Angus Stone is an Australian singer/songwriter hailing from Newport , and half of brother/sister folk duo Angus and Julia Stone. Angus Stone’s latest album release Broken Brights reached #2 on the ARIA chart, and more importantly, Angus was recently nominated for 2 ARIA awards including Best Male Artist and Best Blues and Roots Album. Amongst his very busy schedule, we managed to grab Angus for a quick chat…
So your second album, Broken Brights, has just been released, congrats! Reviewers have compared the album to the likes of Neil Young, Bob Dylan and The Stones, who were your musical influences for this record?
More so than the influence of people that write music it was the people I’ve met along the way who were the real muses for this record. It’s also movies that I draw inspiration from. When I watch a movie I cant help but slip into the characters shoes on screen and be totally there with them and relate and feel the music that in my mind goes with their journey.
Do you write differently on your solo albums to when you’re working with Julia?
Julia and I have always written separately so there is no difference. There was one occasion that we wrote together for my Dad’s wedding. We just did it as it was an inexpensive gift! Apart from that it always just comes from my heart and what I have experienced or observed at the time.
You premiered the new tracks live at an all ages show at Barrenjoey High, on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, why there?
It’s my old high school… My Dad’s always been out biggest supporter as well and he’s the music teacher there. It was a really humbling experience to see all the people I grew up with there, and as it was my first ever show on my own and it couldn’t of been more fitting because their was a lot of love and it was one of those things that just felt right.
There is often talk in the industry about there being a lack of venues for bands to play at. Do you think more musicians should be finding creative spaces to play?
Yeah for sure… We are thinking for a tour down the way to play in fans garages throughout Australia. I think it’s a cool and new way for us to make the shows more intimate and it will be a whole lot of fun. While it’s good to come up with new ideas and creative spaces to play in, I think people also need to bring that passion back to supporting live music and getting out to live music venues to reignite the scene.
Just after you played a school hall, you were on a massive festival stage at Splendour! Who did you bump into backstage?
Splendour was a whole lot of fun… We ran into Lindsay Macdougall and spent most of the night hanging out with him dreaming up new band.
The film clip for Bird on a Buffalo, is epic! How much involvement do you have behind the scenes of your clips? Do you have ideas of what your songs look like as you write them?
Yes definitely. I’m very much involved in the direction of the visuals. Sometimes they will be skewed off in an entirely different visual path but this one was something of a cinematic feast through the vast landscapes of Dumont Dunes in Joshua Tree. The story behind it was something of a Sharman spirit which was the owl leading the lovers back together again.
For more information on Angus Stone head here.