Interview with Richard Easton May 2023

Nic: I found it really difficult to find any information about you online. Where were you born and where did you spend your childhood?

Richard: Yeah, I was raised in a town called Kalamunda, in the hills not far from Perth. The only hills around really. That’s where I did all the things a kid did in the 70s/80s, y’know ride bikes and skateboards, play footy, shoot slingshots, roam the bush with my dog. We did stunts and pretty reckless things come to think of it. I saw my son the other day, screaming downhill on a skateboard loaded with three kids, and I had to stay cool, remember the feeling.

Nic: What were your favourite songs when you were a pre-teen?

Richard: My parents loved a party so there was often music in the house, but mostly on weekends. Dad used to put on Elton John’s Rock of the Westies a lot, Cat Stevens’ Teaser and the Firecat, and a Creedence Clearwater Revival greatest hits record. I think that’s all I listened to as a younger kid, and mostly the bass lines of those albums, coming through the brick wall of my bedroom. As a 10/11-year-old though I got right into The Police and The Cure.

Nic: Are you from a large family? Did your folks or siblings influence your musical tastes? what did you think of your parent’s taste in music.

Richard: Yeah, I was one of four kids, and the music was pretty standard. I just enjoyed the energy of it, like that early Elton John stuff. Mum was a classically trained pianist but never played, and Dad was a bit of a lad who grew up with Buddy Holly and The Beatles. I remember my eldest sister had cool taste, she brought home two records, The Triffids and INXS’s Beneath the Colours. It seemed moody and not mainstream.

Nic: Did you like the current Top 40 growing up?

Richard: I was a classic Countdown kid. I loved it. And I especially liked the big 80s songs from bands like Queen and AC/DC. It felt so epic, so urgent. My sisters always had the yearly compilation records, like 82 With a Bullet, 81 Over the Top or whatever they came up with. They would have y’know, Split Enz followed by the Star Wars theme song. It was crazy but kind of exciting too.

Nic: First gig you ever went to?

Richard: I think it was a double bill of The Hoodoo Gurus and Hunters and Collectors, but my first ‘big’ one was Midnight Oil on their Diesel and Dust tour. They had this giant water tank on stage and Peter Garrett was in overalls leaping around the stage. I was mesmerised.

Nic: What was the first record you bought?

Richard: Well, it was two cassettes, from Bali, of The Style Council and The Cure’s Head on the Door. But it was the first time I could put in an order of what I wanted to listen to, finally.

Nic: Who are your song writing inspirations?

Richard: Alright, I’ll give you my top three:

Number one has to be Neil Young. When I was 15 I heard the song “After the Goldrush”and it changed my life. He was so raw and honest, and he had a restrained anger too. Lyrically it was somehow other-worldly and simple, but again it was the honesty that cut through for me. Musically I loved how he had his own groove and tempo, that he could crank up or mute, whenever he needed to. I mean how’s the shift between “After the Goldrush” and “Southern Man”? Insane.

Number two would be Nineties Nick Cave. I remember coming to him around The Good Son and Henry’s Dream. I just loved the combination of sparseness and intensity on those albums. And the imagery of course. It was like he had his own little dictionary that no one else had access to. I loved that.

Number three is The Clean. Again simplicity, but from a band perspective. Originally, I was obsessed with writing on my own and then finding ways to tell the story musically. Then I fell in love with three-pieces (which wasn’t hard in the 90s) and I started to hear songs as a conversation between musicians. I loved the limitation of having only three instruments, and The Clean do it so well.

Nic: Your albums fit into a ten-year period, was there much before or after these five albums.

Richard: No not really. It all came in a rush. I wrote a ton of songs leading up to the first release, and edited heavily, but most of the songs on Boganvillea came from a cassette EP in 1996. I think I’d found my style by that stage. By 2008 I felt like I knew exactly how to make a Richard Easton album, without even thinking, so I stopped. I ended up packing my guitar away for a year or so and kind of reinventing myself a bit.

 It’s funny but I had a dream I was in prison with Keith Richards and he was playing this axe, like an actual axe with a single wire string, and I was sitting at a table with him and I was singing in this deep moaning style. I listened to a lot of blues for a year after that dream. Then I bought an electric guitar and barely touched the acoustic again. There’s an album of songs from that period coming out soon. It’s raw and less structured.

Nic: Can you remember the first song you wrote and what became of it?

