Interview With: James Blundell

Below is an excerpt from the interview.

EN: You mentioned your father. There's a song called 'The Old Man's Gone'. How hard was it to write that song?

JB: That's actually a common misconception. That's about Dad's father - my grandfather. I still recall I was finishing the lyrics off in my head as I was driving towards Noosa in Queensland and I asked myself "Do I let this stuff out or do I keep it to myself?". I had literally made the decision not to let it out, not to write it, but I played it to a couple of people and it just had to be done because everybody I played it to related to it straight away. Nearly everybody I played it to had lost some member of their family. Coupled with that was the fact that the guy I had written about represented the Second World War veteran mentality, and those really tough people. He was still alive when I wrote it but it was obvious that he wasn't going to be for much longer. I was in a catch-22 situation. I really loved him and wanted to tell him that but he was the sort of guy that if I'd gone and said it to him face to face he would have had a heart attack. So I ended up playing the song to him and his response was perfect - "Biggest load of shit I ever heard in my life" - and that was all he said about it. I thought "now he hates it" and didn't know whether to record it or not, but I did and it's been a song that's looked after itself.

EN: When you write a song like that, how important is it that it actually be true? Do you start off with an inspiration and create a character?

JB: Very much so. He was still alive when I finished that song, and pretty much the way it was written was the way it went anyway. Right to the end of his life he was railing against what he saw as the destruction of society and the fact that things were being taken away from people. By and large the person I wrote about was that character. Part of it was art but part of it was the real thing. And it's been an issue over the years. There have been several times that I've looked at a song and wondered if I'm letting my life or someone else's life out in public. But by the same token I then think of people like Joni Mitchell or Van Morrison and the first hand nature of their music and that is why I love it. I think if that person's prepared to put that perspective out there why shouldn't I be?