Paul Kelly: ‘If You Make Each Song Its Own World, The Bigger Picture Will Take Care Of Itself’

Paul Kelly is an icon of Australian music. Actively making music since 1974, the singer-songwriter and musician has performed solo, and led multiple groups, such as the Dots, the Coloured Girls, and the Messengers.

He’s one of those artists generations of Australians have grown up listening to, with his classics like To Her Door, Before Too Long, Dumb Things, and Treaty (written by Kelly and members of Yothu Yindi) soundtracking road trips, parties, Grand Final celebrations, reworked for triple j’s Like A Version, and any other uniquely Aussie experience. He’s one of those artists who, if you strip away just one of his essentials: his voice, his guitar playing, his band, or his songwriting—wouldn’t be the remarkable artist he is today.

But Kelly, an ever-evolving artist, isn’t recognised as a legacy singer. While it would be easy (and profitable!) for him to go on anniversary after anniversary tour, Kelly is still making vital songs that stand amongst his greatest hits. And he’s still highlighting new music on his tours.

Earlier this month, Kelly released his 29th album, Fever Longing Still, a record described as a “back-to-basics” album.

In the last year, Kelly hasn’t just released a new album, but he’s toured (and is preparing to tour the US), was inducted into the South Australian Music Hall of Fame, and a movie based on one of his most beloved tracks, How To Make Gravy, is finally coming after years in the headlines. The film will premiere on Binge on Sunday, 1 December.

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Catching up with Kelly after his recent return to legendary Melbourne venue The Espy, he recalls the “hot and sweaty” gig that took place just the night before.

“It was exciting for us for a few reasons,” Kelly says over Zoom. “We had the band, and we hadn't played together since March this year. So, that was fun in itself. We had a good, long day rehearsal on Sunday—that was great, getting together with everyone again and sending the new songs out into the world. That's always exciting. It was a really packed crowd! It was hot. It was like a lot of shows I did in the ‘80s and ‘90s: hot, sweaty, happy people.”

In a few ways, Fever Longing Still feels like a return to the ‘80s and ‘90s, with the first single, Taught By Experts, calling back to guitar heard in one of Kelly’s most popular songs, Leaps & Bounds, from 1986’s Gossip. And, it’s a song fans have heard before.

Explaining that Taught By Experts has existed in numerous iterations, Kelly tells The Music, “It’s an old song. It sounds like an old song. I would have written it in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s. I first sang it on a solo record in ‘92 and then did a bluegrass version in ‘99, and then we did a version of it for a TV series called Fireflies.” That version was more electric and featured more bass and drums.

Kelly continued, “When I first wrote the song, in my head, it was always going to be a band song with electric guitar. I just hadn't got round to it, or maybe because it sounded like old songs of mine, like Leaps & Bounds, or Before Too Long, it's sort of got that kind of blueprint, I guess.

“So, I thought we should get a really popping electric guitar version down, and with Ash Naylor and Dan Kelly, we could get a really good, sparkling texture for it. So, it was a pretty easy one to record. That one was one of those straightforward songs.”

Fever Longing Still is an album about love, even if Kelly didn’t immediately realise its themes. He’s described Fever Longing Still as a “band record” (“most of my albums are band records,” he chuckles), one that’s made him reflect on the longevity of his band.

For the new LP, Kelly enlisted his longtime drummer Peter Luscombe – who’s been in the band for over 30 years – and bassist Bill McDonald and guitarist Dan Kelly, who have been with him for 20 years. Plus, there are the “newbies”—backing vocalist Jess Hitchcock, Cameron Bruce on keys and Ash Naylor on guitar—the latter pair have been playing with Kelly since 2007.

Fever Longing Still features the jazzy-inspired Houndstooth Dress and the piano-led instant classic, Going To The River With Dad, amongst other highlights. Discussing the minor key melodies littered throughout the album, Kelly says, “I think people often assume that minor key is going to be a melancholy song, and it's a major key, it's going to have to be sort of happy, but there's lots of room to move within that.”

He adds, “I mean, the last song on the record is major keys, you know, C, F and G. [There’s] a lot of happiness in that song, but it's also memory and melancholy as well. I like it when music cuts against the lyrics, in a way: they can be really joyful as well. If you can get the lyrics and the music slightly rubbing against each other, I think it makes the song richer.”

Muddy Waters is a huge inspiration for Kelly, who recalls a quote about singing sad songs while happy and singing happy songs while sad. “It's the same kind of idea that you don't have to go all one way, [that] can make the song a bit a bland or lacking depth, unless you want to get the lyrics and the music slightly at odds with each other. It's good.”

