Hey everybody and welcome to another Turn It Up interview and as always I am really so appreciative of the valuable time taken out by the artists the speakers on the show.
Now I'm going down under which is Australia but the person I'm going to speak to is actually born in Wales but at the very early age of five moved to the southern hemisphere
and you know he's played far and wide he's going to have a new album coming out uh well in a few months time uh we're going to have a treat from that in fact it's going to be a world exclusive force play anywhere but there's lots of other stuff to talk about force so would you give a very big torn up interview welcome to the one and only gwen ashton gwen you're welcome to the show
Thank you so much for having me.It's a pleasure.Listen, it's great, mate.You know, you're a hardworking musician.You're out as a one man band, but you've recorded a new album and that's as a three piece.
And I think we were chatting earlier on, it's 14 years from you did something like that.So I'm sure that that was exciting, too.But before we talk about the new album,
Just maybe go back and go back to, you know, even yourself around after, shortly after COVID.
You were in Australia for COVID and wasn't able really to get back, but then you did a lot of work, you recorded a lot of music at that time, so you didn't lose much time either, did you?
No, I put it to very good use.I recorded, I got together with some musicians in Adelaide and we recorded something like 110 new songs.
Yeah.Um, we didn't have a lot of COVID there, so we could get together in, you know, small groups of people, you know, as a worldwide sort of, uh, uh, stipulation laws or whatever.And, uh,
It gave me a little bit of opportunity to finish off some songs I've been half writing while I've been driving around Europe on tour.I get ideas, you know, sound checks and get them down on my phone or whatever.
And even driving around, I sort of use my voice memo thing on my iPhone and get some words down or whatever it was while I'm driving around.
So, and when you get to the gig, you know, you haven't got time to, or get back to the hotel or whatever, you haven't got time to actually write or finish the songs.You just get these bursts of ideas together on a scratch pad.
And so it enabled me to go into my phone and check out hundreds of ideas that I had and I turned a lot of them into songs, you know.
Isn't it brilliant too that we live in an age where something like a smartphone you can use it almost as a
as a portable recording device to store ideas and stuff that, you know, 30, 40 years ago, if you were driving, you wouldn't have had that facility to do.
And probably most songwriters will say when they get the inspiration for something, it's something you nearly have to get down here and now, because if you don't, that might not be there in a few hours time, whenever the creative juices are flowing, that's the time you need to get the ideas down.
Absolutely.I mean, I get ideas.I wake up in the middle of the night occasionally.It doesn't happen all the time, obviously.Otherwise, there'd be something wrong with me.
But occasionally, I get an idea in a dream or whatever, and there was a piece of music that that happened while I was in Adelaide, and I just got it straight down this entire melody of a piece of music that just came out.
So I was really happy about that. You never know when the idea's gonna hit you.And also, during that COVID time, I put time into producing and engineering a little bit more.So I bought some equipment and I set up a mobile studio.
I was doing it before anyway, but this gave me a little bit more opportunity to sort of hone some of those skills and work it out. You know, how to capture properly the ideas that I get and use them in a band situation as well, not just a solo.
I know.And tell me something, the song that opened here just before we started the interview was called The Ballad of Gwyn Ashton.So in many ways, that's your story as well.
How did that come about or how did you think, do you know, I'd like to put down what happened in my life in a song or how did that all come about?
Well, I'm really influenced by a lot of different styles of music.And I really love the pre-war and post-war blues stuff.So if we go back to Mance Lipscomb, Lightning Hopkins, all those sort of storytellers.
And I was watching some videos of Mance Lipscomb, who was a great blues solo songwriter.
And I just thought, maybe I should have something personal about my life, you know, because I was, the lyrics of the ballad of Gwyneth, and I thought that was a bit of a strange title, but I thought, oh, no, I'm gonna go with it.
It starts off when I was born.I was born in Wales, in a caravan.My father was in the RAF.He flew planes and all sorts of stuff. My mother drove an ambulance in the war.She was saving soldiers in Leeds after, you know, during the bombings.
So I just wanted, you know, and I was a product of that generation.So I was born and we're on the road.We went out to Australia and we kept moving around the country from Perth to Adelaide. I had 21 different schools.We moved 28 times in seven years.
So I've been on the road all my life.I mean, literally, I was born on the road.So you can't take that out of me.And I hear people say now, oh, don't go on the road.Just stay at home and stream.It's just like, hey, I was born on the road.
I want to stay on the road.I like it.
Isn't it amazing too?It gets into your blood, you know, when you're used to doing something like that, it becomes natural to you.And as you say, it's nice to see new places and new things anyhow.
