Fresh off a 12-month extended tour promoting their new album 'Ghosts', Melbourne act Rich Davies & The Low Road will return to Adelaide to play Semaphore Music Festival.
“I'm really, really looking forward to Semaphore [Music Festival]. Adelaide have been really kind to us in the last 12 months when we've been over,” singer-songwriter, Rich Davies says.
“We've been over to Adelaide about 3 times in the past 12 months and every time we play [the crowd have] been singing and having a good time with us.”
Rich says the Semaphore line-up features some of his good friends. “There's lots of our friends and people we know on the line-up, so it'll be a really good time. Lately the only time we see our friends and neighbours is at festivals and gigs across the country.
“We're obviously on the war path promoting our new album, so any opportunity to promote our new album is really great for us. This is the first [festival] for the season for us and we're really pleased because the band and music are sounding and feeling really good.”
Rich & The Low Road have spent a large chunk of the previous 12 months travelling around Australia playing everywhere and anywhere from little gigs to festivals.
But Rich confesses that money isn't his driving motivation to perform. “I'm not in it for the money, because there's none,” Rich laughs.
“It's really about the human connection. It's lovely that we've had such a great 12 months, but I really do think we've made more friends than fans. It's just touching base with communities all over Australia; that's what is really meaningful to me.”
The band's most recent album, 'Ghost', was released late last year and has attracted fans from all over Australia.
But Rich was still surprised with the fan base they had grown. “Going over to Perth [recently], we had been over there once supporting Mick Thomas but I was really unsure about how it was going to be because we had only been there once.
"But once we got there it seemed like the album had travelled further than us,” Rich says. "It was one of those really amazing experiences when you play your first song of the set and everyone's already singing along. That was a really lovely thing to know that all the hard work had gotten us over to Perth.
“You do work hard being an independent band; for one it's nice to know that your work hasn't been for nothing and two; we had a great time.” Rich says he loves performing at regional shows.
“I really love regional shows because often you're touching base with little pockets of communities that are trying to get out there and support music.
“Maybe one human being that has had a passion to start a venue in their area and people have gotten behind them and then suddenly they're able to organise gigs for folks like myself and other Melbourne artists.”
Rich says that even though his days of “foolishness” are over, his passion and love for music will live on. “That's what I'm in [music] for; I'm in my 30s. I've done my years of foolishness, I'm just in it for the human connection and musical connection,” he says.
written by Grace Purvis
