7/26/01 Portland OR, KINK radio. Russell is interviewed via phone by Les Sarnoff. They couldn't hear Russell at first; Russell had to hold for a couple of minutes while they transferred the call.

LS: Let's try this again. It is 7:13. Good morning, Russell.

RC: How ya doin' Les?

LS: I'm doing just fine. We love your new CD. Specially the song, "Sail Those Same Oceans." When is it going to be released here in the States?

RC: Um, I think Artemis is doing a release of that officially around September or something.

LS: You know, when you listen to your voice when you sing, you don't seem to have the Australian accent that you have when you speak. How does that work?

RC: Um, I dunno, I dunno if I'd necessarily agree with you. (laughs), maybe that had something to do with recording it in Texas.

LS: You know when you did the "Insider," you didn't have an accent at all. Is it an easy or a difficult thing to lose the Australian accent.

RC: I don't know what it's like for other people, but, uh, my job is performance, so taking on another accents has never really been a problem since I was a kid, it's just something I can do.

LS: When you were growing up, did you dream of becoming an actor or a singer first?

RC: Well I don't know if they were simultaneous or whatever, (both laugh), but I did my first TV show when I was six and that's also the same year I got my first guitar . . . so. You know, for most actors and most performers, it's uh· you've gotta be able to do everything when you're a young person. You take any opportunity you can, whether it be in musical theater or whatever. So this sorta current trend of denying the fact that most actors are also musical performers as well is kinda silly.

LS: So how did the fork-in-the-road develop where you went from being a musician to getting into acting and becoming an actor?

RC: Well, they were, like I say, they were both kind of simultaneous, but up until I was in my early 20's, I was mainly concentrating on music, and it was in a kind of a lull between tours, that an opportunity to do the "Rocky Horror Show" came up. So I did that musical for awhile, and also, the fellow I was playing with, Dean Cochran, who I still play with now, he was in that show as well. I was playing the character roles in that piece, I was playing Eddie, the Meatloaf character, who jumps out of the fridge (Les laughs), I was also playing Dr. Scott, the old man in the wheelchair. I was only like 21 or something and that required sort of old age makeup and a different sorta body language, and I, I was quite excited about it, I sort of realized that going on every night and playing that character was the highlight of my day· because it really was something you could disappear into. So, that's when I started taking acting more seriously, but it wasn't till a few years, quite a few years, later that I actually got the opportunity to audition for a feature film, and luckily, the bloke that I was auditioning for had seen me, you know, in a musical called, "Blood Brothers," which was written by Willy Russell, earlier, and he liked what I did so gave me the opportunity. But film to me was not something I necessarily ever really considered as an option for me, you know. I thought it was just something that I'd just kind of keep looking at. The best that I could hope for was maybe a Sydney theatre production at the Opera House, something like that.

LS: Yeah, you did slightly better than that, certainly, over your career. You've been with Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts for a long time, haven't you?

RC: Like 17 years altogether, I suppose.

LS: Can you tell us what is the significance of that title. There's one theory going around that there are five grunts, who are six feet tall. Is that true?

RC: Well, there's actually six in the band, so that's when that theory falls to the ground (both laugh.) Uh, there's been many, many different, you know, explanations of it, but I think we'll just leave it to people's imaginations. The thing about the title was, it was supposed to be unpretentious, and something that didn't mean anything, until people would start to fall in love with the songs, and then the title would have its own meaning, ya know. But of course, we've been doing it for a long time, and as yet, you know, (laughing) very few of the world have fallen in love with our songs. (Both laugh)So we're just, uh, saddled with this ungainly name.

LS: Well, it's a name that you certainly remember. If you're just joining us, we've got Russell Crowe on the phone, live from Australia. You're gonna be here August 21 and 22 at Roseland. Do you enjoy performing live in front of an audience as opposed to ·

RC: Oh, absolutely . . .

LS: As opposed to an actor with an audience you can't see?

RC: Well, you see it's totally different the performance is driven from the same soul, but there are differences which are easy to say, but actually the differences are vast. You know, with film it's a cerebral journey, which you construct in your lounge room, you know, you toss it around and consider it. When you perform it, it can be a year, a year and a half later when you're sitting in a room, and you actually see the reaction of people to a certain series of emotional points that you were taking them through, you know.

