INTERVIEW: Cold Chisel’s Ian Moss
Cold Chisel are one of a kind. Their music is equally likely to appeal to the guitar nerd down the street as it is to the guy who fixes the hole in the roof, the lady who makes your coffee, your doctor. Yet somehow the band never seemed to make it big outside of Australia. Maybe it was just a case of wrong time, wrong place. But perhaps the democratisation of music will open new doors for the reformed band. Perhaps new album No Plans will be their big chance to show the rest of the world what they’re capable of: soul and blues-tinged rock with the powerful vocals of Jimmy Barnes and the brilliant guitar work of Ian Moss. Produced by Kevin Shirley, No Plans must be a difficult album for the band. It’s their first in 14 years, and the first without drummer Steve Prestwich, who died in January 2011. One of his compositions, “I Got Things To Do,” is on the album, along with some new tracks played on the band’s record-breaking Light the Nitro tour of 2011. “In late 2009 the five of us made plans to record together again and do a tour,” As Barnes says. “After lots of twists and turns that’s exactly what we’ve ended up doing but due to Steve’s passing those plans changed a lot along the way. The last two years have reminded all of us that sometimes life deals up things you don’t expect. You can’t take anything or anyone for granted. Sometimes it’s best to have no plans.”
I Heart Guitar: No Plans is a pretty diverse album. It goes through a lot of different moods. Was that the plan?
Ian Moss: I guess it’s hard to be objective. I was kind of hoping it’d seem like more of a unified record, so it’s interesting to hear that there are lots of different styles. I guess over and above, we were trying to achieve raw power.
Well the title track, which starts the album, definitely does that. It kicks off very strongly.
Yeah! The distinctive tones of Barnes. The first thing you hear is Barnes. And hopefully that edge. Because there were really no overdubs. We went for it. We’re all in it together here and we played til we got it right. That gave it a bit of oomph.
NEWS: Cold Chisel recruit new drummer
Classic Aussie rockers Cold Chisel have enlisted Charley Drayton (The Cult, Divinyls, Herbie Hancock, Iggy Pop) to fill the void left by the death of drummer Steve Prestwich in January.
The band will head to the studio soon to finish the album they’d begun recording last year. It will be their first album since 1998′s The Last Wave Of Summer.
Here’s the press release:
Cold Chisel have announced today that they will continue to record new music together over the coming months. The band has also confirmed that there will be a major re-release of their entire catalogue – including the first ever digital release of their recorded works and a number of previously unreleased recordings – over the coming winter.
The iconic Australian group recorded new songs together over several recording sessions in 2010, and had plans for further recording this year towards a new studio album. All those plans were suspended and questioned with the tragic and sudden passing of drummer Steve Prestwich in January.
Hi! I'm Peter Hodgson. I write for Gibson.com, Australian Guitar, Australian Musician, Mixdown Magazine (including my instructional column, 'Unleash Your Inner Rock God,' which has been running since 2007), Blunt, Beat (including their weekly hard rock/metal column Crunch) and The Brag. And I'm Assistant Social Coordinator with Seymour Duncan.
I've been playing guitar since I was 8 years old, and I've been writing for magazines since I was 18. I've also worked as a guitar teacher (up to 50 students a week), a setup tech, a newspaper editor, and I've also dabbled in radio a little bit. I live in Melbourne, Australia, and my hobbies include drinking way too much coffee, and eating way too much Mexican food.
You can check out my guitar playing at Bandcamp or on YouTube, and feel free to email me at iheartguitarblog@gmail.com