Ross Wilson: I Come In Peace

He Writes The Songs

Australian music icon Ross Wilson hits WA this week in support of his new album, I Come In Peace, playing Wednesday, September 1, at Oceanus On The Beach in City Beach; Secret Harbour Golf Club on Thursday, September 2; and The Fly By Night Club on Friday, September 3. BOB GORDON reports. 

While the rest of us have been stupefying by the day in a Federal Election soap opera, Ross Wilson has been in the lap of paradise.

As he picks up his phone Wilson is soaking up the serenity of Gili Trawangan, an island east of Bali and west of Lombok.

“It’s not bad,” he laughs. “I only had to think about that for a couple of minutes. Mind you it’s hot here, I’m pretty damn sweaty. And I was walking down the beach the other day and some local guys were having a strum. I felt a bit of an itch to go over and join them.”

Never fear, Wilson will scratch his musical itch with shows in WA this week, touring in support of his new album, I Come In Peace. Some 40 years in the game, Wilson is still commanding attention with new material.

“Yeah I wouldn’t mind a few more reviews,” he qualifies, “but the ones we’ve had have been extremely positive. They all think it’s good and I like it... which is the main thing. But we’ve been sharing it around and the final spot on the national tour is Perth.”

The leader of Daddy Cool and Mondo Rock has what you’d call a musical life rather than merely a music career. He writes songs that end up on his albums rather than having to write songs for his albums.

“I write the songs so that they do reflect how I feel and what I believe,” he says, simply. “You just put them out and hope that people relate to it. And I think they are, the ones that have heard it.”

I Come In Peace was recorded in Nashville with Aussie ex-pat, Mark Moffitt, and a cool team of local sessioneers. Recording was done over two days and most songs nailed in two takes.

“One of the things about me, Ross Wilson, is that people have some kind of idea about who they think I am and what I’ve done and what I sound like,” says Wilson. “That includes musicians, so I was finding that sometimes they were second-guessing what they thought I required. So I thought I’d go somewhere distant and a step up. A progression. I mean, my recordings are progressions and I particularly want them to be going up, quality-wise.

“So Mark Moffitt got these guys who are touring when they aren’t in the studio and in the studio when they aren’t touring and they didn’t have any idea who I was (laughs). They would just get the songs and go in and play them, without any preconceived ideas about who I am or what I might want. I’m incredibly happy with the results. It’s still Ross Wilson, but it’s got a whole other kind of flavour to it. It’s untainted by preconceptions.”

It’s been a pleasure to hit the road with it to boot...

“It’s worked out great because the guys who I tour with, who are also excellent musicians – are playing really, really well because the standard of the album,” Wilson says. “Everybody’s lifting their game, including me.

“That’s the whole point, if you’re talking about careers, it’s the old ‘how do I improve?’. In music, the only way you can improve, is by playing with people who are either as good as you or better than you. You can learn something.”

It’s a salient point, given the heritage circuit that many, say, ’80s-era artists roll with in this country. Given that timeline, if Wilson had taken that approach, he would have been doing that in the ’80s.

“Well people are under a lot of pressure, whether it’s from audiences or whoever about that,” he reflects. “I mean, I’m not silly, of course I play the songs I like from those different periods, whether it’s Daddy Cool or Mondo Rock. There’s some great songs that I will still play every night and enjoy doing that. But if you are an artist you want to keep on evolving.

“When I was young I wrote about certain things, now I’m older I want to write about different things. And you pick up stuff along the way and you want to use it.  You can’t just rely on that old stuff all the time. There’s a time and place for all of that, but I’m taking this album very seriously and I’m out there and touring it around there in every state. I want people to hear it.”

As time passes though, things don’t have to be so black and white as they once were. Wilson still tours with Mondo Rock when the time and the chemistry is right.

“That’s right I do do some Mondo Rock gigs,” he says. “I love playing with that band, but I don’t want to play with them all the time. But it’s fun when we do. Mondo Rock is going to play with Roxy Music in February on the east coast and it’s gonna be a great gig. It’ll be a fantastic double bill that kicks arse. But on the other hand I’ve got my other life going where I keep on pushing forward. That’s where I want to be, that’s more satisfying.”

And this is why Ross Wilson’s songs stretch across time and change, whether it be Daddy Cool’s Eagle Rock or Mondo Rock’s Cool World. There’s more in them than you first thought because as he does now, he was pushing forward then.

“I’ve got a commercial ear, but it doesn’t mean that the song is trivial,” he says. “I shape my songs so that they sound like pop songs but they actually might have extra meaning and a certain depth to them.  They’re like miniatures; they don’t have a massive ending, or go on too long.

“I grew up listening to pop and rock and something like Daddy Cool was a reaction to something like the progressive rock scene, which I’d also been part of. But that was overblown and my thing was to be concise. Have one idea in each song and get it over with pretty quick (laughs).”