Les (interrupts): "But isn't it . . .

RC: But a band is totally different, that's absolutely immediate, and I come from a performance background, and there were many years of touring in bands before I even got into musicals and many years of doing that, as well as doing the band, before I got into movies, so I have a kind of a thing where I gotta make sure when somebody's paid for their ticket, they're gonna go home with a smile on their face. But it's much more immediate, than whatever people say, it's a different audience every night, and each show has its own ebb and flow.

LS: You wrote several songs on the new album, didn't you?

RC: I think I wrote them all, if you have another look. (Both laugh)

LS: You know, I read somewhere, that a good song to you is also a good story.

RC: Yeah, I mean, you know, I appreciate dance music, and I appreciate it in its place, but you know, (joking) I have been known to get up and jiggle around every now and then, but to me, for me personally, when I write a song, its got to be connected and rooted in some kind of reality narrative, even if that is, you know, two or three different instances that make up the one story in the song, or three or four different people which make up the protagonists in that particular story. Yeah, to me, there needs to be a narrative in order for it to be interesting, you know. (Joking) Um· Ooh la, baby, baby, (pause) shake, shake . . . doesn't really come to mind when I'm, uh you know, expressing myself (both laugh).

LS: Who are some of the singer/songwriters that you admired when you were growing up in Australia?

RC: Well I really liked a fella called Jim Croce, and, there's another fella, an English fella, called Billy Bragg. I like a real cross section now, I've got a real eclectic, sort of music taste, you know, I mean I can appreciate the odd Neil Diamond song, with just as much fervor. Just because, you know, that at certain points, he has that incredible narrative, narrative and pop. Well, I'm just grabbing these from anywhere (he's struggling to come up with names at 3 in the morning) Elvis Costello is great, Kate Bush is, you know, was a big shock when I was a young fella. (Laughs)

LS: You've been to Portland before, haven't you?

RC: Have I? I don't think I have.

LS: Oh, so this'll be your first time in the City of Roses?

RC: City of Roses?

LS: That's it, City of Roses·

RC: Roses· oh, uh, oh okay.

LS: You're gonna have a wonderful time here, too. The weather is fabulous at this time of year, and your first show sold out in a heartbeat, so we've added a second show, August 22nd, tickets went on sale yesterday at Fasttix That oughta make you feel good.

RC: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I know a couple of people who live up there, a bunch of people, actually, Nancy Wislon, Cameron Crowe live around there. They keep telling me how beautiful it is. There's a group of brothers up there, that I worked with once in Guatemala, of all places. I'm looking forward to catching up with those guys (Laughing)

LS: Well, Russell, I can't tell you what a pleasure it's been chatting with you this morning. Well, if you do come in to town, I'd love it if you'd stop by the studios and said "Hi."

RC: Cool, well, uh, if we're there for a couple of days that should be pretty easy to organize.

LS: Thank you so much for joining us this morning and congratulations on your new CD.

RC: Cheers, Les!

LS: Cheers to you!

Then Les says it's 7:21 and announces and plays "Sail Those Same Oceans". After some more discussion about accents and raving about Russell's accent, appearance and performance in the "Insider," Les has this to say: "You know, he's such a sweet man. We had a chance to talk before and after we went on the air, and he's just the nicest guy in the world. He's totally down to earth and just obviously has a total passion for the music that he plays. And when you consider the fact, that it's 3, 3:30 in the morning where he's calling from, that was really cool that he took the time out of his busy schedule to chat with us."

(Thanks to Alison for the transcription.)

KGSR 107.1 (Austin) DJs Kevin Connor and Kevin Phinney (The Kevin and Kevin Show) conducted a phone interview with Russell on 7/17/01 to discuss the upcoming Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts tour.

(The interview was conducted after the weather forecast, which was for a hot, dry, sunny day, with a high of 100 degrees, for the 7th day in a row.)

Kevin Connor: Well, you know, I guess some people like it in Austin in the summer time ö- they come here, you know when it's winter in their home country and come here and make records and play outdoor shows like Russell Crowe, who's calling from Australia. Morning, Russell!

Russell: G'day Kevin, how you doing?

KC: Or good evening, I should say, huh?

RC: Uh, yes. It's actually very late for me around these parts. I'm usually in bed about 9 (giggles).

