album. This unmissable lineup will be dancing like Jagger and riffing like Keef at The Astor Theatre on Friday 13th September.

The obvious first question is, were The Stones part of your childhood at all?

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I grew up with them, you know, I used to watch them on TV. I think the first time I saw The Stones was in that 1980’s period – that was my very first memory of their film clips, like Start Me Up. That’s when I was like, wow, I love this band, I love this lead singer. I was really blown away the very first time I saw them. So, they’ve always been in my life, that’s for sure. You know, I remember my first album I bought: it was on cassette, I bought Tattoo You. That was the first Stones record that I owned – and I loved it.

That was my first one as well. Yeah, I remember seeing them on Countdown, it was probably the Start Me Up clip, and wondering if Keith and Ronnie were like werewolves or something because they looked like no-one I’d ever met!

[laughs] I know – they looked just out of this world. It was like, Wow!

Sticky Fingers is almost exactly 2 months younger than you!

Yeah, 1971.

Does it feel as timeless as you do?

Ha! Oh, I think there’s nothing as timeless as The Stones, but yeah, it feels good. It’s a nice, you know, little association. To have been born in the same year as the album that we’re doing, you know, such an iconic record.

Absolutely. It’s a bit of a step outside your normal milieu, doing a tribute tour like this. What made you sign up for it originally?

Yeah, yeah, it is definitely outside of my comfort zone. I don’t normally do tribute shows or covers or anything like that… although that’s not strictly true – Magic Dirt has done some covers in the past. We used to do Black Sabbath and The Stooges and things like that, but it wasn’t the norm. Yeah. So, I don’t know, it’s such a great bunch of people and, you know, doing Stones covers… I don’t mind doing things that are a bit different. I’m the person that says yes to most things, you know, just to have that experience and do something different. It sounded good, and it’s rock ‘n’ roll, so it’s not too far out of the realms of what I [normally] do, my genre, so yeah.

I think you’re old mates with Tex, of course, but how about Sarah and Steve?

Yeah, Sarah I’ve known for a very long time as well. And Steve, I met probably like a decade ago. Maybe more. So I didn’t meet Steve till much, much later on, but of course I was a massive Church fan and loved Steve Kilbey’s solo stuff. I actually remember the very first time I got into alternative music, one of the first things I heard was one of Steve Kilbey’s solo songs and I was like, who is this? What is this? This is amazing. So yeah, I’m such a massive fan of Steve’s and we’ve done a couple of things together. We did the David Bowie tribute together and I’ve got to know Steve, and he’s just amazing and I’m stoked he’s doing this. I’m pinching myself, of course. It’s great.

If anything, he seems like the most odd one out – his day job stuff sounds the least Stonesy of the four of you, for sure.

Yeah, I can’t wait to see what he’s gonna do with it. You know, he’s very amazing at what he does and he’s gonna bring his thing to the show. So, I can’t wait to see how he tackles these songs. And I’m sure it’ll be bloody mind blowing. I’m really, really looking forward to that. Definitely. And you know Sarah will – she’s amazing. She’s got an amazing voice. She actually did one of the Stones Revues with us at the country music fest when one of our normal team wasn’t in there and she subbed in and she was fantastic. So, I’m really looking forward to watching Sarah she’s amazing.

OK, so you have been doing this particular show for a little while. Does it change your role and what you do at all when the likes of Tim Rogers or Phil Jamieson swap out for Kilbey, MacLeod or anyone?

Well, definitely. You know, we have new people coming in and we can’t wait to see what they’re going to do. Definitely everyone brings their sort of certain magnetism and all their experience and their certain style and their certain magic to the show, so it definitely changes things, that’s for sure, in such a great way. I mean, I’m used to Tim [Rogers], Tex [Perkins], Phil [Jamieson], and we’ve been doing it for a long time now, so it’s exciting to mix it up. I love that we can take this show around and we can just bring different artists in and out. It’s versatile.

You guys have got the experience to make it work, there’s no doubt about that. Obviously there’s going to be a lot of Stones obsessives there – any excuse to hear the music and everything – do you feel that there’s a responsibility to deliver the album faithfully, very close to the original?

Yeah, I think so. I think you can’t really go too much outside of what The Stones do because then it’s just not The Stones. There’s certain sounds, and we very much stay – particularly the band – just are very faithful to their sound. It’s so close, you know, and we’ve got such an amazing band. John Hudson, who’s our musical director, he’s the main guitarist. So, he’s the Keith [Richards] of the band and he’s just incredible. But as far as myself, the way that I do the songs, obviously I stick pretty close to it, but then, you know, I also want to bring my little twist to it, so every now and then I’ll just sort of take the melody a little bit off the script and just do my thing because we all have our vocals kind of particularly suited to certain scales and even certain words – the way we enunciate things. And I like that, and I think people appreciate that you maybe bring just some additional little sparkle to it, something of your own. Because I think if I try and stick too close to the original, it’s not gonna work. I’d rather just be myself, but make sure that I deliver the song and there’s definitely a responsibility, and I work really hard to make sure that when I step out there, I’m really present and I’m remembering the words, you know – I definitely want to get it right. So there is definitely that little bit of that inner pressure where you just want to do a good job, you know.

