Ross Wilson

So Ross, what are you looking forward to most at Bluesfest 2021?

Well I’ve been to Bluesfest a couple of times, so I know how it work. Y’know, a great thing about it is that you can see a whole lot of people all in one place – usually from all around the world, but this year is going to be very special because it’s all-Aussie. There’s a mega lineup there, and luckily I’m a part of that! When it got called off earlier this year, we were actually up there already – we could see something [to do with COVID-19] developing, though, so we stayed out of the Byron shire. As soon as they made the formal announcement, we went home without having to do any quarantine, because we hadn’t actually made it there.

But y’know, Peter Noble is doing a gargantuan task trying to keep the thing going, and luckily he’s got a bit of government support there. Let’s just hope that COVID dies down by October, because Bluesfest is a part of my “Eagle Rock” 50th anniversary tour – that’s one of the biggest dates I’ve got!

Is there anything in particular you and the band are excited to bust out onstage?

Yeah! It’s not only the 50th anniversary of “Eagle Rock”, it’s also the 40th anniversary of [Mondo Rock’s] Chemistry album – which won Best Australian Album

[at the Countdown Australian Music Awards] in 1981. So being me, what I’m going to do is play more Daddy Cool songs than I usually do. You’ll still hear things like “Cool World” and a few other songs from that album, and some solo things too. And some of those Daddy Cool songs might be ones you wouldn’t expect.

I’m going to show where Daddy Cool came from; there’s a song we’re going to play that was in the Sons Of The Vegetal Mother repertoire… We might even do two from that band! There were things in the Daddy

Cool repertoire that came from Sons Of The Vegetal Mother: for example, “Love In An F.J.” was a Sons Of The Vegetal Mother song, which we did again on the second Daddy Cool album. So there’s kind of a thread there that people mightn’t be aware of, that I’m hopefully going to make them aware of.

Of course, you’ll be taking to the Bluesfest stage with your latest band, The Peaceniks. From your perspective as the leading man, what’s the secret to the magic that happens when the five of you get up there?

Well, there’s going to be six of us this time – I’m adding an extra guitar! A lot of the time I have a guy named James Ryan on guitar, and he’s a really great guitarist – in fact I’m wearing his t-shirt right now, his other band King Canyon – and so he’s terrific, but he’s not always available. So my other go-to guy is this young fellow named Aaron Schembri, who’s also got his own albums and music out there – y’know, you can see him on the net – and he was mentored in his teens by Ross Hanford from Daddy Cool.

He said he sought out Ross – he likes all the old players and he seeks them out to make records with them – so he’s got that sound, that Ross Hanford sound. He’s got a very natural thing going there. So he’s going to be in it as well, and I’m going to have another guitarist up there with him. And that means I won’t have to play as much guitar myself [ laughs]. But we’re gonna get that sound you get when you have two really good guitarists grooving away with each other. I don’t always have that luxury because I can’t afford to have six people on the road all the time – five is much easier to handle.

Do you find that playing with a different group of people gives the performance – or the music itself – a different vibe?

Absolutely! You can play the same song twice and they’ll come out completely different each time. But because they’re all good musicians, both times sound great. And I’m quite experienced, y’know, so I tend to just go with that feeling. I’ll go, “Oh, that guy’s playing that a bit differently, that guy’s got a bit of a different feel,” and I’ll follow that lead.

It’s especially different when you play with different drummers. I’ve got a couple of go-to drummers, and y’know, it does change. It can affect your performance, but not in a bad way. You can be like, “Ah, this is different – it’s refreshing!” Y’know, it doesn’t have to be exactly the same as it sounds on the record. There’s only one song that has to be the same live as it is on tape, and that’s “Eagle Rock”. If we change that one, it’s just not as good.

Is it still fun to play after thousands and thousands of shows?

Yeah, it’s a real thrill! I still love it. I just love when it locks into the right groove and it just… It’s just got that thing, y’know? You’ve got those powerful rhythms going, and that kind of loose tension. It’s hard to describe, really. And people move! They all get up en masse and they rock around! And that means that my mission is accomplished, y’know? The song’s mission is accomplished. That’s the foundation of it all – I wouldn’t be here without “Eagle Rock”. That’s the foundation of the whole career I’ve built.

There was one period, when I first started Mondo Rock – which wasn’t that long after Daddy Cool, in the mid to late ‘70s – where I wouldn’t play “Eagle Rock”. I took a vow against it. I said, “I’ll make everybody listen to Mondo Rock! Until we get a hit, I’m not playing ‘Eagle Rock’.” And we did that – we had a minor hit with “The Fugitive Kind” – so I started playing “Eagle Rock” again as an encore. And from then on, I’ve played it all the time. People get real snarky if I don’t play it [ laughs]. But I like playing it, so it’s fine!