In between USA jaunts, Wolfmother’s Andrew Stockdale is currently on tour in Australia hawking his fabulous new album Slipstream, playing Northcote Social Club in Melbourne tomorrow night, followed by gigs in Sydney, Brisbane and Byron Bay. Slipstream is Andrew’s first solo release since his 2013 debut Keep Moving. The Victorious album was also released in 2016 under the Wolfmother moniker .
During the creative the process of putting Slipstream together, Stockdale put his usual pre-production methods into practice thinking a Wolfmother album would be the end result. However somewhere along the line he had a change of heart.
“I went into my studio in Byron Bay earlier on in 2018 and started demoing songs by playing all of the instruments,” Explains Andrew. “Usually I would then put together a band, do pre-production, flesh out the parts, hire a producer and put it out as ‘Wolfmother’; though I was enjoying the creative process, so much so, that I’d see it through to the end just as a solo artist.”
Once Stockdale had made the decision to release the album under his own name, it seems the project took on a life of its own and he just ran with it.
“The next port of call was to take everything I had produced on my hard-drive to LA and finish it off at Henson Studios,” said Andrew of what happened next in the journey. “Whilst I was at Henson, I was inspired by the studio and decided to write a song on the spot which ended up becoming ‘Slipstream’. I noticed the grand piano, Steinway in the corner, and I heard that Paul McCartney had recorded there a few months before so I thought I’d have a go at that in order for his creativity to rub off on me, which resulted in the ELO inspired outro. Then once this was done, I thought “What if we add some cello over the top?” So I guess my point is, by the time I reached this stage of playing everything on demos in Byron to recording at Henson, laying on grand piano, adding cello, funding and producing the record myself, I thought, “I don’t really owe it to a band or a label to see this through as a ‘Wolfmother’ album.” “Maybe, I could put this out myself and tour it under my own name and see if this creative freedom, so to speak, could transfer into a show.” Whilst doing this, I didn’t really dance around other people’s schedules and I enjoyed the synchronicity of who would be available at any given time or place. “
While there are some obvious heavy Wolfmother-style riffs to be found on the album, Stockdale taps deep into his inner-teen record collection and presents us with nods and winks to all kinds of classic rock influences. Think TMG, The Faces, T-Rex with the electric tracks and there’s certainly a Zeppelin flavour to the delicate acoustic tunes such as Cherry Lane and Dreamy Afternoon.
For the album and American tour as well, Stockdale utilised the services of some musicians he’d never worked with before.
“A lot of artistic choices were made on availability and it was really interesting to see who I would meet as a consequence. For example, the alto-sax player turned out to be an attorney and offered to help out getting a record deal, which I didn’t follow up but it just shows that when you’re open to spontaneity some interesting opportunities may arise. With that flexibility in the studio which has always been there to an extent with recordings, why not translate that into the touring forum. The industry has a long standing tactic for success which is same band members, manager, label, producers, though there’s something to be said for keeping it fresh and chasing inspiration and that’s what I was pursuing on this record. Means of distribution are changing, means of recording are changing.
There’s a lot more freedom available to artists this day and age and I just thought why not embrace this freedom that is there to empower the artist and see what opportunities arise. Essentially this record is me with a guitar and a hard drive visiting different players and different studios and putting together a body of work which I found really exciting.”
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to catch an internationally acclaimed, Australian singer, songwriter this week.
Tues Oct 9 Northcote Social Club Melbourne
Wed Oct 10 Oxford Arts Factory Sydney
Thurs Oct 11 The Triffid Brisbane
Fri Oct 12 The Northern Byron Bay