RUSSELL HITCHCOCK of AIR SUPPLY: The Quest For Love
An interview by Sarah Kidd.
They have created some of the most well-known love songs on the planet, songs that will forever be tied to memories that their fans cherish both in their hearts and minds.
But more impressive than this is the friendship and artistic relationship that Australian Russell Hitchcock and English born Graham Russell – the duo known as Air Supply – have shared over the last forty-five years.
Promising a show that will include all of their big hits fully orchestrated live and a band who are not only “very passionate about our music and playing it” but “young and good looking which makes us look better”, Russell Hitchcock sat down with me to have a rather candid conversation about being both an Australian who has spent much of his life living in the United States and a musician who is privileged enough to have enjoyed a fantastic relationship with his co-creator throughout the years, even when sometimes he feels ‘roadblocked’ by the very music they conceived…
I am sure being an Australian it will be nice not only to get onto home ground for these upcoming shows, but to be visiting your kissing cousins – us kiwis – over here in New Zealand?
“I have a couple of really good friends in New Zealand and I think we have been there as Air Supply three or four times now so it will be great to get back. Obviously, it will be a quick visit – in and out – but hoping for the best and hope that a lot of people come and see us. We have a great affection for New Zealand.”
Now you currently reside in Atlanta, any desire – as you were born in Melbourne – to move back to Australia?
“Yeah, as much as I would love to, because of our schedule being what it is, we don’t have any time off. Plus, I’m seventy years old now so I don’t think I’m gonna do too much more relocating [laughs] It’s a pain in the bum!
I came here five years ago, I was in California for twenty something years, I lived in Arizona for six years, then back to California and I have been here for five.”
Ah, so you are very much an American now days?
“Well, yeah I like some American things, but I’m Australian [mutual laughter] Always will be!”
So, what, does that mean there is still Vegemite in the cupboard? [chuckles]
“You know what? We have Vegemite, my wife loves it. She’s a Georgia peach, but she loves Vegemite. In fact, about five miles from here is a thing called the Australian Bakery, owned by Australians. They’re good friends of mine now, and every chance I get I go there and get a meat pie and a sausage roll or a pastry. They have got all the Australian stuff there, Cherry Ripes and all that stuff, it’s quite amazing!”
Oh fantastic! Like a little piece of home
“Yes, it is!”
Now this tour sounds absolutely divine as you have a twenty-piece orchestra accompanying both yourselves and the band, which is going to add such a wonderful lushness to so much of your work…
“Well of course all of the original recordings were very heavily orchestrated, and of course it would be quite impractical to take an orchestra on the road with us, but we do about three or four symphony dates in the US ever year and I think we have played a couple in Sydney in the past so we are really looking forward to it.
And as you said, it adds a great sound to our songs and the band and visually it looks quite good. Makes us look classy you know. [chuckles] So it should be fun.”
[laughs] Like you said, a lot of your songs were originally very orchestrated, but who came up with the idea of performing this Australasian tour with an orchestra? Or is that just something that you both collaborated on?
“No, I believe the initial offer was from the promoter who wanted to take us there. He thought it would be a great way to take us around the country again and play a date or two dates in New Zealand if we could, because it’s different.
Most people who have seen us haven’t seen us in that environment before, so I think it was very astute of him to get in touch with our manager. It was a no brainer for us as soon as he said do you want to tour Australia, we said of course and then he said orchestra and we were all over it.”
Speaking of your partner in crime as I like to call him, Graham, forty-five years of friendship! How wonderful and something I truly believe is an aspiration!
“Well you know it’s amazing for me and of course in all of our lives, time goes so quickly once you get out of school. I remember I told my daughter years ago, she was in high school and she said ‘I can’t wait to get out of high school’ and I said ‘Well just enjoy it now, because once you get into the real world, time goes by so quickly that you don’t even realise it’s going by.’
And of course, we often joke about working together for forty-five years and I mean we have had an incredible friendship and an incredible career, and we’re as passionate about working together today as we were the first day we got on stage.
He writes something new every day which most people don’t get to hear, we love the show, we love being on stage together, it’s a real laugh. We don’t take ourselves seriously, but we take the music very seriously. I don’t know of any other act apart from The Stones probably who have had such an enduring friendship and working relationship with anybody else, but us.
There are probably a few out there that will get in touch with you and say ‘Well they’re not the only ones’ but we’re in the top five that’s for sure!” [chuckles]
[laughs] Yes, well it’s huge, forty-five years is such a huge chunk of time in anyone’s life to do anything, whether it’s a job, or a relationship etc. So, as I said I think it’s an absolute aspiration.
And you must get asked this all the time, but what do you think the secret is? Especially in the music industry which is well know for causing the downfall of many a friendship…
“Well it’s kinda obvious if you really look at it. First of all, we respect each other tremendously and the talent that we bring to the table. One of the biggest things is that we don’t step on eachothers toes; I can’t write songs, so I don’t say ‘I want these songs to be in the show or on the record’.
He doesn’t want to be lead singer, we both share the same vision for the band to move forward as we have, and we love playing the songs that he writes. So I never get on stage and go ‘Oh God, I gotta sing this again’. And obviously not every song is a Graham Russell composition, but they are certainly by far my favourite songs to sing of any composer I’ve worked with. So for us we don’t take it for granted, but we don’t think about it, it just is.
