Interview: Xavier Rudd

It's not very often that my health problems interfere with my life, but this past week I had reason to rue them for the first time in a number of years. As a treat to celebrate our wedding anniversary, I had purchased tickets for my wife and I to go and see one of our favourite performers when his tour stopped in Toronto, Ontario for two nights. Unfortunately, as the day drew nearer it became obvious there was no way my body was going to be able to stand up to two and half hour trip by train that it would take to get to Toronto. I put off the inevitable for as long as possible, but in the end I surrendered and we gave the tickets to a young couple we know who appreciated the music as much as we would have. I figured the only thing worse than not going, was not going and having the tickets laying around the house reminding me of the disappointment.

A part of me knew all along we wouldn't be making the trip. I've not been able to make a trip of that length since 2002, so how could I have thought now would be any different. I guess I had hopped that when the time came, somehow it could happen because it would have meant so much to us. You see, there's something about Xavier Rudd's music that I've connected to it on a personal level, in a way that I never have before to any musicians work. My wife summed it up best when she said, "he always seems to be able to articulate how I'm feeling about the state of the world with his music."

Rudd released his first CD, To Let, in 2002 and has since produced four more discs and toured the world extensively. The Australian born multi-instrumentalist's initial albums and tours saw him performing as a one man band. Sitting behind a stand holding his three Yidaki (an Australian Aboriginal instrument named for the hunter who not only discovered it but whose spirit now resides within them, it's better know by the name Europeans have given it, didgeridoos) he would play either slide or regular guitar, keep the beat with a stomp box and small percussion instruments, play some harmonica, and of course sing. Over the course of the three discs that followed To Let; Solace, Food In The Belly, and White Moth; Rudd's music gradually became both more musically and thematically complex, a period of development that culminated in his most recent release, 2008's Dark Shades Of Blue.

When it had looked like I would be travelling down to Toronto to see Rudd in concert, I contacted his Canadian publicist to see if I could set up an interview. Of course that fell by the wayside when the trip fell through, and I had to settle for fifteen minutes on the phone with him. It's a somewhat frustrating experience trying to engage a person in conversation when you know you're working against the clock as you have to keep curtailing topics in order to cover any ground at all. However fifteen minutes turned out to be plenty of time for us to talk about the current tour, Dark Shades Of Blue, his music in general, and even touch upon his wife's (Marci Lutken-Rudd) art that served as cover for Dark Shades Of Blue.

Article Author: Richard Marcus

Richard Marcus is the author of the recently published What Will Happen In Eragon IV? and has had his work published in print and on line all over the world. The not so long-haired Canadian iconoclast writes reviews and opines on the world as he sees …

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