And you have to bring a bit of yourself – I mean, you guys are the stars of the show. If you’re not bringing some of your own personality and your own experience to it, then why are you even there, right?

Yes. That’s right. You’ve really just gotta be yourself – that’s what people are there to see. They’re kind of there to see Tex doing The Stones, you know, Tim doing The Stones. And I think over the years as I’ve done this show I’m more and more out of my shell – maybe in the beginning I was very much just trying not to forget any lyrics and, you know, just trying really hard. But now I’ve sort of relaxed way more and I’m really bringing out a lot more of myself into the show and it, you know, it feels great. I mean, it’s always felt great, but it feels even better now that I’ve really relaxed into it.

Yeah. And you wanna make it a fun, entertaining show as well, rather than just be impersonators?

Well, that’s it. Yeah, exactly. You’ve nailed it. Yeah. You want it to be fun and you wanna have fun. And the way to have fun is to be relaxed and sort of just be really free up there. If you can’t be yourself, then you feel a bit strict. It’s very fun. Like, once you’re in and you’ve been doing this for a while, it just becomes one big party ‘cos the songs are so great, the band’s so great, and you’ve got all the visuals and the lighting, and it’s really spectacular. And everyone just has a great time, you know.

In Jagger and Richards, you’ve got two of the most iconic personalities and characters in the music business in the modern age. It must be hard at times not to slip into a bit of a parody, start prancing around like Jagger or whatever?

[laughs] I don’t think I could be in danger of doing that – I’m just nowhere in the mix for that!

It does sound like more of a Tim thing, actually, yeah…

I don’t know. Well, Tim’s amazing. He’s always been such a fantastic performer and you know it’s in his blood, and he loves The Stones. So he has come from that, he just knows so much about them. He’s an expert, you know. So he does all that rock ‘n’ roll stuff so well, and he’s incredible. You know, I’ve watched him for many, many years, he’s just blows my mind, but yeah, he he’s amazing to watch when he does Midnight Rambler – that’s a real highlight of the show. But you know, all the songs are so fantastic. I really enjoy doing songs like Tumbling Dice, you know, I really just sing that with gusto because I actually, really love that song so much. And I really love the more country songs, that country twang thing they do. That’s one of my favourite aspects of The Stones, so when I get to do stuff like that I really relish it and enjoy it very much.

You mentioned getting Tattoo You way back. Do you have a particular favourite Rolling Stones song or another album which just does it for you every time when you hear it? Just a personal favourite.

Well, I only had Tattoo You, and then all the other Stones songs I listened to on the radio. But after doing Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main Street – which was the other record we did on tour – I know those records back to front now, so I would say they’re in my favourites now for sure, and I really enjoy songs like Wild Horses and Moonlight Mile. That has become one of my favourites now. I didn’t know hot I was going to do it at the beginning, but now I’m really relaxed with it and it’s a really great song to finish the record off with. There’s so much variation – [The Rolling Stones] they’ve done so much, so many different styles all threaded together.

Absolutely. And they’ve got so many almost hidden gems – you know, songs that weren’t singles, but you could still say they’re in the top 50 Stones songs. You listen to the albums and there’s things like Moonlight Mile, which just blows you away every time, right?

Yeah! That song seems to me, so simple. It’s rock’n’roll, it’s a few chords and a few licks and all that. But when you’re learning the songs, you realise how complex they really are, when you’re right inside the song. The lyrics and everything. It’s not what you think when you’re just listening to it. It feels really easy and off the hip, you know, but it’s quite layered and it really takes a lot of time to sort of learn it to get it in your DNA. It’s not as easy as you think. So, hats off to The Stones because they make it look easy.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, look, really looking forward to the show and just to finish up, where are Magic Dirt at at the moment?

Well, we’re currently on a tour. I’ve been touring around with The Dirt supporting Jebediah on their national album tour. We’re just about to head to Tasmania – we’ve just come back from Darwin and we’re heading to Tassie this coming weekend, then I jump on the Rolling Stones Revue, so I’ve been sort of tag teaming this Rolling Stones stuff with the Jebediah and Magic Dirt tour, so we’ve been really busy – and then we head out with Hoodoo Gurus for a summer tour, so yeah, things are busy in The Dirt world, yeah!

All right. Can we expect another album at some point?

Yeah, we’re road testing some new songs, so we’re definitely writing. We hope so. Yeah.

Great. Excellent stuff. I’m looking forward to the show next week and thank you again for your time Adalita.

Cool. Thanks a lot Shane.

 

 

Category: Interviews