KC: Yeah, yeah (laughing).

RC: I'm on farm hours, you know. . .

KC: Uh huh ö so back -- back on the farm for a little bit?

RC: Yeah, not long enough, but just enough time for me to run around and talk to a bunch of [inaudible] and, you know, see the cows, see if everything is cool. We bought a couple of bulls along the way, so check them out and they're absolutely fabulous, actually, so . . .

KC: Excellent. Hey, first of all congratulations on your Academy Award.

Kevin Phinney: Yeah!

RC: Thanks, mate.

KP: Things have been hopping for you since we spoke last. I'm curious about what kind of scripts you're getting now that you're an Oscar winner.

RC: Ummm . . .

KP: Any improvement in the quality?

RC: Not necessarily (laughs) no. Still the same old stuff, still have to go searching, sifting, you know. Read everything and sort of . . . eventually I'll find something I want to do.

KC: What I really liked about your acceptance speech is it echoed what Robert Rodriguez had said just a couple of nights before here at the Paramount Theatre ö- you've been to the Paramount here in Austin?

RC: Yeah.

KC: About just for kids to hold on to their dreams and you dreamed of being in the movies and he dreamed of making movies, and you had similar things to say. I betcha there's some kid in some part of the world watching that saying, "yeah, I'm going to do that, too."

RC: Oh, that's cool. I mean, you know, one of the things amid all the stuff that goes on -- amid all that sort of piles of rubbish that mound up in the corner about what people write about you or say you did or didn't do, all that sort of stuff, when you've got that sort of moment, I think it's a little bit more important to directly communicate to people it's actually a lot simpler that, uh, it appears, you know? (laughs).

KC: Yeah.

RC: It's really just about focusing on what -- on what it is you want to achieve, and all that sort of stuff, I suppose.

KC: You know, we've got a really scratchy connection here, but since you're on the other side of the world, we can understand how that would be. Want to talk, uh . . .

RC: I thought you guys were putting that on there on purpose. I thought it was like a radio trick . . . (starting to laugh).

KC: Oh, yeah. (all giggle)

RC: . . . make sure everybody at home thought I was calling from Australia.

KP: It worked for Orson Wells (all three laughing)

KC: He's actually down at the LaQuinta. (all laughing)

RC: (laughing while talking) Yeah, yeah. I'm going to try and order a margarita . "OY, mate! I've got ID!"

(All laugh)

KP: Excellent! Well, you won't be entertaining the Bush girls as far as I know, but you will be entertaining the Perrys.

RC: (Giggling) Yeah, but that's got to be soon, doesn't it? ö that article?

KC: (Laughing) That'll be there.

RC: That's got to come out sooner or later, you know -- me and the Bush twins.

KP and KC: (Laughing) Yeah.

RC: It's been me and everybody else. I'm sure it's going to be them sooner or later.

KP: On Fiji.

KC: They'll be . . . (all still laughing)

RC: Yeah, well -- some other island. Mate, let's go to Hawaii! What the hell. Lake Austin! What the hell! Who cares!

KP: Dream big.

KC: Doesn't matter.

RC [inaudible, still joking while DJs are talking].

KP: Russell, so what's happening with TOFOG these days?

RC: Well, um, we just started rehearsals for this tour. We're sold out basically in, across America.

KC: Oh, you're going to play other cities besides Austin?

RC: Funnily enough, yeah, this time around, yeah. We're doing a couple of shows in Chicago, a couple shows in San Francisco I think we're only doing one show in Portland, but that might be two now as well. The House of Blues in Los Angeles, we play a show in Boulder, Colorado, then Philadelphia, and Irving Plaza in New York. And I think there's one more show on the East Coast that hasn't been announced yet, as well.

KC: All right. And a lot of these people though are folks that will go to every one of those cities to see you and, ah, some of those folks are coming back to Austin for the first couple of shows that you had scheduled which are sold out, but uh . . .

RC: Yeah, I'd like to apologize to everybody for that (laughing).

KC: That's OK.

RC: There's nothing we can do about it. Tickets go on sale and they descend (laughing).

