Mark Seymour Interview
(recorded 13th July
2004)
Mark Seymour has recently released
his third solo album since the demise of ‘Hunters and Collectors’ in 1998. Embedded is described as a dark
soap opera about life in the sticks, the drama that hides behind
the brick veneer of respectability of the Australian middle class.
Further honing his skills as
an observer and wry commentator on the human condition, from pill heads
in Dandenong to corporate headkickers, ‘Embedded’
is an album that seems to be as much about storytelling
as anything else.
I’m pleased to welcome Mark Seymour
to the program today. Welcome Mark.
Thank you.
How are you going out there?
I’m good thanks, out here in the suburbs.
Pretty busy, you know, got
quite a bit of work and touring coming up. Weekend
after next heading off to Sydney and we’re going back around the country
again which we have already done once this year and I’m enjoying it.
OK, so you’ve had two previous solo albums, ‘King Without a Clue’
and ‘The Ballad of the One Eyed Man’ and now,
with ‘Embedded’, you’ve got a pretty solid body of work behind you
that’s solo, and distinctly Mark Seymour too, isn’t it?
Yeah, it’s been a while sort
of grafting those songs onto that name, but you know I still walk very much
in the shadow of ‘Hunters and Collectors’.
But I think a few things have
started to come into focus for me, especially with this album, and definitely
there were a lot of song writing skills I had to develop. As much as I enjoyed
a lot of freedom in ‘Hunters and Collectors’ creatively, you’re still sort
of working within the boundaries of how other people play.
That’s right.
So to actually write for yourself, and to find your own voice, is quite
a journey, I’d imagine.
Yeah I think that’s one of
the things that I had to come to grips with, that my voice was changing and
that I needed to express myself differently. So I picked up the acoustic
guitar and started writing. That’s really affected
the kind of mood that my songs convey.
Most of the songs on this new album, they’re more
like ballads I suppose, but your songs seem to have this quality of building,
and becoming almost anthemic in a way, I guess you
could say that does hark back to Hunters and Collectors, but perhaps
that’s just the nature of the song writing process for you?
Yeah I just think it’s a style
of performance that comes quite naturally to me, and even
in my acoustic shows, they’re pretty full on. I don’t
tend to sit in a corner and noodle, put it that way,
things get ‘big’.
That tends to be the way I
sing, you know, building songs from small beginnings and just layering and
orchestrating and all that sort of stuff, it’s something that I enjoy listening
to, and so I suppose it’s just a dimension to my music that hasn’t ever really changed.
Yeah, though I can imagine the songs on this album with a band and a full
on rock’n’roll show as well…
Well I do have a five piece
band who I play with periodically, and that’s all contingent on the room,
and the size of the crowd, that sort of thing. We
just basically make it up as we go along.
I noticed on your website Mark www.markseymour.com.au, that you
seem to be doing a fair bit of prose writing now, bits of narrative prose.
Is that story telling side of things a big part of it for you now?
That was something that, I’ve
written a lot over the years, and there’s a lot of stuff that I’ve never
published, and people have sort of asked me from time to time, why don’t
I try my hand at it. But I’ve never really found that, you know, the kind
of artist I was, and the sort of profile that I had,
really lent itself to that style of work . But I thought the website would
be a good place to start, especially with that sort of storytelling where
you are re-telling events pretty much first hand that are really new and
fresh, and that just gave me an angle for that area of writing that I really
find quite enjoyable.
Do you sort of see that sort of writing as a journalistic
kind of thing? Telling stories about things that you
have experienced? Or is there a bit of fiction involved?
There is a certain level of
fiction in it. Yeah, I’m stretching the truth, but
it’s definitely journalistic . You know, I have always been a big admirer
of Tom Wolfe, that sort of era of documenting popular culture in
a laconic, dark, way. And, you know, the things that interest me about Australian
culture you know, I tend to be, I like to think I am just receiving information,
and looking at it for what it is.
‘The watcher on the cast iron balcony’…
That’s not bad yeah.
I think that’s a Hal Porter title.
I’m actually reminded a bit about Raymond Carver as well, another great short story writer that does tend to do those kind
of slightly wry kind of observational stories…
Well look, the think for me is … that most recent thing, the ‘Four Mile
Creek’ story, it just struck me that you go in these places and so much of
a musician’s life is spent inhabiting rooms temporarily, where things are going on around you that you are completely
alienated from, and you’re really only there, you’re are required to do a
job, and your reasons for being there will be fully realised once you’re
up on stage performing…but everything else about the experience is completely
irrelevant to your life.
Well you kind of have the advantage
of being able to observe from that standpoint, and yet you are right in
the middle of everything. You know the funny thing
is that I’ve always found that that is the way I’ve viewed all my professional
experience, even Hunters and Collectors… there were times that I’d feel that I really didn’t belong where I was, there was
a sense of… ‘I’m here, but I’m not here’, that sort of detachment. Since I’ve started writing, I think I’ve realised that
is something that has been ongoing for a long time.
Sort of a derealization?
