19 April 2011
You may know him from television soap, Home & Away where he plays rehabilitated drug user Liam Murphy, or perhaps as the loveable farm boy from 2003’s original Australian Idol series; most likely you’ll remember him from the 2006 ARIA Awards where he infamously exposed himself onstage and was subsequently sacked from his enviable position as host of Channel Ten’s Video Hits programme. For Axle Whitehead however, it’s his music that he plans to be remembered by.
His first musical offering, Losing Sleep, was well received and birthed the hit single Don’t Do Surprises in 2008; however, having grown up with a passion for jazz, it failed to meet Whitehead’s own expectations.
“That last record I wrote, it wasn’t really me. Being a jazz musician I’d always re-wrote other people’s music and never really written my own songs so it was my first chance at writing tunes,” he says in the echoing boardroom at the TMN offices. “It was just kind of three and a half minute songs that have synths and drum loops in it, whereas that wasn’t really my background.”
The background he speaks of is country Victoria where he grew up with his parents, two older brothers, and an inherited love of jazz. “I was a hardcore country boy. Then I started smoking weed at about 16 then turned into a big jazz head, and fell in love with jazz music,” says the now 31-year-old. “I was hopeless academically, photography was straight A’s and music was straight A’s but I nearly failed everything else. I didn’t have an option, it was the land or music, or taking pictures, I didn’t have anything else, I was fucked.”
The singer/guitarist has since walked a colourful path on the way to releasing his latest “happy, beachy song,” Sister Sunshine. His side-step into an (initial) 15-episode jaunt with Home & Away has now become his main source of income and with a sophomore record in his sights, Whitehead has taken the necessary time off from acting to get his music back on track. “It takes a week of drinking to try and shake all that shit off and then bam!” he laughs.
Now with 25 to 30 tunes up his sleeve, Whitehead has returned from the US just in time for the Australian release of Sister Sunshine. Although he couldn’t be happier with the Dave Bassett co-written track, the production elements were finalised without him.
“The production got a little bit full with Sister Sunshine, in the mix it got quite full and a bit poppy,” he explains. “I was back in Australia when it was getting done so it was a bit of a fuck over, it was a good lesson to make sure you’re in the studio for all that.”
One upcoming track Whitehead is sure to be holding the reins tight on is a yet-to-be-named song he wrote in Nashville about our unfortunate reliance on mobile phones.
“iPhones fucking shit me to tears man, look at my piece of shit,” he says while pulling his Motorola flip-top out of his motorcycle jacket. “I’m against iPhones. I was out to dinner one time and there was a lull in conversation and everyone went [mocks his friends using his phone], and I just went ‘get fucked, the lot of ya!’
“So there’s this one tune about how screens are fucking us and the art of conversation has been lost” - a light bulb seems to turn on in his eyes - “that could be a name for the record, The Art of Conversation”
Although he’s clearly undecided on a direction of any sort, he’s kept his hopes high for the production of album number two. Writer/engineer, John Alagia is on the top of his wishlist to record the album; he may have mixed Sister Sunshine but with a ballpark production cost of $100,000, Whitehead should probably wait and see how the track charts before he approaches his label with the proposal for Alagia to produce the entire record.
“I’ve just gotta come up with 100 grand somehow. I’ve got to convince the label I’ve got a bunch of hits,” he jokes.
His first musical offering, Losing Sleep, was well received and birthed the hit single Don’t Do Surprises in 2008; however, having grown up with a passion for jazz, it failed to meet Whitehead’s own expectations.
“That last record I wrote, it wasn’t really me. Being a jazz musician I’d always re-wrote other people’s music and never really written my own songs so it was my first chance at writing tunes,” he says in the echoing boardroom at the TMN offices. “It was just kind of three and a half minute songs that have synths and drum loops in it, whereas that wasn’t really my background.”
The background he speaks of is country Victoria where he grew up with his parents, two older brothers, and an inherited love of jazz. “I was a hardcore country boy. Then I started smoking weed at about 16 then turned into a big jazz head, and fell in love with jazz music,” says the now 31-year-old. “I was hopeless academically, photography was straight A’s and music was straight A’s but I nearly failed everything else. I didn’t have an option, it was the land or music, or taking pictures, I didn’t have anything else, I was fucked.”
The singer/guitarist has since walked a colourful path on the way to releasing his latest “happy, beachy song,” Sister Sunshine. His side-step into an (initial) 15-episode jaunt with Home & Away has now become his main source of income and with a sophomore record in his sights, Whitehead has taken the necessary time off from acting to get his music back on track. “It takes a week of drinking to try and shake all that shit off and then bam!” he laughs.
Now with 25 to 30 tunes up his sleeve, Whitehead has returned from the US just in time for the Australian release of Sister Sunshine. Although he couldn’t be happier with the Dave Bassett co-written track, the production elements were finalised without him.
“The production got a little bit full with Sister Sunshine, in the mix it got quite full and a bit poppy,” he explains. “I was back in Australia when it was getting done so it was a bit of a fuck over, it was a good lesson to make sure you’re in the studio for all that.”
One upcoming track Whitehead is sure to be holding the reins tight on is a yet-to-be-named song he wrote in Nashville about our unfortunate reliance on mobile phones.
“iPhones fucking shit me to tears man, look at my piece of shit,” he says while pulling his Motorola flip-top out of his motorcycle jacket. “I’m against iPhones. I was out to dinner one time and there was a lull in conversation and everyone went [mocks his friends using his phone], and I just went ‘get fucked, the lot of ya!’
“So there’s this one tune about how screens are fucking us and the art of conversation has been lost” - a light bulb seems to turn on in his eyes - “that could be a name for the record, The Art of Conversation”
Although he’s clearly undecided on a direction of any sort, he’s kept his hopes high for the production of album number two. Writer/engineer, John Alagia is on the top of his wishlist to record the album; he may have mixed Sister Sunshine but with a ballpark production cost of $100,000, Whitehead should probably wait and see how the track charts before he approaches his label with the proposal for Alagia to produce the entire record.
“I’ve just gotta come up with 100 grand somehow. I’ve got to convince the label I’ve got a bunch of hits,” he jokes.
It’s not unusual for an artist to feel his own work is sub par, and with a debut album and new single that he’s not entirely happy with, Whitehead takes self-critiquing to another level. This could be partly due to the virtuoso image he’s eager to shape, or perhaps it’s just as he says it is, and he’s still individualising his sound.
“I can’t go ‘that’s Axle Whitehead’s sound’, I haven’t reached it. I haven’t got there yet. At the moment it’s still me trying to work out where my sound is at.”
Sister Sunshine is out now
“I can’t go ‘that’s Axle Whitehead’s sound’, I haven’t reached it. I haven’t got there yet. At the moment it’s still me trying to work out where my sound is at.”
Sister Sunshine is out now
No comments:
Post a Comment