KC: The hotels and restaurants appreciate all those people coming in. But we also appreciate the fact that there's one show that's available only here in Austin. Tickets go on sale today only at Stubb's in person. No credit card, internet, or phone orders, cash only at Stubb's for the Friday August the 10th show so that'll be the first show for the hometown folks, so that's cool.

RC: Yeah. Yeah, it's just . . . you know, we really like the town and we just really want to make sure that we keep that connection there, you know, though, ah, even though we're importing a bunch of crazies we just want to make sure that, ah, I mean you know Waterloo Records is actually the single largest Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts retailer in the known world.

KC: Really?

RC: Yeah.

KP: Very cool.

RC: We've sold more records out of Waterloo Records than any other single record store anywhere else in the world, so it's pretty cool.

KP: Russ, any plans to record again here?

RC: Um, in the future, but not this time. Ah, what we're doing, we kinda were gonna double up a few things but at the end of the day we decided just to focus on, on doing the tour right, you know, doing the shows right.

KC: Right.

RC: And not try and do double duty like we did last year, you know?

KC: Russell Crowe calling from his farm in Australia and, uh, the Thirty Odd Foot of Grunt record "Bastard Life or Clarity" on sale at . . . Waterloo was, like, the first, and only for a while, American store that it was on sale at, right?

RC: Yeah, it was the only store for a while. Now we are doing a deal with a company out of New York called Artemis so we actually will have a level of distribution in America we've never had before, other than just the Internet and Waterloo.

KC: Yeah, they got some good people on their label like, uh, Steve Earle.

RC: Yeah, cool, huh?

KC: Yeah. Yeah, you ought to meet him, he's fun.

RC: One of these days.

KC: Yeah, you should.

RC: Maybe he'd [inaudible] us with the Bush twins this weekend.

KP: Yeah! There you go. Always thinking. (Laughs all around)

RC: . . finally get those margaritas down Jenna. (laughter all around)

KP: I say keep those dreams alive, Russ.

RC: Yeah, I've got to have something to look forward to, mate, you know.

KC: We've been playing this song off the record, uh, Sail These, ah, Sail Those Same Oceans, ah, tell us about this song.

RC: Uh, it was written quite a few years ago now. It was just, it's just a traveling song, you know. I mean, I've destroyed a number of good relationships by getting on planes all the time to continue doing the job that I do, you know, so this is just one of those sort of musings.

KC: All right well let's play this one, Russell Crowe and Thirty Odd Foot of Grunt on 107.1 KGSR.

[Plays "Sail Those Same Oceans"]

KC: From "Bastard Life or Clarity", Thirty Odd Foot of Grunt and "Sail Those Same Oceans" and Russell Crowe who wrote that with a couple of the other guys in the band, right?

RC: Oh, yeah, they pretend they do, you know, and I give them credit, give them a pat on the back.

KC: Yeah, that's nice. Throw them a bone there.

KP: You're a decent sort.

RC: (giggles) Yeah, you've got to, mate, you know.

KC: On the line, in Australia, on the farm, back on the farm taking care of, takin' care of the cows for a couple of days and coming back to Austin. This is the first night of a, ah, national tour of the States, Friday, August 10th, tickets go on sale today at nine o'clock at Stubb's, that's where the show's gonna be and this is, ah, cash -- cash only. The other two shows that have been scheduled are already sold out, and then you, ah, then you take the country by storm, huh?

RC: Well it's been amazing actually, you know we've -- just by the nature of the fact that we're not, you know, full on touring, we've just had to release the dates slowly, just to see availability and everything from our own end came up and uh, it's been -- we've basically sold out everywhere we've put tickets on sale, which is pretty amazing.

KP: Cool.

KC: And, when you go to the show you can also pick up a DVD that, ah, basically chronicles the making of the record here in Austin?

RC: Yeah, it starts off in London and then it has -- there's also some recording in Austin as well, and then, bits and pieces of the shows that we did there last year.

KC: Did any of the stuff you did here make the cut?

RC: In . . . what, what do you mean?

KC: Here at the radio station?

RC: Yeah, Kevin's [Connor] in it! You're . .

KC: Hey! Thank you very much! (cheers and clapping in background)

KP: Just what we need!

RC: (laughing) Somebody in the releases department would have, ah, would have had it signed off by the radio station. The DVD is only available in that form, for the tour, it's actually going to be taken around the film festivals by Miramax, much to everybody's surprise [laughter] because it's extremely irreverent and we use some, ah, very rude words. I think we actually have -- we've got three times as much swearing in the film as Trainspotting.

