For their Back To Basics tour, Strange Brew are joined by the legendary rock guitarists Phil Emmanuel and Kevin Borich, who are reunited on-stage for the first time in over 20 years, at Blues Under The Freeway.
Phil Emmanuel is excited to be rocking out with his old mate again and is clear on his reasons why. “'Cause I like playing with other really good guitar players! And there are very few of them left in this country. I've admired Kevin for 35 years, and I haven't really done a tour with him since 1992, I've just seen him play at a lot of festivals. It's always great when I play with Kevin, 'cause it's just so good having another guitar player,” says Phil.
Even though they have been apart for a while, Phil is not worried about their vibe being any different. “There are a lot of things we've been doing together for a long time, that work really good, and this time will be no exception, it'll be good fun!”
As it is a part of Strange Brew's Back To Basics tour, the show is split into three phases and will end with a bang. “The night will start off with my mate Shane Kells and his band Strange Brew, they come out and do a 45 minute set of really good, older and heavy rock & roll. Then I come out and do my set, and play guitar with the band. In the third set, Kevin will be out and he'll be playing guitar with the band while doing a lot of his stuff. Towards the end of his set I'll get up and we'll play together,” says Phil.Like an early Christmas present to all fans, legendary Phil Emmanuel is promising everything from classical rock to country in his set. And he says playing what people want to hear, and good music, are the reasons for the great success he's experiencing at the moment.
Both Kevin and Phil have been entertaining music lovers for over 50 years, which makes you wonder what their secret is. “There's no secret, I just sit down with a guitar sometimes and play different chords and different chord changes, like I'm playing my own backing. You get to like different chord changes and then you write the melody over those changes, that's it.
“With all the music I play, I think probably the most important part in a tune or a song is the actual melody, because that's what people remember, they remember the melody. And that is what makes a song stick in your head. I don't actually sing, so I've got to play good melodies to make it stick in peoples heads.”
Even though he's loving doing shows with Strange Brew and Kevin again, Phil must admit he preferred playing back in the day. “It was great! That's when there used to be a music industry in this country. There were a lot more gigs around with live music, and it was no effort at all to work four and five nights a week. A lot of people went out to listen to the live music, whereas now they sit at home and watch it on YouTube or whatever...”
After hanging out with Strange Brew, Phil is heading to the studio to finish an album he hopes to release before Christmas this year. “I'm working on four tracks at the moment, and I'll be putting them together with other tracks from other albums to make a compilation album. And I'm going to release that world wide on iTunes.”
Blues Under The Freeways takes place at Morrison Hotel, 27 September.
