Inside an old cream Valiant, white fluffy dice swing from
the rear-vision mirror. Rich in character – laden with
newspapers, magazines, empty bottles and small cushions –
it appears to contain hundreds of stories within its four
doors. I wonder where it has travelled, and who else has interviewed
a musician from its back seat…
Mick sits in the front passenger seat, dressed in his typical
relaxed gear; a navy t-shirt, khaki pants and sneakers. His
publicist, Monique, is driving through the city, chatting
to Mick about his interview and studio performance at thebasement.com.au.
Mick exudes a down-to-earth openness, the same gregarious
and unpretentious character that I’ve heard during interviews
and brief one-way conversations with a crowd while he’s
been on stage.
So, when did Mick’s musical journey begin? I can tell
by his open smile and his -“Don’t laugh”-
request, that there’s an amusing story to be told. “Wow,
my first ever gig was at putt putt golf on the Central Coast.”
Laughing, he continues, “I had formed this little band
with some buddies from school …It [the gig] was on a
Sunday afternoon out the back, it was really cool –
what a rockin’ roll gig that was. It was awesome!”
Along with the humour, he seriously admits that he was “just
as nervous” for his first taste of performing, as he
sometimes feels today. He was twelve years old, playing early
Santana and Hendrix covers – that was twenty-one years
ago.
Growing up, Mick had great musical influence around him. He
was exposed to his father’s talent and ached to be part
of a band from the beginning. “My dad is a really amazing
keyboard player,” he says. “When I was 4 or 5,
I had a toy guitar and I used to go to their band practice
and I’m sure I annoyed the hell out of them, I thought
I was in the band …at one stage I had a tambourine and
they’re like, “Oh no, he’s got the tambourine.”
It was great, I loved just being around that whole thing.”
And then there’s Mick’s uncle Pete, who is known
for joining Mick on stage for a song every now and again.
“My uncle’s a really awesome musician as well
- harmonica player and percussionist. He actually plays a
harp on one song on my latest album.” Mick explains
how he first asked his uncle up on stage during a show, and
after doing it again, fans have come to expect Pete’s
spotlight appearance. “Now if I don’t get him
up, the crowd’s like, ‘Where’s Uncle Pete?’”
It was on the Central Coast of NSW that Mick spent his teenage
years doing what he said most other musicians also did, “learning
new instruments, writing new songs and playing [music] with
as many different people as you can …back then there
were heaps of parties, lots of muso’s jamming together.”
It didn’t take long for Mick to join his first serious
band, No Comment, and to gain musical momentum. Later realising
that he needed to be in a bigger city to progress musically,
he moved to Sydney, and joined the band, The Whole Thing.
They were quite well known for a couple of years; touring
and getting some strong support gigs. After being a guitarist
and second vocalist with them, he says, “the natural
thing was, once I was writing so much I wanted to do my own
thing. From there I formed Squealing Pygmies, a three piece
rock thing for 3 or 4 years.”
Despite the touring and JJJ radio success at the time, Mick
was trying to find his focus; a place where he could be happy
musically, that meant expanding and diversifying his own music.
His decision to “strip back the powerful rock thing”
was a catalyst for the growth of his solo music and the formation
of a new band in 1997, with violinist, Naomi Radom and drummer
Jerry Burcham - both still playing with Mick today.
Before his musical success, Mick’s first job was at
a local Jewel supermarket where he was a trolley-boy. “I’d
like helping the old ladies with their shopping, but I’d
get in trouble for it,” he laughs. In his late high
school years he worked as a cashier in a service station,
and once he’d left school he completed a four-year apprenticeship
in electronics. Disclosing another talented side – Mick
tells me that he was a great rugby player, but is quick to
inform me, “Musicians hate sport, so I don’t tell
too many people, ‘cause they think you’re a big
footy boof-head, but I’m not. It got to a point when
I was playing first grade on the coast, and I could have chosen
that over music …obviously I made the right choice.”
Mick’s first of three EP’s, Release, came out
late 1997. He has toured Australia many times – performing
at huge outdoor festivals and intimate pub gigs. His first
solo tour of Europe and the U.K. was in 1998, and since then,
has been back six times. In 1999 Mick also played some awesome
shows in Los Angeles and New York. He has recorded two albums,
titled, Still the Flowers Bloom (2001) and Upside Down in
the Full Face of Optimism (2002).
When an artist is at a high point in their music career and
they sign with a major label to record an album, people tend
to assume that greater dreams will be realised with much of
the company’s support. For Mick and his band, the exciting
opportunity to record their first album (2000), turned into
a nightmare. I ask about his experiences once he signed with
the record company, and notice a subtle tension in his voice.
“At that point things changed and it got a bit ugly.”
He explains, “You fight to have artistic freedom, but
even after you sign all that, it can be bullshit at the end
of the day …you can fight for it but the problem was
when I signed, the A&R guy left the company before the
album was finished …and they changed their whole thinking
and marketing. There had been a lot of struggles making it
as well, like they forced me to have a producer when I didn’t
want one, and there was a bit of push and shove.”
The record company then told Mick that if they didn’t
sell 35,000 copies in the first two weeks they were going
to drop everything – and that’s exactly what happened.
“We were really quite shattered. I felt really pulled
and pushed in a million different ways …they didn’t
get the emotional aspect of it, our fan base did.” Frustration
echoes in his voice, “They were trying to make me this
big rock act, and there’s much more to it.”