Richard: I can. I was living in Canada as a 19-year-old and I wrote a three-chord song called “In the Den”. It was terribly sad, but it looped around really nicely and I could sing a dulcet little poem over it. It was all about the E minor. I completely fell in love with song writing (and that chord) from that time on.

Nic: Tallulah – full band, does that change your approach to singing the songs? Sounds like it would have got a bit loose live?

Richard: Oh, that was a blast recording that album. And yeah, it changes the approach for sure. There’s always more room for play I reckon, and there were a lot of live takes on that album. The Rhumba Decoy were the loosest, most diligent and supportive band. Bill and Pugsley were incredible jazz and punk musicians (in the Perth art-rock scene). Bill fronted the band ‘O!’ and Pugsley played with everyone. They just let me be myself. And we were all in this double garage at Puglsey’s share house for two weeks with the great Laurie Sinagra at the helm. It was cool and untrained. Bill was a guitarist playing drums, sitting behind a perspex café menu in the corner, and Pugs was a jazz pianist playing bass, standing by an old couch, smoking cigarettes all day. Pete Cohen (Sodastream) dropped by most days too, with double bass in tow.

We ended up touring the east coast in my panel van, sleeping on floors and rocking up to Triple J hungover and slightly confused by the whole thing. But we were always having a laugh.

Nic: Fucken Oath – your heaviest song? What’s the heaviest song, lyrically?

Richard: Probably depends on the definition of heavy. I think lyrically, the tracks on Two Thousand Demolition Songs are the heaviest in terms of unconscious stuff, imagery, themes. I think that’s the album where I put it all together, albeit in a moodier way than my first few albums.

Nic: have you been a member of any bands, or just mainly been a solo act?

Richard: I was terrible at collaborating, so I’ve never been in a real band, until recently. Like I said before, I was kind of in a rush and luckily, I got in there did the five albums and got out.

Nic: How do you hook up with Suzie Higgie for Firing Range?

Richard: I knew Suzie’s sister, and I was such a big fan of the album she did with Conway Savage (and the Falling Joys too of course). I just had to give it a shot, and luckily she was into it. I love it when her voice appears at that point of the album. It’s a cool break in transmission.

Nic: What are your influences? Favourite bands?

Richard: Neil Young was a primary influence, but I’ve been inspired by so many artists, people who had their own sound, like Tom Waits, PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, Ed Kuepper, The Clean, Radiohead, Bob Dylan, the list goes on.

Nic How did you hook up with Chris and Candle Records?

Richard: It was a ‘friends of friends’ thing, I guess. Chris was one degree removed from people I was hanging out with in Melbourne. I actually moved to Melbourne because Of Nick Phillips from Corduroy Records. I got a lovely message from him about the Boganvillea album and so I just packed my bags and moved over from Perth. He organised some shows and then Pete and Karl from Sodastream came over and we started playing gigs together. Our first show was at The Tote in Collingwood. I still remember my feet getting stuck in the carpet every time I took step, like actually stuck. Not your run-of-the-mill sticky carpet.

The move was good because I really wanted to play more and release albums, and I just didn’t quite fit into the Perth scene. I loved it dearly, but I wanted to find a home. Chris also ran Polyester Records on Brunswick Street (Fitzroy) so that became a second home.

Nic: Favourite authors? Any Australian ones in there?

Richard: Oh man, there are so many to choose from. My game changers were Michael Ondaatje, Raymond Carver, Richard Brautigan, James Joyce, Elizabeth Strout, and so many Australian writers too like one of our greatest, David Malouf, and Tim Winton and Peter Temple (though he might be South African by birth). I also love the Iri sh detective novels by Adrian McKinty.

Nic: are you still writing much? Sounds to me, from your lyrics, you’ve got a novel in you?

Richard: Ha ha, yeah well, I did turn to writing after the Firing Range. I studied professional writing and ended up a copywriter but not a novelist. I will write something longer one day. But musically I wrote a ton of songs from about 2012 – 2016. The fruits of that were recorded a few years back and are in final mixing. It’s loud and electric, start to finish, but that period did produce a few quiet gems I’d love to record at some point. I’m at that stage where I don’t know if I’ll keep going or not. I think time will tell, as it always has done.

Nic: And the question I ask to finish this off: tea bag or loose leaf?

Richard: Bag for sure. Unless it’s Chai, then as loose as it gets.