So, I mean, if you only stay in the one spot, you ain't going to discover much of the world.So it's kind of,
It's kind of nice to get out there and meet new people and make new friends and see new places because it certainly broadens your mind and it lets you see a little bit more of what this world is like.
Yeah, absolutely.And, you know, life is about adventure and experiences and creating more opportunity for yourself.You've got to be fairly selfish about it.
it's got to be about yourself, especially if you're a songwriter and you're trying to give birth to new music, new ideas.
And after 10 albums, because Mojo Soul celebrated 10 albums, I made sure that I released it in Australia on the same day I started playing guitars, 50 years later.So it was a bit of a 50-year celebration album for me on a personal level.
Yeah, so that meant a lot to me.It came out in Europe a year later because, you know, at that stage, 2022, I was still stuck in Australia, so I couldn't really promote it in Europe at that stage. I get it.
Now I'm on the road.Yeah.That slowed it down for a bit, but now you're on the road constantly, I suppose.
Yeah.Yeah.I'm, I'm in the middle of the Czech Republic right now.Um, been touring, you know, all over the place, um, for a number of years.So, um, and I enjoy it.
I, I like going to different towns and I like returning to towns, making new friends and then, catching up with people I met maybe a couple of years ago or whatever.It's always nice.I feel that that's my obligation in life.
I'm not the guy to sit at home and watch television.I haven't owned a television since, my last television was a portable VHS, a portable TV that I had to throw out, an old analog thing.I've never had a widescreen TV.
not interested yeah it's not your thing well listen we're going to play some more music and the next track that we're going to hear and we'll talk a bit about it when it's finished playing the next track we're going to hear something called no more this is gwen ashton and no more
They could be lies, it could be truth No one supplies the living proof We're all supposed to trust what's on the news It's full of bias every day Feeding us with games to play Never knowing where to seek the truth No more losses No more atrocities No more dying
No more smokescreen from your machine No more lying now The media, it contradicts and fills our minds with all its tricks Confusion of what now we have in store
Manipulating other games From people we don't know their names Tell me, is it all worth fighting for?No more lost hits No more atrocities No more dying now No more smokescreen From your machine No more lying now
Making life a living hell Confusing us with all your thought out lies We're totally crazy to believe And forcing us to deceive Our brothers now you say we should despise You bought the TV and the press Putting us all to the test Illusions throwing us into chaos
How many more should all die or over touch with bodies crying?Won't you cause the lives that we've lost?No more losses, no more atrocities No more dying now No more smoke screen from your machine No more lying now
No more lawsuits, no more atrocities No more dying now No more smokescreen from your machine No more lying now
Yeah, I enjoyed that.Gwyn, what's the story behind that?
The way I write songs is very varied.Sometimes I'll come up with a lyric first and I'll hear a rhythmic structure in my head and then pick up a guitar.But that one was kind of the opposite way around.I got my 12 string acoustic guitar
And I have it set to a really weird tuning because it makes you play differently and come up with different ideas.
So it's basically a pretty political song about how we're being manipulated with all these wars and whatever else is going on in the world. We're not being given the truth by the people that we trust to give us the truth, basically.
I don't want to come across as a conspiracy theorist or anything.
That's true.We're in a world where the truth is, the truth is certainly well hidden.Let's put it like that.It takes a lot of work to find out the actual truth.
Yeah.And so, you know, we, we have to be objective to everything. And we have to question everything.And we're being told not to question things and just to accept what we're being told by various outlets or whatever.
And I think once – I think it's very dangerous once we stop thinking for ourselves and analyzing, you know, exactly what goes on.And I don't think we'll ever know.But I just felt that I had to get something that just make you think, you know.
Yeah, and tell me something, you're over in Europe at the minute then, Gwyn, how has that been?Is it a while from you being over?Is it pre-COVID or have you been there since or how's that going for you?
I'm working and I'm just getting to know people and The world's a big place, and I'd like to just get around everywhere that I can.I don't want to be locked down in one place for too long.There's so much adventure out there.
The more I travel, the more I think, wow, I could go further east than this.
Well, I think music is something too.It's universal and it's worldwide and it's kind of like a family situation.You maybe have connections of people that you know here and stuff. You can connect up with them and different things can happen.
And with modern technology, you know, very little is not possible.So it's nice.I always felt it was nice to explore.It's nice to go to new places and new things.
It is.And I can take chances.Being a solo artist, doing the one man band thing, that's a true solo artist, just being able to create everything on stage.I can take chances.I can do
gambles on door deals or whatever, and I don't have other people that I have to accommodate, feed.Other people that might not have the same focus on my songs.As I mentioned before, being a songwriter is quite a selfish occupation, really.
