Mundi Mundi performing artist and Australian rock veteran Ian Moss says that there are few things that beat the feeling of getting on stage and playing to a good crowd that is getting behind you.
“You never get sick or tired of it, its something that I will keep trying to do until the end.”
“B. B. King did it till the end, Eric Clapton is still going, In Australia, Russell Morris, Ross Wilson and Daryl Braithwaite.”
“it’s a passion you never lose.”
Mr Moss said that there is a growing desire and demand for high quality music in regional Australia.
“Coming from a regional centre myself, I really like to do lots of regional shows,” he said.
“There are a lot of great regional towns with people hanging out for really good music.”
“I feel very comfortable here in Broken Hill, it is not that different to Alice Springs, red dirt and all the surrounding hills, I’ve been coming here for a long time, since the 70s. “
Mr Moss said that growing up in Alice Springs his musical taste was largely informed by what was available to him.
“We didn’t get television till 1972 and radio, it was just the ABC, but they played a lot of good stuff that influenced me, people like Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, a lot of RNB.”
“I remember I had a neighbour when I was 6 or 7 who had a record called ‘Harry Belafonte Live at Carnegie Hall’, it’s a gospel RNB, acoustic, folk record, I was over at that neighbour’s place all the time playing their music.”
Mr Moss said that amongst the enormous amount of cross breeding of styles, he still looks for music that is blues based.
“I like anything that is blues based, my eighteen-year-old son seems to be the same.”
Mr Moss who has lived in Sydney with his family, says that he is grateful that he made a conscious decision early in life to always keep in contact with his friends after he first left Alice Springs as a teenager.
“When I went down to Adelaide, it was late high school, and I found it extraordinarily lonely.”
“Kids that age, if you haven’t grown up with them you have to really work hard for them to accept you,” he said.
“It was during that period in my life that I thought, no matter how I go in my life, however successful or not I may be, I’m going to make sure I keep contact with all those kids I grew up with in Alice Springs.”
“I made that conscious decision, and it has played off and I have still got mates there that we can pick up from where we left off.”
Mr Moss said that the key to enjoying performing songs long into the future is to make sure that they are “poetic and fun to sing”.
“It’s important to have a great set of lyrics whether it be a love song or a political song, if it goes wrong you may have to sing it for the rest of your life.”
“Lyrically as long as it creates great imagery, evokes emotions and thought and maybe even make people cry.”
“A mate of mine in Alice Springs went down to a severe stroke a couple years ago, he wanted to write a song with me when he wasn’t sure if he was going to pull through,” he said.
The result of this was River’s Run Dry, a song from his upcoming album that for him has a personal and emotional richness.
“I’m pretty happy with it, it evokes a lot of imagery of the outback, red sand, dry rivers, not too different from out here.
“The lyrics are very important.”
Mr Moss said that the most tiring thing about playing lots of gigs is not being able to celebrate every night after a gig.
“If you have a great gig you want to celebrate a bit, but you have another gig the next night.”
“But if you get a bit rough that night, by the time you get back on stage the next night the energy, adrenaline and excitement get you ready to go again.”
Ian Moss Is currently teaming up with Troy Cassar-Daley as part of an extensive ‘Together Alone’ national tour.
“We are both acoustic on stage all night together, we swap and trade songs, tell stories and talk about what the songs are about.”
Ian Moss performed last night at Mundi Mundi Bash; Catch the final day of performances from 1.30pm today.
Tickets and info: https://www.mundimundibash.com.au/local-day