For Mick, the signing and recording experience was consuming
and illusory; affecting both professional and personal ties
he had formed with people in the industry. “I believed
a lot of those guys and formed really good friendships and
we’d hang out …and when all that @!#$ happened
the phone stopped ringing. They turned up to our album launch
and that was about it …I felt like I lost a lot of good
friends, a lot of them turned their backs on me …it’s
not a bitterness, I realise the way the industry is. When
they feel pressure from above then all of those emotional
ties disappear. There is so much stress and pressure on doing
albums now, especially when any artist signs with a major
[label] there is so much pressure on that first album. If
it doesn’t become a huge seller these days they drop
the artist and find another one, that’s the way it is.”
After signing with the record company, the reality of losing
control as an independent artist became apparent. Interestingly,
Monique, who wasn’t working with Mick at that time,
asserts: “If I was managing Mick, there would have been
no way on God’s earth that he would have signed to a
major record label at that point in his career.”
The pressures associated with making money in the industry
were paramount, and in conflict with the true spirit of Mick’s
music. Despite the disheartening experience, Mick was continually
writing new material, and knew that he would create a second
album purely independently, which he says, “is done
way better than the other one.” It was his second album
that received an ARIA nomination.
Mick believes that for him, the power of music lies in “some
kind of emotional release”. He reflects on what he has
gained from music over the years, and says, “If it’s
melancholic and it really stirs with you in some way …you
identify it with whatever is troubling you at the time. It’s
why I started doing it, and it’s what keeps me going
today. There are lots of ups and downs but as long as you’re
still getting that beautiful release emotionally, you feel
really lucky and blessed to have that opportunity. Some people
don’t have an outlet – you need something whether
its music, sport, poetry, writing.”
I ask Mick how he feels while he’s performing intimate
or sad songs in front of an audience. He talks openly about
how he takes himself back to the place where the song was
inspired, and reconnects with emotions from his past. One
of his poignant songs, Find the day, is for a friend who committed
suicide on the Central Coast. Mick explains, “It [Find
the day] is more about valuing life and your friends and taking
care and accepting death and trying to cherish life and your
friends so they never go to that point.” Mick informs
me that Australia’s highest suicide rate lies in the
same place where he grew up, and says, “When you grow
up there [Central Coast] knowing that, it’s really heavy
…I’ve seen quite a few friends go, it’s
horrible, and you just don’t know why.”
Another song, Wait for me, is about the death of his grandfather.
“When I went to the funeral I lost it, I had to carry
some memorabilia, and I was just a mess …and at the
wake I just split, took off, I didn’t want to be with
anyone …it took me a few years to get over it. I wrote
it in London a few years later …sometimes I play, wondering
if he’s watching over, and hoping I can make him proud.”
It is through such intense emotional connections and honesty
that Mick transforms these experiences into the deeply emotive
songs that they are.
I have often wondered whether Mick feels vulnerable for sharing
such intimate experiences with the world. He tells me, “I’ve
seen people who have really suffered and if they don’t
have an outlet they seem as though they are going to explode,
cave in, or self destruct. Having an outlet is having the
most beautiful thing, and you try and cherish the ability
to do it, so you don’t want to manufacture it or cover
it up …people are identifying with the honesty …some
people find that too intense or too much, but generally they
are the ones that are not comfortable with themselves in that
way. I feel so right about being so open and I don’t
want to close that.”
Reflecting on his many international tours and recent time
living in Europe (late 2002-03), Mick finds it difficult to
single out a particular career highlight. “There’s
not one obvious one, there are a heap now. Any of the big
supports …playing with Bob Dylan, Coldplay …what
an amazing rush. Some of the most wicked festivals have been
overseas…and back here, Glenworth Valley Festival was
one of the best sets we’ve ever played.” Mick
recalls, “We were on last, on the trippy stage, on at
the same time as Grinspoon, and we thought there’d be
no-one …at one point the lighting guy lit the hill up,
and there were about 1500 people – that was a lot for
us.”
Other bands that Mick has toured with or supported include:
The Whitlams, Gomez, Paul Kelly, Sting, John Butler Trio,
Zwan and The Pretenders. Since the East Coast Blues and Roots
Festival in 1999, he has also had wonderful support from one
of his favourite artists, Ben Harper. “Ben Harper is
amazing, he is very spiritual and down to earth, really friendly
and happy, but a really giving person …he is such an
inspiration because he just puts it out there.”
Everything Mick values in his life: “Truth, happiness,
friendship, family, supporting one another - all the real
things”, are reflected in his music. I’ve seen
Mick perform at intimate solo gigs on a candle-lit stage,
and at larger venues with his three-piece band. For every
crowd, his passion, emotive energy and appreciation for those
who have come to experience his music, is shared.
Mick explains how life away from ‘home’ has influenced
his third album; explaining that over the years his music
has evolved in ways similar to that of his own character –
becoming wiser and less self-indulgent. “There’s
a lot of taking in of life overseas in my writing and a lot
of amazement of life …you just get in this other place
and it throws a twist on your psyche, and I get inspired in
different ways.”
Amongst the many stories that resemble a fateful journey through
Europe, Mick talks about a French fan’s appreciation
of his music; how this led to her establishing radio interest,
gigs and a whole new support network for him. When Mick mentions
his plans to head back to Europe and the U.K. in January 2004,
it’s no surprise that he’s going back so soon.
“That’s what’s unreal,” he says with
grace and passion, “The power of the people and the
fans.”
Interviews took place in Sydney, September 30th/October
1st 2003.
© 2003 Wendy Rodio - wendyrodio@hotmail.com