I mean, you're just writing about your own experiences and whatever. Being able to take it out on the road I think is really important.
You'll meet people along the way and I might put something together with somebody else, with a band or whatever, and who knows how long that'll last.
While I'm alive and healthy, I want to be doing this, you know, like I am and enhance it with other people along the way as well.I think that's great.
Tell me something, Gwyn, you know, you record stuff in the studio and I'm sure when you're doing it, you'll You have drums and bass and everything else.
Can you sort of, through modern technology, kind of create your backline, backing really, even if you're a one man operation, you can give a full enough sound, you can kind of have a backbeat or record percussion or record whatever.
Is that easy enough to do or how do you find that when you're out on the road?
Well, To start with, I never use studios anymore.I just use rooms that sound pretty good.I close mic everything.I use a bass drum, a snare drum with my feet, and a hi-hat and a tambourine.So I'm not the world's greatest.I've never practiced drums.
I've only just recorded and played live.And I'm not a drummer.But I can keep time, and I think that's I did some shows with Tony Joe White, for instance, which is kind of what put me onto this.And it was just him and a drummer.
And I said, Pete was the drummer.And I said to him, what does Tony expect of you as a drummer?He said, he just wants me to rock.He doesn't want fills.He just wants me to put a solid beat behind him.And I thought,
You know, over the years, I thought, well, I can do that.I just put a very straight beat behind me.So that's how I recorded Mojosoul.
I used somebody's living room in Adelaide, and I just mic'd the drums up, and then I put all the guitars and stuff down on it.
And I'm playing it live a little bit differently now.You know, things evolve and get better. And that's good.
I also, in that time, I forgot to mention, I recorded a single in Adelaide with a drummer and harmonica player, Dave Blight from Cold Chisel, a big Australian band, and Travis Stegrani and Stu Rudd from a band called Super Jesus.
And we had Richard Fortas from Guns N' Roses play guitar on it.And it's an anti-war song called Get Out Of Town.So maybe we can slip that one in.
We'll find a room somewhere, but I think the next one we're going to hear, and you can talk about it afterwards, it sounds like a bit of a story too.It's called 12,000 Males From Home.Let's play it.
Down to the southern hemisphere Where I thought the skies were clear But the smoke through the air blew me away I couldn't have seen it coming Couldn't have seen it coming
Red sky, that's the sun going down, down The weather then changed, the sky turned to rain But the dust in the air turned rain to mud Cambertown I couldn't have seen it coming, couldn't have seen it coming
I couldn't have seen it coming, couldn't have seen it coming The world shut down, now I'm on my own I couldn't have seen it coming, couldn't have seen it coming I'm 12,000 miles from home
Ray, tell me something, Glenn, what's the story behind that track?I'm sure there is a story behind it.
Ah, big story there.In 2019, I went out to Australia to do a tour and I'd seen on news broadcast on YouTube or whatever that there were bushfires in all sorts of places.It was pretty bad.It looked like the whole country was on fire.
So I went out there and I followed the fires all the way from Adelaide up to Newcastle in New South Wales.And everywhere I went, there was smoke or flames or whatever.I got to Melbourne and it was just gray.And at night, you could see the red skies.
So that was pretty bad.There was one town, in, I've forgotten where it was, in New South Wales.And I had to call them up the day before and the town had been evacuated.And they said, oh, we'll let you know in the morning.
And if the gig's still gonna be on, it was a Sunday afternoon.And they rang me the next morning and said, yep, the wind changed and the fire blew the opposite direction, so everybody's back. So come and play.
So I went and did the show and it was incredible.What an experience, what an adventure, you know, it was terrible at the same time.But that song is about each place I went to.
And of course, on the way back, when I got back to Melbourne, before going back to Adelaide, there was a 60 date tour and I got through 57 dates and then
the whole COVID thing happened, and then I had to get back across the border to South Australia, back to Adelaide, which is my hometown, before the borders closed, and I would have been stuck in Victoria.
Okay, so I got back over the border to Adelaide, and I locked down for a week.That was what we were told to do, and that was the first song to come out of it. It was the whole experience of following, I called it the bushfire tour.
But it was devastating.When I first left Melbourne to go up to Canberra, there were mud rains.There was so much smoke in the air that when it rained, it was just mud all over the windscreen of my car.It was coming out of the sky.
And I wrecked one of my wiper blades.
um so that's all in the song can i ask you it's just because i've never heard of this mud rain are you saying that somehow mud that that that there's particles of dust that actually changes into pieces of mud hitting your car yeah
so and it was coming out of the sky you know wow wow wow that's that's certainly a new one on me i've seen many things uh but i've never i've never heard of that and i i suppose look we move a wee bit closer to the present and i know you've recorded uh a new album that's
for release well in maybe early next year or maybe who knows could be sooner but at the minute it's looking like early beginning of next year and it's I think it's called Grease Bucket.
