“I still feel pretty young even though I’m turning 33 pretty soon, I still feel like a young person,” enthuses Atwood-Ferguson. “I’m still experiencing so many firsts, like my first time in Australia. Many of the times that we travel it’s not like we have one concert and then eight or ten days downtime where we can actually take things in. It’s a little bit surreal at times and then at other times it’s really difficult. This is going to be a little bit more enjoyable because I’ll be there for a couple of days and it’s not like I’ll get in and just be playing the whole time. I don’t have to travel to a bunch of different cities – that’s where it becomes difficult, where you spend each day in a different city.”
Asked about the festival experience as opposed to stand-alone shows, Atwood-Ferguson asserts that every day is different. “I’ve been touring around the world pretty consistently for the last ten years – Asia, Europe, South America,” he says. “It’s interesting, because each festival might have something in common with others but generally it’s vastly different. It can have to do with the culture, with the size of the festival, and things that people don’t even think about like the physical set-up. Often at a festival there’s hardly any time to set up, it’s one group after another so the simpler and more foolproof the set the better for the crowd to experience. Even though I appreciate simplicity my music is often complex, so it presents challenges for me. There’s only going to be seven of us there in Australia which is a small group for me, and I’m really looking forward to that.
“I used to be quiet arrogant when I was younger. I used to think that classical music, European classical music, was the best music. Luckily I was also exposed to Motown music and the Detroit sound, it’s like a whole country in and of itself. Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson – luckily I was exposed to that stuff and pretty soon I started to realise that music can be good no matter what you call it. It’s good when it’s made well. I have deep admiration for anyone who puts a lot of heart into what they do and it kind of drives me nuts if I’m just working in one genre,” he smiles. “I try to work in different genres and I’m refreshed by it over and over. One day I’m working on a concerto, I’m loving the shit out of it and I’m having so much fun, then the next day I’m working with a string quartet and we’re improvising, the next day I’m working with Lana Del Rey – it’s great.”
Atwood-Ferguson’s body of work is certainly diverse – he’s even done a couple of sessions for Dexter. “Your talent is not just limited to just one or two or three things,” he says. “You want to get out there and challenge yourself and use all of your talent. For me it’s all the different people I work with. It’s really nice to have different perspectives and to keep learning. I’m a confident person but I still feel like a beginner in that there’s so much to learn.”
With so many pots on the boil it’s difficult to know exactly what the future holds for someone like Atwood-Ferguson, but a fork in the road that may be approaching is the decision whether or not to pursue a career more typified by original music.
“It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot while I’ve been preparing music for a birthday concert I’m giving myself,” he explains. “It feels very original. I’m putting many hours into the arrangements and highly personalising the whole experience, but most of the music we’re playing on Saturday is actually written by other people. I love to arrange but I actually consider myself mostly a composer and I think about how silly it is that I haven’t been performing more of my work. One of the main reasons I do arranging is that I want to relate to people and I want to celebrate all the types of music. I’m a music nerd like all of us are, but in the future I’m definitely looking forward to having concerts with just original music. It’s a way of establishing who I am in the world so that people can see that I do different things, that I love it all.”
BY JOSH FERGEUS
