THE ACTOR'S MUSE

Revolver Magazine (December 1998) by Yvette Chegiwidden

30 Odd Foot of Grunt's Russell Crowe is an actor, but once upon a time he was Russ Le Rock . . . Russell Crowe is one of those actors whose voice is so seductive and corrosive in timbre that like William Hurt, you could watch one of his movies with your eyes closed and just listen.

It's not surprising then to learn that for the last fourteen years he has been in a band called 30 Odd Foot of Grunts who have just released a new album Gaslight. Speaking from his home somewhere inland from one of NSW's coasts (he asks that his hometown not be revealed), Crowe is the guy who, on celluloid terrorized the streets of Melbourne in a skinhead war against g***s' in Romper Stomper, and the short fused cop who fell in love with Kim Basinger in LA Confidential. He also got to shag Sharon Stone in The Quick and the Dead, and starred opposite Denzel Washington in Virtuosity.

Given the way he excels at mad-as-a-cut-snake characters, you could be forgiven for expecting 30 Odd Foot of Grunts to be a musical interpretation of the same. It is however bruised but folky pub rock. The band's latest album Gaslight contains characters and sentiments that could only have been borne from one place on earth - Darlinghurst, NSW. Crowe was once upon a time the subject of numerous sightings in pubs such as Oxford St's Courthouse and the Gaslight Inn where his skill for partying grew into something of a minor local legend.

"It's not named after the Gaslight Hotel as such," Crowe growls amiably, "What I was intending was that it was not high tech. It was just another way of saying lo-fi. The album's concept and the recording of the album and the way we do things is a little old fashioned, we don't use all the machines and stuff."

Was there any particular reason you decided to do this album now after mucking around with it for so long?

"Gee wizz you got a nice attitude." he laughs. "Having 'mucked around' with it for so long.' What do you mean by mucked around?"

I just thought acting would be your first priority...

"There isn't any priority really, they're both creative expressions at the same level and from the same place of commitment. But the day job does fuck with the band's schedule, absolutely. Doing another release was about providing something for the people who follow the group through the internet."

As a songwriter Crowe has that peculiarly Australian knack of telling narrative tales. He has the rugged demeanour thats one part fireside larrikin swaggie and one part inner city cool.

"Quite frankly, without a story I don't really see the point of a song. I think regardless of how rambunctious our - sound gets at times, we're a folk band, that's what we do. We're just telling stories. I'm a really big Billy Bragg fan I think he's incredible," he confesses. "He's a very smart fella."

One of the albums most interesting tracks on the tale of a painter and docker called Barry Kable who wound up living on that stretch of street around the Darlinghurst Post Office, surviving on cheap port and the kindness of people like Crowe's bandmate Dean, who drove a van for the Sydney City Mission for seven years.

"Dean had to deal with Barry everyday for five years," Crowe recounts with admiration, 'and he knew at a certain point in his shift that he would have to go and collect Barry from the streets and try and convince him to go and sleep it off at a hostel." "I think Dean's a hero man, spending his life devoted to people on that level of charity. I mean there is very little to gain, personally or financially out of doing that sort of stuff."

Crowe wasn't always the big Hollywood star or even the big Australian star. There was a time when he lived in a scummy flat, splitting $3.20 a day between cigarettes and fried rice.

"I think about it all the time" he says almost somberly, "I look at my environment on a regular basis and remember where I was and say 'by the grace of God , ' you know. I think you have to, you're very silly if you forget where you come from."

And that is something that is evident in his understanding of his music.

"As an actor I can jam with anybody. I can play my instrument at the highest level possible - that's not what I think, that's just the way it is, that's why I get to work with the people I get to work with, you know. I just finished working with AL Pacino and the other year I worked with Gene Hackman." "But as a musician I work on a much simpler level. As a musician, I can't jam with other musicians. I couldn't sit down with a great blues guitarist and do fuckin' anything."