Do you want to chat a bit about how that come together and and how it shaped up?
I'd love to um okay so there I was in Adelaide you know Covid and uh put out a post on Facebook I want to uh need to get somewhere to rehearse.
And a friend put me on to another friend who had a music room, so I went around the house and I said, yeah, let's, you know, rehearse.Yeah, we did.
And it turns out this, my friend Brett and his wife, Andrea Dawson, he said, oh, you ought to hear Andrea sing. She pulled out a guitar and sang and it was just like, wow, this is great.
I've just discovered this incredible singer and we actually got together and wrote an album and put a band together around her.So that's another album that's gonna come out soon.But she sang Backing Vote on Greasebucket.
So we set the studio up and I got together with a couple of other musicians that were off the road.Of course, everybody was off the road and stuck in town.
So I had Paul Wheeler from a band in Sydney called Icehouse, and they're a very big Australian band.And I just met this fellow, a great bass player by the name of Chris Lambden from a band called The Screaming Believers in Adelaide.
They were like this indie rock band back in the 80s.And we just got together and recorded a lot of songs. And so I finally got around to get it mixed.And Andrea did some backing vocals on it.And you're getting a world exclusive here.
The song's called Evil Child.It's going to be the first single off the album.And it's a bluesy thing.And not only did I have these guys, but there's a fellow in Adelaide who's a great Hammond organ player and he plays great guitar and sings.
He's a songwriter too by the name of Jesse Dean Freeman.And he contributed a very nice Hammond organ track to the song as well.So it's a pretty tough halftime shuffley sort of thing on this particular track.It goes a lot of different directions.
That sounds really cool.And again, very honoured here on the show to get the world exclusive from a track from your fourth come-along that really isn't due out until early in the new year.And this is the planned single from it.
So look, we're very excited and honoured by that.And tell me something, touring plans, any plans to maybe come back this way, Europe maybe in 25 or what way are plans looking?
Well, I'm kind of shopping around for labels.And I got a label in Melbourne, Australia, called MR Records.So they're putting the album out.So we're just getting it all together at the moment.I've got a great band based down in Italy.
The bass player's name's Fabio Drusin. And he sits in with Government Mule sometimes, plays harmonica and percussion as well.And he's got a drummer there, Silver Bassey, and they play with Alvin Young, Blood Heart.
They're his rhythm section when he comes to Europe to play.And Fabio's played with Billy Gibbons with Supersonic Blues Machine.It's a really good band. I'm really looking forward to doing some shows.
We've just got to get some booking agents interested and whatnot.So it's a new album.It's my first full band album for 14 years.I've been doing solo and duo stuff with various drummers.
When I went out to Australia in 2019, I was promoting another album called Sonic Blues Preachers, which I'd recorded in Adelaide. with a drummer called John Freeman, who played in a band called Fraternity back in 1970, 71.
And that was quite an important band in Australia because they had Bon Scott as the lead singer front man in the band, who of course later went on to ACDC fame.So that's the album I was promoting at the time. in Australia.
That's also what came out of all of that.
Yeah, it sounds like there's a lot of exciting stuff happening and certainly the people that you're talking about working with and you come over here to Europe, people that played with Alvin Young, Blood Art, Billy Gibbons or any of those people, and of course yourself of the highest caliber, so it's something to look forward to and hopefully maybe you might make it over to Ireland as well.
and entertain us with a few gigs here as well, that'd certainly be good.Look, on behalf of everybody here on the show, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me here on the Torn Up Interview.
It's been so interesting and great to hear, you know, your story and great to hear that things are positive and moving forward and certainly
Again, you know, to get the award exclusive, to get playing Evil Child from your forthcoming album, Greasebucket, that again, such an honour.And I want to wish you all the best.I hope that things go really well for you.I know they will.
And looking forward already to the next catch up.Maybe the next time it might be in person.Hopefully it will.
Well, I'd love to, and I'd love to come to Ireland to play.Now I have my Irish passport, I'm quite happy.My dad was born in Belfast, so that allowed me to obtain
um my rightly citizenship i guess ah well listen you're very welcome as i say look we're going to end the interview with a world exclusive a new track new music from guinness's forthcoming album called grease bucket uh
it this is really a great track to get a taste from so again going thank you so much let's press the button and hear some evil child fantastic thanks for having me
I'd rather be What was on your mind? Well, it's pleasure and pain That you inflict on me You go against the grain Of what my life should be I try to step right back Not to waste my time I'm a victim of attack
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