Xavier Rudd
August 29 @ Snowmass Town Park, Snowmass Village
Through the conscious and heartfelt songs composing Solace, the debut of Canadian-Australian surf/roots artist Xavier Rudd, there’s stories of the mistreatment of the indigenous people of his homeland and songs about humanity, spirituality and the environment, compassionate songs encouraging understanding and looking to celebrate life. And running through those songs are all sorts of instruments: guitars, shakers, didgeridoos, Weissenborn slide guitars, Tongue drums,stomp boxes, djembes, harmonica, ankle bells, and slide banjo—and they’re all played by Rudd.Even more impressive, though, Rudd recreates these songs live—playing the guitar, didgeridoo and various percussion parts simultaneously—using a unique stage set-up that finds him literally surrounded by his various instruments and singing from behind a stand holding three didgeridoos (of different keys). It’s a sight to behold for sure, one that’s drawn him a “one-man band” label from impressed critics, a tag that makes him grin: “I never really planned all the stuff I have around me. I never sat down one day and said, ‘I’m going to have all these things around me and I’m gonna try to use it all at once.’ It just sort of grew. I would just add things here or there. Sometimes I look at my setup now and I laugh. ”While Rudd leaves audience members slack-jawed with regularity, he’s hardly the cheeky street performer with cymbals fastened to his knees or ankles, the type of performer genuinely deserving of the one-man-band tag. “In my songwriting I select instruments for mood. And so everything I use around me in a song—each part, for example—has its own mood. It suits the theme of the song. The yirdaki [the indigineous, Aboriginal name for didgeridoo] can have so much emotion, it can be really bright, or it can be sort of dark and mystical. ”His music is created through an ambidextrous virtuosity: “I guess I have a natural rhythm about me,” he says, trying to make sense of his gifts. “I can separate my limbs so they can hold their own rhythm. I feel more comfortable when my whole body is involved in something than just, say, my hands. I feel more comfortable when my whole body and soul is lost in the music, rather than not so. It is challenging at the time to keep everything going at once, but it feels right. ”But it’s not his virtuosity that you hear on Solace, it’s his soul. Released last year in Australia, where it has been certified platinum, the album has drawn praise from the likes of such celebrated and successful tunesmiths as Ani DiFranco and Jack Johnson, both of whom Rudd has toured with. Save his cover of Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry,” the album’s lyrics are inspired by the fearful mood in the U.S. in the past few years. “I was traveling a lot when I was writing the songs,” says the 27-year-old Rudd, “and I was going to the U.S., and the war was sort of heating up. ‘Solace’ is a word for finding light in the dark. So where those songs came from in my heart space at the time was just about”—he pauses—“I felt like there was personal strain on people, particularly in the U.S. I felt sorry for people. The U.S.A. is such a great place, and people are so warm and welcoming, it’s such a colorful place. People are so full of spirit and so interesting and different, and I love that about the U.S.A. I think that people felt pressure maybe because of the media and of the government and I could really sense that at the time. “I started thinking that some things are out of our control, and we’re really lucky to be living where we are—in the Western world—and have the opportunities we have, and, sort of, ‘Let’s just find light in the dark, and let’s just concentrate on beautiful things about our lives, like our friends, and our families, and our Earth.’ We’re living in a good time, and [Solace] is just sort of about finding positives at that time.” The crowd fave “Let Me Be” is a perfect example of that mindset, Rudd says, noting that in the song he’s seeking an escape from all the emotional pressure and heartache of the time and how the media was intensifying those feelings. “It’s like, ‘Let me just be free from it all. Let me just dance at a festival,’ or something.” Elsewhere, Rudd takes his country to task for not embracing the rich heritage of its indigenous people. “Our Aboriginal culture is not celebrated enough in Australia. There’s a very descent amount of oppression that’s still there, and a lack of respect for our indigenous people and their culture.”
“A Fourth World” was inspired by how the schools in his native country skip over much of the education of the Aboriginal people’ past in favor of lessons focused on the white and British colonization of the continent. At his shows, Rudd flies the red, yellow and black Aboriginal flag, which he deems Australia’s true national flag. “I have a huge amount of respect for our indigenous culture, and I’ve always felt sorrow for the lack of respect for the culture in my country, and especially in Victoria, where I grew up.”
Growing up in Bell’s Beach in Southern Victoria, notable for its cameo in the memorable surf film Point Break, Rudd was reared in a very music-friendly environment. Forever singing as a child— often when he was sad: “I was a very emotional kid,” he says—his father liked to sing, and favored such sixties/seventies heroes as Neil Young and Paul Simon. Although the two never met, his grandmother on his father’s side was also a talented pianist and vocalist. After his brother took up classical guitar, he started messing around with the instrument, and for a very short time, taking lessons. Losing interest in formal instruction, he learned to pluck the guitar the way it felt most natural as his fascination with music grew. From a very early age, he was drawn to the didgeridoo, the 50,000-year-old wooden trumpet of the Aboriginal people. Before he even really knew anything about the instrument, he found himself drawn to it: I feel like the yirdaki was sort of born into me a little,” Rudd says. “I remember when I was a little kid, I used to play it on the end of vacuum cleaner pipe. ”When Rudd was 10, his dad took him to see Paul Simon’s Graceland tour, and it changed his life: “I remember seeing it and knowing that that was what I was gonna do,” he says. “I had no doubt. It sort of made sense, because I’d always lived in my head, in this world of song that was my own little secret. But to see that show and that whole thing happening, I sort of felt comfortable as a human, and thought. ”As a teen, he began to buckle down on his songwriting, smitten with slide guitar and the works of such lauded singer/songwriters and/or players as Leo Kottke, Ben Harper, Natalie Merchant and multi-instrumentalist David Lindley, as well as obscure world, Hawaiian and Native American music. He began performing at school, with solo gigs following. After school, he tried his hand at the band thing, but it quickly proved the wrong fit for the multi- instrumentalist. “What I do now is just more me,” he says. “And it sounds full.” A 2001 trip to his wife’s hometown in Western Canada would prove a life- and career-changing experience. While in British Columbia, he acquired a Weissenborn guitar, which forever altered his sound: “That opened a lot of doors to me. That was the instrument I’ve always felt more content on. ”Weissenborn in tow, Rudd started playing a few shows in British Columbia, and, before he knew it, word had started to spread back home. The first post-Canada show he played at home—in Melbourne, the closest major city to his hometown—was unusually packed, and the crowds started to double with each consecutive show, as he toured Southern Australia. In 2002, Rudd released his debut album, To Let, on which he experimented with playing with other musicians, and continued to tour Australia. The next year, he found himself skipping between Australia and Canada (he currently maintains residences in both countries), and finding his fanbase growing and growing as word continued to spread of his unusual live show and careful songcraft. Appreciation and love for Rudd’s songs,style and performances is still on that path. “It’s all about peace and happiness,” he says of his performances. “That’s sort of the blanket that seems to sort of settle in the room, or on the venue when I play, but I sort of feel not solely responsible. I don’t really feel like it’s me and the audience. I feel like it’s all of us, one big connection and I just happen to be channeling the energy through music. It comes from the audience and channels through me and I put it back in the audience.” “My music is about good spirit,” he continues. “I’m so lucky to be able to do what I do. I’m so blessed to be able to be able to travel around and play music and connect with so many people in so many places in so many cultures. It’s a gift of life as a musician.”
