Usually, getting on the line with a musician for a phone interview has them sandwiched between tour dates, travelling to the next show or gearing up for a big festival.
When we spoke to Tumbleweed’s Richie Lewis, however, he’s caught up with something much more rock ‘n’ roll: picking the kids up from school.
“I’ve got an 18 year old, a five year old and a nine month old,” Lewis says. “They’re great – you really get into a routine of sorts.” The band are embarking on a commemorative 25th anniversary tour, where they’ll play their seminal debut self-titled album in full. One of the stops on the tour will see the Wollongong band playing with Enfant Terrible – featuring none other than Lewis’ eldest daughter, Zoe.
“We’re also playing together at Yours & Owls festival this year, which will be a blast,” he adds. “She’s found her own way into music, and she does it all on her own terms – I kind of think it’s in spite of the fact I do all this.”
It’s fitting that the show will be somewhat cross-generational – as Lewis has learned on this tour, that’s exactly what Tumbleweed shows have now become. It’s a 50/50 split between those that were going to see the band play back in the day and those that weren’t even born when the album came out.
“It’s a great thing to see,” he says. “We played Brisbane just the other week, and we had quite a lot of interesting characters coming up to us after the show. The younger ones were so excited, and they’re always giving you the biggest reactions as you’re playing. The lifetime fans I have a lot of time for, too – we’re really fortunate and grateful that they’ve stuck with us for a big part of their lives. Now they’re bringing their kids along, too. I just love it.”
Originally released in 1992, the eponymous record was a huge stepping stone for the band in terms of gaining a national profile. “It came off the back of what was a really productive year,” Lewis explains. “We’d been touring a lot – playing four nights a week, rehearsing on the other three.” For Lewis, however, it’s taken almost as many years to come back around and appreciate the record properly.
“We were listening back to it for the first time in the Atlantic Records offices in New York,” he says, “and we all felt a little flat. It didn’t really live up to any of our expectations. We were expecting our debut album to be this big, psychedelic rock ‘n’ roll freakout. I think the next record [1995’s Galactaphonic] was a reaction to that, in a way.”
Lewis attributes his cold initial reactions to a perceived lack of creative control, particularly in relation to the production of the record.
“Doug [Coulson] was a real producer’s producer that really took the reins,” he says. “Having had so much control over the recording of our first few EPs, we weren’t used to having someone else in there. We were young and impressionable, and we just went along with a lot of the ideas that he presented just because we’d never done an album before. We definitely gave away too much control, and we wouldn’t do it that way again.”
You may be under the impression that Lewis is not a fan of Tumbleweed, but his honesty is more to do with hindsight insofar as the creative process for the record was concerned. His view on the album has since softened, which came with the decision to reunite the band with its original lineup back in 2009. “It took me a long time to actually listen to it again,” he says. “It wasn’t until last year, when we were entertaining the idea of playing the record that I had to go back and give it a spin. It made me realise what a great record it actually was – and is. Learning to play it live again has made me appreciate it even more. There’s a real joy to it.”
