The Pacific Ocean seems to travel with Rudd wherever he travels. In fact, in his past winter tour, he made sure a “mountain day” was reserved so he could snowboard in the Rockies. On “Shelter,” the first tune on Solace, he sings “Here I am, this is my shelter/Here I’m at one with the trees/All these birds sing to my rhythms/And these waves they comfort me.”Īn avid surfer most of his life, Rudd mentions he’s so “baffled” by nature that when he travels from city to city on tour, he’ll find a forest or a secluded place to get away.
Like the didgeridoo, Rudd incorporates what he understands best in his songwriting: love, life, nature and everything that surrounds him. When the more holistic subjects of nature and balance are brought up, his voice changes from reserved to candid. He may perform alone, but ironically, Rudd seems rather uncomfortable talking about himself. “And I had ten minutes after that, before I played so I was already pumped.” “I was hot and looking forward to playing because the sound check was cool and people were checking out my sound check and digging it, so I felt good,” Rudd recalls. Incidentally, his solo set at the 2004 Bonnaroo Festival was one of the weekend’s most buzzed about sets, as his independently released album Solace, was the events’ best seller. Watching Rudd perform, there is a radiance that has proven to immediately win fans over. I guess I don’t have time to miss playing with other people.” I’m so used to doing many things at once and I like the challenge of it. “I sort of enjoy the challenge of playing solo, and I enjoy the challenge of trying to keep it together myself – trying to keep the excitement and energy going on,” says Rudd. His percussive arsenal surrounding him, he keeps the rhythms afloat with his emotionally tinged voice, which in reflection of his love for the Pacific Ocean, is equally corrosive and calm.
Rudd has specifically trained his diaphragm and lower lung capacity to expand to an enormous length, allowing significant amounts of air to enter.Īlong with his calls of the wild, Rudd writes all his own music and almost always takes the stage solo. Playing the instrument utilizes a special technique called ‘circular breathing,’ in which air is breathed in through the nose at the same time as air is being blown out of the mouth. Constructed as a means to mimic the essence of the outdoors, the didgeridoo is part meditative platter and part euphoric celebration. The instrument that has its birth in early Australian Aboriginal culture is a long wooden flute, perhaps the oldest musical instrument on earth. Guitar and stompbox aside, it’s Rudd’s didgeridoo talents that make his music equally magnetic. I don’t find it hard at all, or found it something I had to practice a lot.” “I can sort of separate my body rhythmically, so it just flows for me. “My left leg goes to my right hand- my body rhythmically goes to the opposite side, which means I can rest my guitar on my right leg and I can change pedals with my right leg, but I can keep rhythm longer with my left,” he explains. With his relentless use of guitar and the stomp-box that he pounds vigorously with his own bare feet, there is plenty of multi-tasking abound. “My first instrument was my voice and I fiddled on a bunch of things.”įor Rudd, 26, “fiddling” has transgressed into proficiency. “I always kind of fiddled on stuff, and taught myself everything I do,” says Xavier Rudd on the phone from his native Australia. But after listening to this bleach blonde-haired multi-instrumentalist, it’s impossible not to take Xavier Rudd quite seriously. He actually keeps himself so encircled on stage by slide and acoustic guitars, didgeridoos, harmonicas, drums, stompboxes and anything else he can pound, play or pluck, that he looks like a coin-dropping carnival act. Well, maybe a few is a bit of an understatement.
Xavier Rudd has been known to dabble around with a few instruments.
0 kommentar(er)