KC: Oh, great. All right.

KP: Wow.

RC: Yeah, 'cause you'll just see, we, ah, integrate various words and use 'em as adjectives and, ah, it, it makes very, very colorful conversation sometimes (laughing).

KC: All right, well we're looking forward to it and looking forward to seeing you again, uh, next month when you come back here with the, with the band.

RC: We can't wait, mate. Get a little of that Texas sun on the shoulders.

KC: Pardon?

RC: Get a little of that Texas sun on the shoulders.

KC: There you go. Academy Award winner, Russell Crowe. We'll see you next month . . .

RC: (Interrupts) Sounds funny doesn't it?

(Laughter all around.)

KC: No, it sounds great ö- sounds great! You wear it well. We'll talk to you soon.

KP: Take good care, Russ.

RC: Look out for yourselves. See you when I'm down there.

(Thanks to SM for the transcription. She also writes in: "The two Kevins spoke later in the show about what a nice guy, a regular kind of guy Russell is, dialing in himself to talk to them, not through a secretary or assistant,and offering to hang up and call back as many times as it would take in order to get a clear phone connection for the interview."

The Grunt Factor
By Michael Dwyer
Photographs by Karen Catt
Rolling Stone (Australia, June 2001)

Hollywood superstar Russell Crowe gets back to his first love: music. His band, 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, have just released their first album. *

Russell Crowe, Rock Star. The jury may be out on part one of those credentials, but the second bitis beyond reproach. Even on the Rolling Stone payroll, it's uncommon for a scribe to turn up at the appointed time at a five-star hotel to learn their subject is in a helicopter, with ETA nobody's business but his own.

Much later, it's evident that few rockers of the post-grunge generation command a luxury hotel suite like the erstwhile Maximus Meridius. "Deano, do you know if Andrew took that DAT out of my bag to get that song burnt?" the 36-year-old Crowe asks of his guitarist, further forestalling pleasantries with the press to deal with the fruits of a recent recording session. "Can you send Andrew in here, mate?"

Even with the tape rolling, the Oscar winner is not beyond pulling rank with a hotel employee whose sole transgression is to patch a caller through to his suite. "For fuck's sake," he hisses, pouncing on the receiver. "Hello? Hello? Put calls through to 210, thanks. Yeah, just . . . 210, OK?" Slam. Next time this happens, the plug is perfunctorily removed from the handset.

Clearly, Russell Crowe is a man with a lot on his plate. Time isn't even money anymore; it's something far more elusive. And yet, as Hollywood chants his name under its artificially sweetened breath, here he is in Sydney, playing the much less obvious role of singer with a rock band: 30 Odd Foot of Grunts. Perhaps contrary to general perception, it's one he's researched as thoroughly as any other.

"Me and Dean (Cochran) were busking for over a year when we first got to Sydney 'cause we had no other way of making a living, mainly in King's Cross but also in Martin Place, sometimes down here at the Quay," Crowe says, jerking his thumb at the harbour now lying like a carpet beneath his hotel room balcony.

"We'd play Thursday, Friday, Saturday at King's Cross 'cause we could block off a corner and if we got to finish the set before the police moved us along, we could make enough money to live on." He relishes the memory with one of his million-dollar smirks. "My rent was $50 a week and I used to live on $3.50 a day: cigarettes and fried rice."

The Kiwi duo first met in 1984. On the slow boat to stardom as an actor, Crowe was touring New Zealand working as a singer-guitarist and working Auckland clubs as DJ, sound mixer and bouncer when Cochran walked into one of them to audition for another band. "You should be playing with me," the singer decided.

Crowe already had a musical resume spanning back to junior high in bands like the Profile and Dave Deceit, and the Interrogatives ("kind of a mod/punk band ö we all go through our stages"). Presciently, there's also an early single, "I Want to be Like Marlon Brando," released under the name Russ Le Roq.

