Fluent in the dialect of authentic rock & roll, Beau Lightning’s newest single is ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Life’.
Pledging allegiance to thick, fuzzy guitars, psychedelic licks and thundering rhythms, ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Life’ is the third single Beau has released within the past year.
Storming out of Adelaide, Beau has split the difference between the sludge of Wolfmother and the retro-garage rock of The White Stripes.
His earlier release, 'Last Night' features an accompanying music video that has a strong Quentin Tarantino feel with hazy vision, a classic muscle car and spaghetti western font as Beau disposes of a body. “I like most of [Tarantino’s] films to be honest, I do like 'Pulp Fiction', 'Reservoir Dogs' as well.”
Beau draws substantial musical influence from several iconic bands. “I listen to a fair bit of modern stuff; I’m a massive fan of Arctic Monkeys and Queens Of The Stone Age; the lead singers Josh Homme and Alex Turner have a few side projects, and anything they do I’m a pretty big fan of.
“But I [enjoy] a pretty wide array of music, majority of that spans from the '50s through to the '70s.”
Lightning decided not to release his four-track EP ‘Finding Colour’ digitally, instead releasing it at an Adelaide gig last year on vinyl, cassette and CD. “They were a bunch of songs I wrote before I came up with what [the alter-ego] Beau Lightning is.
“I was in a band a few years back [Lucid Dreams], but that broke up. So I spent ages writing songs by myself and trying to figure out what my sound was, I didn’t know what I wanted to do… sonically I guess.
“There were about eight or nine songs that I wrote over two years that didn’t really have a cohesive sound throughout. They were all pretty different, and I was really trying to find what my sound was.
“When I wrote ‘Last Night’ it was definitely the best one, and there was something cool here that I wanted to stick to. I do like my other songs, but they’re just not part of the Beau Lightning project.”
Beau lives for music, so it’s fitting he currently resides in a recording studio. “A friend of mine built a recording studio in his backyard with a little bedroom, kitchen and bathroom attached to it, so it came at a good time when I needed a place to move in.
“I’ve been in there for just over a year now. I have full access to the studio when it’s not getting used.” Which has led to a few late-night sessions. “I have done that a few times and yeah… it’s definitely got its perks [living in a studio].”
When he's not in the studio, Beau works as a carer for children from predominately broken families.
“It’s a pretty emotionally draining job; some days are pretty cool. The other week I took some of the kids to see [the new] 'Avengers' [film], but some days the kids are backed up a bit given their pretty traumatic history; but there's good days and hard days like any other job I guess.”