In fact there’s a very famous – well it’s going to be famous now, when I tell you [chuckles] – thing somebody once said to me, the bee, the honeybee is not supposed to be able to fly, because physically it’s wings are too small for it’s body. But it doesn’t know that, so it just flies. So, we don’t know, we just do it, because that’s what we do. Does that make sense?”
Yes, it does, it does. I think it’s quite lovely too in many ways that you have this combination of talents and I think that’s part of the secret. That and the fact that you have always been very open and honest about the fact that you don’t write songs, and that Graham doesn’t like to be the lead. In fact, you each hold a piece to the puzzle which when put together forms the vision that is Air Supply.
“Yeah, I know – and of course I won’t name them – two or three duos in the US who when are on stage are all lovey-dovey, but they can’t stand each other. They don’t stay in the same hotels, they have their separate tour buses, and their separate people. And I said to Graham years ago when we first heard of one of these situations, and honestly, I said ‘If I don’t like you, I won’t work with you’. There’s just no point to me because I am not that kind of person that can fake that or even be bothered with it.
I mean the touring schedule for as long as it’s been and as arduous as it’s been is hard enough without not getting along with the people you work with, that would be crazy.”
Yes, and I truly believe no matter how professional or good an act may be on stage, you can feel the difference. You can see the difference when people don’t have that connection.
“Oh absolutely! I mean I went to see – and I can name these guys – Tears for Fears somewhere in the Mid-West last year and I was really looking forward to it because I was a fan. The two guys didn’t communicate with each other once during the show, in fact they spent most of the show with their backs to each other. And I just thought that’s really sad you know because they have great songs, they’re great musicians, they sing great! I really was very saddened by that situation, but fortunately I will never have to go through that.”
Now you were just saying that Graham writes almost every day, and there’s a lot of new material. Air Supply’s last album was Mumbo Jumbo back in 2010. Are there any plans in the works to get another album out there?
“You know we record, and we play new songs in the show, but there’s no plan right now. The latest thing we’re releasing – and it’s just been out on the road with us – is a two CD set; it’s the live band orchestrated with the Prague Symphony and there’s a second CD which is the same songs but with guest artist musicians. So there’s no vocals on that one, but it sounds amazing.
But as far as new material I’m not sure when that’s going to happen. We always say ‘Let’s have a look at what we’re going to do next year, because this year’s already full’, but the thing with us is – as you will know with Air Supply – radio hasn’t played us since probably thirty years ago. We have a song called ‘I Adore You’ which is a beautiful song, and I have friends in radio in Los Angeles and they’re really good friends of mine and I said ‘Give this a listen and tell me what you think’ and they all said ‘It’s Wonderful’ and I said ‘Well can you give it a shot, I don’t care if you play it at 3am in the morning’ and he said ‘Well, we can’t do that, we don’t decide what gets played anymore’.
Everybody wants to hear ‘Lost in Love’ and ‘Here I am’ and ‘Sweet Dreams’ etc but they don’t want to hear anything new, and it makes me crazy. But at some point, you get to the realisation that you can’t fight city hall so…
We’ve released twenty-five studio CD’s, they’re available online and in our fan club, and that’s a lot of songs, a lot of original songs. But unfortunately, there’s just a roadblock at radio for some reason and we can’t overcome it.”
The radio industry is a tough one and I think that’s where online and the digital age of music in some ways can be rather beneficial, because you can go and select what you want to hear and you are not boxed in by what they dictate you have to listen to…
“Yep, true.”
Obviously, this tour will include a lot of those great hits, many of which centre around the topic of love. You’re married, you have children and obviously there is a love between you and Graham for what you do and your friendship… It’s a bit of a loaded question, but how do you view love these days?
“Well I mean, I do a little thing at the end of every show, basically saying to people that the kids – and that’s a cliché – are our future and they behave the way we teach them to. They need to be taught love and compassion and tolerance and understanding. It usually gets a bit of good applause. Love is very tough for me, and I just found it when I got married two years ago to my wife.
I mean I’d been married four times before this, and they all ended basically because I wasn’t such a good guy. But if you find it and I have it now, you know what it is, you can’t [chuckles] you can’t describe it. So, there you go. I don’t what it is, I mean people love their puppy, they love their kids, they love whatever they love. But to find the true real one is quite a quest and I know a few people that I think have that, but not many.”
No, not many. But love is certainly something that the world needs a lot more of, just in general, between countries, between people…
“We go to quite a few countries that have had problems in the past and we have been asked ‘Are we scared to be there?’ and we’ve said ‘No’ and they inevitably ask you about the politics in their country and we always say ‘We didn’t come here to discuss politics, we came here to play music – and this is going to sound hippy – to spread love and positive things to the audience. That’s all we’re here to do, nothing else’ So you know, you have to expect that is us.
We’ve been canned by critics and people that aren’t fans of our music forever for being lightweight and fluffy and I’ve spoken to a couple of the critics that were like that and I said ‘You know, the thing is, I’m still here and I’m still standing – which is a great phrase – and we’re not going anywhere because our music is accepted worldwide as being what it is. It’s a relief from a lot of the stuff that people are dealing with in their daily lives or in their relationships even you know?’
To be able to sit there for a couple of hours and not have to think about anything else, to be in the moment with the music and the song, it’s quite something else.”
Air Supply perform are performing a special one off concert tonight (30th April 2019) in Auckland. Tickets are still available from Ticketmaster but get in quick as they’re selling fast!
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