Have a drink at the localUnion Bar with Andrew Morris

Sun 19th Aug, 2007 in Features

Andrew Morris’s first two solo albums after his band Palladium broke up were alt-country folk efforts with enough licks and keen observation to turn the troubador into a local legend. For his new album Union Bars, however, he decided to take a different approach, recording the album in just 12 days, in the studio owned by J Walker (aka Machine Translations), with just himself and Walker playing instruments. Recently, FasterLouder spoke to Morris about the new album, and winning one of the awards at the recent Q Song Awards.

The new album Union Bars is quite different from Morris’s previous efforts, as it’s a lot less alt-country, and more contemporary. “Yeah, it’s a lot less traditional,” says Morris, “which is pretty much what I aimed to do. I was keen to do something different, explore some new ideas – I’m a big classic rock fan, and a fan of roots music too. My last two albums reflected that, but this one is a bit more modern. Of course, I could have gone even further towards someone else’s direction, but there’s still a few country songs on there. I think it’s a good link for listeners who liked what I did in the last two albums; it’s not as drastic a jump as Radiohead did from OK Computer to Kid A, its not a complete change.”

The new album was recorded in just 12 days, and this short deadline was something which Morris believes actually worked in his favour. “It’s nice to have a deadline, otherwise you can sit around procrastinating, working on songs till you’re sick to death of them. It was all the time that J Walker had available, but it was all we needed in the end. We had a good work ethic; there was still time to play golf and go surfing, and then towards the end, we had a list of overdubs, and we were checking them off one by one as we did them.”

According to Morris, it also helped to have the songs pretty much written before going in to the studio. “Yeah, I pretty much had everything ready. But at the same time, I was still finishing off some lyrics, right before I did the vocal takes, which I’m doing more and more these days. J Walker also helped out, he’s a really good lyricist, so I’d write a passage, and then he’d help me choose the best bits.”

And that wasn’t the only trick they used to get the songs written. “If I didn’t have something written, we’d do a rough demo, and I’d sing what I had, and for the rest of it, I’d just sing some dummy lyrics, any old thing. And then later, we’d go back and listen, and some of it turned out pretty good, so I ended up using some of that stuff.”

Morris is full of praise for producer J Walker, who also donated his rural Victorian property for the recording of the album. “It was great working with him. I hadn’t really met him before, but he’s a great guy. He has a great head for music, and is a talented engineer, and can play as well. He’s the complete package, and he’s got a bit more of a left field leaning than myself, so that helped develop the sound of the album.”

With Union Bars, Andrew Morris has released three albums in three years, as well as maintaining a regular touring schedule. He plans to continue releasing one album every year, which means of course, he’s already looking ahead to the next album. “Yeah, I am thinking about it, but I can’t reveal anything about it yet. I like the idea of keeping things different and fresh, but thats all I can say about it.”

Andrew was also on hand to accept his award for Folk Songwriting at the recent Q Song Awards (for See The Smoke, a soft ballad from his last album Valleys) and he says he was happy to be recognised by his contemporaries. “I knew I was nominated, I was nominated in a couple of categories, and it was great to be acknowledged. And the ceremony was heaps of fun, it was just a great night all round.”

Andrew Morris has played three album release gigs, and will also be touring the album for the next year. Of course, he’s going to have to teach some musicians their parts, because all the instruments on Union Bars were played by himself and J Walker. “Yeah, they’re all pretty much learning their parts right now. We jammed them out a couple of times in the lounge room, played them through the first time, the loosener, to steal a cricket term, and now we’ll get into them again and tighten up.”

“Thats one of the good things, about this tour, no one in the band is a flash musician, we’re all pretty green. I think there’s something innocent and pure about that, learning these songs on the road. It could be really special, or it could be a complete disaster. We’re going to be as faithful as possible to the record, and these guys are really good singers too, so there’ll be a chance for some harmonisation. The record’s not overly complicated, so it should be fine.”

And what else is in the future for Morris and band? “We’re just going to try to jump on other people’s shows. We picked up a couple of the Silverchair/Powderfinger shows, and we’ll also be doing some support for Angie Harts (ex Frente) tour. I suppose as an independent artist, thats all you can do. You’ve got to get out in front of as many people as possible, do your thing, and try to sell your record. That’s what it’s all about.”

Union Bars is out now through ABC Music and Warner Entertainment