Kind of…
There are some obvious implications in terms of the title
‘Embedded’ in regard to journalists in Iraq and stuff like
that, but I felt also that there may be connotations of being settled somewhat
into a suburban rut as well, and I guess the other influence that I was
going to mention was George Johnson with his book “My Brother Jack”, where
he returns to settle in a newly developing suburb which was actually around
here near Moorabbin .
Well actually not very far from where I live.
I’ve often wondered where that
was. I sort of imagined it was kind of Carnegie or
McKinnon or Oakleigh or somewhere round there.
I’m not
exactly sure, but it’s certainly somewhere here in
the southern suburbs of Melbourne.
I sort of have this fatalistic
view of all that. You get married and you borrow
a huge sum of money. You get married, have children and borrow a large sum
of money, and you can look at all those things as being sort of artistically
damaging, especially if you are a middle aged male
I suppose. But you can also look at them as things
which exist in the culture we have, that are there in order to guarantee
your survival. That ‘s why I really like the idea
of talking about, or referring to, my life as though it’s ‘Embedded’
– its like being inside some sort of bastion of safety,
and I’m looking out from within that place observing life as I see it. In a way, accepting that as reality, describing it as
cold bloodedly as possible helps me be artistic I suppose, it just enables
me to express myself.
Well, it gives you freedom, its not quite so pressured and ‘Embedded’ does
imply, despite the Iraq connotations, a degree of
comfort…
The Iraq analogy is no accident. Trying to draw reference, I touch on it in that song “Paradise
Down Under” where we are the receivers of these information and pictures
of a world tormented with suffering and bloodshed and violence, and none
of it touches us you know? We live an incredibly vicarious
existence and I was trying to allude to that as well.
A lot of the songs as well are about the suburban experience – what’s happening
to people out there… It’s real life isn’t it?
That’s right, absolutely.
Is it coming of age, like in your sort of mid to late forties now are there
issues for you in terms of it’s a time we tend to look back on our lives
and examine what we’ve done and who we are and there’s the notion of a mid-life
crisis – is that an element that is involved for you?
Oh, yeah, I’d say so. I don’t think I’m particularly special that I was able
to bypass that period of transition I suppose, but I think at least with
this album I’m looking at things squarely in the face. I’m not trying to pretend that I’m an artist who has an
audience that is there ready to listen to what I have to say, I’m really
conscious of the idea that I’m throwing these stories out into the market
place, and seeing who reacts. This record is the first
independent release I’ve ever had and I’ve had complete
control over it. I think I’d reached a point in my
life where I really had to “fess” up and be honest about the kind of person
I am, and how old I am and the amount of experience that I’ve had.
I guess one of the reasons that I mention that is the notes to the album
– there are several references to Harleys and there is that kind idea of
guys of our age getting out and buying “Harley’s” and going through that
kind of mid-life crisis – I can relate to it – not that I can afford a “Harley”!
No, nor can I!
Would be nice. I guess speaking about something completely
different you seem to have a bit of an interest in cars and motor vehicles
and stuff like that?
I had a HQ coupe, a 73 Monaro
which was unfortunately stolen from the front of my house
– about three months ago and I’m almost certain that I’m going to
buy another one, and they don’t cost much.
Actually, I’ve seen you cruising around in that, in the local neighbourhood…
It’s was actually the second
love of my life.
The songwriting at the moment,you are writing mainly on your own, but getting
some assistance from your good mate and producer Can McKenzie as well.
I’ve really racked up the years
with Cameron but I’m currently working on a sound track for the new Lindy
Chamberlain story which, interestingly enough – because I’ve just come back
from Uluru and they were doing some last minute establishment shots around
the Rock and then that story of Frank Cole coming out, this bloke coming
out and saying that he’d shot the dingo and that it had the baby in its mouth…
Utterly bizarre but everything
about that story is bizarre – there isn’t anything normal about it, so that’s
been a fantastic project to be involved with. And I managed to extract quite
a few new songs out of the experience.
You wrote a song with Nick Barker as well, a song that was actually released
as a single’43 in the Shade’.
Nick is one of the unsung greats
of Australian music really, he has written some fantastic songs – a great
lyricist – he’s a very good friend of mine, I’ve known him for many years. We wrote that song four years ago now.
It didn’t make the cut on my last album because the producer didn’t
like it, but there are two or three songs on this record which have been
around for quite a while, and not that I was particularly conscious of it
at the time, but they were the starting point of this record. They were the songs that I felt should have been on my
previous record but didn’t make the cut for whatever reason, so this record
is in some ways – I’ve picked up the pieces from my time with Festival/ Mushroom.
which in the last couple of years the relationship was going pretty sour,
and I’ve just moved on from there.
Excellent.
It’s been great talking to
you today Mark, thanks for your time, and good luck for the future. Can you
tell us about any forthcoming gigs that are coming up?
Go and visit my website. We are playing in Sydney
the weekend after next.
I’ll mention some of the dates that are coming up later on in the program
but I think that it’s not until August that you’ve got a gig locally, and
then in October at ‘Bennett’s Lane’ as well. Also
a bit of a competition on, is it Kerry-Anne Kennerly’s show – is there a
competition?
Bert Newton actually.
I’m glad its Bert, yeah.
Thanks a lot for your time today
Mark.
© David McMillan