As main songwriter for INXS, Andrew Farriss made you dance. Now as a solo artist, he may just break your heart.
After years of writing songs for other people, Andrew will release his first-ever album of original material as a solo artist, and it's nothing like any work he did with INXS or anyone else.
The first taste of the album, single 'Come Midnight', takes us deep into Andrew's love for country music, in stark contrast to the electronic grooves and synthesiser melodies of INXS. “'Come Midnight' definitely has a unique thing about how it began,” Andrew says.
“I worked out the guitar riff and basic chords in the middle of when I was doing a completely different genre of music – funk, rock and technology-based, and messing around with grooves, feels and synthesisers, whatever I was doing back then – though I've also been a fan of the old-school country music like your Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson era.”
On 'Come Midnight', Andrew begins to weave a pastiche of Australian colonial and American frontier folklore that forms part of a greater narrative to be revealed when the album is released, hopefully next year.
In order to achieve an authentic-sounding product, Andrew embarked on his own Western odyssey, one that would yield its very own cache of buried treasure.
“Because my wife is American originally, we started riding horses along the Mexican border... around the old cowboy towns, because I wanted to do research about what life was like and what the climate was like,” Andrew explains.
“I know exactly where Geronimo surrendered to the US cavalry, I rode up to Cochise's Stronghold, I know where the US cavalry had some of their forts. I rode some of the stagecoach lies and I began to realise all this was leading me not to Nashville or even Tamworth; where it was leading me in my journey as a songwriter was beginning to define my lyrics about what I wanted to sing about.
“Instead of telling stories about the 21st century or as we're heading into 2020 not even the 20th century – what if I go back further to the 19th century and think about what life was like before electricity, before cars, and that lifestyle with the folk music before there was vinyl or 78” records.”
Like the coming of civilisation to the Wild West, or the settling of Australia, 'Come Midnight' heralds a new era for one of the country's most lauded songwriters. “I don't want to chase the train, the train has left the station. Anyone who chases trains on modern radio, it's almost too late,” Andrew says.
“So instead of doing that I went back into an earlier time where I feel comfortable and write a series of songs about characters. It could be bushrangers, outlaws, cowboys, a preacher, a pretty girl with an ugly heart – all these characters and they all play together, like a theatre play within my album.”