But that was all kid's stuff. Over the next 15 years, TOFOG evolved into a much more earnest proposition, another avenue of expression quite separate from Crowe's "day job" speaking other people's words. "I suppose I know a good narrative when I hear it, " he says of the band's gritty, urban realist style. "My songs are stories. Some of the songs come from other blokes in the band telling me stories, too, but they're based on things that have happened. For me, that's where the expression comes from and usually, in a strange way, it's in a negative emotional space that I write what I consider to be the better songs." Independently recorded and released, Bastard Life or Clarity is TOFOG's first album after a smattering of less focused EPs and compilations.

Its most memorable tracks include "Memorial Day," a gut-wrenching song about Crowe's grandfather, a WWII cinematographer, and "The Legend of Barry Kable," based on a Darlinghurst character who Cochran used to pick up as a driver for a city mission. The songs are rendered in an aptly unembellished, workmanlike form with former Dingo Kerryn Tolhurst in the producer's chair. "There's a level of honesty that we wanted," Crowe explains. "I didn't want someone who was gonna come in and say, 'Right, the drums need to sound like that record, you need to sing like that and these songs should be changed to have somebody else's flavours.' I wanted somebody who was prepared to come in and simply record the band."

The uncompromising attitude is perhaps typical of a star who film director Taylor Hackford (Proof of Life) describes as "a very difficult and thorny individual." And as in Hollywood, one suspects, it cuts both ways. It's no accident that Bastard Life or Clarity is available via www.gruntland.com,rather than one of the many major labels which Crowe has found incompatible with his vision for the band. But the result, he says, is a fan base of rare dedication.

"It's not 'cause they're hearing it 10 times a day, it's not 'cause there's ads on TV," he says of gruntland's retail traffic. "There's no skywriting. It's about THEM and I think that's why people, when they do get into it, they get really into it, very deeply.

"We were doing these shows in Texas and there's two and a half thousand people in the audience every night, and on any given song if I stopped singing the words they kept going. You get to know some of these people and you hear their passion for the music and you end up sitting in the band room going ÎYou know what? It works. People dig it. We're OK.'"

It's been a long slog towards acceptance, Dean Cochran admits, and not purely because of the strange prejudice Crowe's Hollywood celebrity has bestowed on his music. Surely, a man has to ask, they have made life unnecessarily difficult for themselves with that name: 30 Odd Foot of what??

"Yeah probably," Cochran cackles after a moment's contemplation. "What I used to say was that sooner or later it would become like any other odd-sounding band name, like the Dead Kennedy's. It flips over and gets associated with the music and the personalities, and you don't think about what the phrase means. It hasn't done that for me yet."

* Gaslight which was released in 1998, was the band's first full-length cd.

Photographs by Karen Catt

Purchase Bastard Life or Clarity here.

Are we not entertained?
Who Weekly, 26 Feb 2001

Russell Crowe walks into a lions' den at a "secret" gig with his band in Melbourne.

Onstage at Melbourne's Mercury Lounge at 1.45AM on Feb.13, fronting his pub band, 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, bejeaned actor-cum-rocker Russell Crowe found himself taking on an uncharacteristically small role. Between songs, a fan at the front of the intimate nightclub audience asked the star a favour. "Do I have a light?" Crowe mused, before flicking the lighter at the man's cigarette. "Sure. I'm there for you, boy."

It's usually Crowe, 36, star of Gladiator and Proof Of Life (out here on March 1st) who's on fire. But on the eve of the Oscar nominations, the home-country reception wasn't totally smokin'.

During the hour-long set, the band's first Australian show since 1998 - they had earlier that night played one song at the Allan Border Medal presentation -- the showman was heckled with "We want Jimmy!" after a venue announcement that Jimmy Barnes might share the stage. He didn't, the crowd grew restless and Crowe reprimanded his audience for talking during a ballad. "Concentrate!" he growled. "I'm trying to sing you a nice song here."

Faced with lukewarm fan interest in an encore, Crowe's pal Richard Wilkins (Today) [sic] stepped on stage to whip things up. "I was just adding a showbiz touch," explains Wilkins. "With Russell you're going to get some people who go out of novelty value to see the freak show. Russell blew the cobwebs out and he was happy." Crowe seemed to sense that it wasn't exactly an Academy Award-winning performance. "We only decided to do this show at 11.30 last night," he bantered, by way of explanation, adding: "As you can tell." No doubt he'll be better prepared for the Oscars.

(Thanks to Katrina)