Touching on another influence, Hank Williams, Kelly continues, “Hank Williams was a big touchstone for me with that. His songs are some of the saddest songs in the world.” He names I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry and Cold Cold Heart as examples of Williams’ inimitable style. “The music is always a pep in the step. The songs, the tunes… the tunes are happy a lot of the time, but the words are this other thing.”

Going To The River With Dad, a song that takes listeners to a place and time they can identify from their own lives, became a team effort. Originally written by Kelly on the guitar, the solo version of the song features the singer finger-picking on the guitar before changing it up at the chorus.

But, when he took the song to the band, it became clear that Going To The River With Dad belonged on the piano, with a band backing him.

“This is what I really like about the band; they often surprise me,” Kelly exclaims. “I thought we would do a version based around my guitar, but then Cam started playing a simple, peddlely kind of piano [melody]. Cam really set up the atmosphere for that song. That one happened quickly; the band had a flow going with that song, and they didn't have to think about it too much.”

He continues, “I love the band because they've got all the colours. They can play all the different ranges—over the last few years, as we've been doing different recording sessions, we've started to become more conscious of [making] each song its own, separate world.

“If you make each song its own world, the bigger picture will take care of itself. Sometimes I take a song to the band—I’ve got a version in my head—and then, sometimes it comes out that way, but a lot of the time, they completely surprise me. That’s all that any writer wants, really, is to be surprised.

“I've had this sort of squad for quite a while. The most important thing for a band is to be with people that you like; that you can hang out with, you can spend hours and hours with, waiting at airports or driving in a van and hanging around sound checks and backstage and still really like each other.”

Next August and September, Kelly and his squad will tour Australia on their largest-ever national tour. Taking to arenas, the group will be joined by special guests Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit and Fanny Lumsden. While the venues are huge, Kelly isn’t feeling too nervous: he’s done this before. Albeit as an opening act. But as an opening act for some absolute legends.

“Well, that's a first for me, playing arenas as a headline act, but I've played them before,” Kelly starts. “I opened up for Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan at those kinds of places, and both of those artists are a good guide for [making] those spaces intimate. I think I'll draw on that.

“The thing about playing in these big spaces is, I think if you have a good range of songs, that can really help. When you hear one element or one instrument or one voice in a big space, it sounds huge; I guess it [can be] a bit counterintuitive. [Artists think] it's got to be big. It's got to be drums, guitars, keyboards, singers, and horns, but no, you can have one person singing on their own in a big hall [and] it sounds huge. So, I think those venues can give us the full scope to show off all the colours of the band.”

Right now, Kelly has a lot to be proud of. Recalling just how much it meant to him to be inducted into the South Australian Music Hall of Fame last year, he states: “That meant a lot. That was a really good event for me because I sort of started everything in Adelaide, South Australia.

“It was a chance for me to acknowledge a lot of the people that I started with, old friends and people I first started playing music with, and my sister, who taught me my first chords on my guitar, came along. It was a real full circle event for me.”

Speaking of full circle moments, next month, the characters from Paul Kelly’s song, How To Make Gravy, will finally get to go beyond the song’s constraints in a new film named after the song.

In terms of the song’s original characters, the film stars Australian actor Daniel Henshall as the newly imprisoned Joe, who expects to be home by July, his wife Rita (portrayed by French actress Agathe Rousselle, making her English-language film debut), and their son, Angus, is played by Jona Wren Phillips. Meanwhile, Rose Statham and Izzy Westlake play the couple’s twin children, Frank and Dolly.

As for who mentions gravy in the movie trailer that dropped last month, that’s the one and only Hugo Weaving (The Lord Of The Rings, The Matrix, The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert), who happens to be making some gravy for his fellow prison mates. After his Boy Swallows Universe cameos, Adam Briggs also stars in the film.

Kelly says the film is “great” and has become a “beautiful ensemble piece.”

“I’ve always known it was treated as not my work; it's their work, and they took the song and made their own story,” he says. “I think they did a really good job.

“I think one of the key decisions they made was to tell the story mainly from the point of view of the nine-year-old child, Angus, who is the son of Joe and Rita. His point of view gives it a different focus. It surprised me. Like I said before, it was always good to be surprised.”

He adds, “I didn't know much about the characters when I wrote the song—I knew that Joe and Dan were brothers and Stella was probably a sister, that Rita and Joe were married, but that's about it. All the rest were just names. So, when they came to me and showed me the script and said, ‘Oh, Angus is the son and Frank and Dolly are twin children, and Roger and Stella are married,’ I hadn't thought about any of this, but they made up their own story to it.

“They've even got the recipe in there, so they picked up a lot from the song and then made it their own.”

Fever Longing Still is out now via EMI Music Australia—listen to it here. How To Make Gravy will premiere on Binge on Sunday, 1 December.