Riding A New Wave
(Time Off Magazine, March '03)
his name sounds like it belongs in hollywood. and with his slim build and strong features he probably wouldn’t look too out of place.
but charlton hill is just an Aussie bloke who enjoys catching waves and playing guitar… not that music is merely a hobby for the 25-year-old. in fact, not too long ago he came off a sold-out tour with american john mayer. now he’s unveiling his debut album waterline.
recorded with ian grimble (travis, manic street preachers) in london, hill says the longplayer sounds exactly as he envisaged.
“you hear stories of people who hate their albums and they say they’re never going to listen to it again but to me this is exactly where i am now. i had a really good place to start, a good vision.
“i didn’t just have acoustic and vocal demos, i had a real idea of what i wanted to do and it’s pretty much turned out how i wanted it to. but, having said that, there are all kinds of variables that come up that you can’t control – and you don’t want to control – so you just run with it and see where it takes you.”
one such intuitive moment came with ‘sail’ and the string section that features so prominently on the track. hill says he had a rough idea of how he wanted the strings to sound but didn’t know if grimble would be able to produce an accurate replication of the sound.
“i remember being in a studio and i nipped out – ian told me to take a break. when i came back in there was the string section warming up for the piece i’d been working out earlier on the synth with two fingers. it was amazing.”
sitting across the table sporting an ever-present grin and glancing every so often at his watch (he has a plane to catch in an hour for another interview), you get the feeling hill’s enjoying life at the moment. but he insists that’s always been the case, right from the earliest days when he would set off on surfing road trips with his friends. so how does a bronzed beach-boy develop a taste for sensitive and mature songwriting? surely he should be banging out surf-rock riffs and swilling beer?
“i grew up by the beach but i wasn’t a surfie!” he exclaims. “i wasn’t part of the whole ‘woah dude’ crowd. sure we were heading up the coast with a few surfboards in a combi but we were listening to everything from the stone roses to you am i and neil finn. i just loved the waves and my mates. listening to what i wanted to listen to influenced the music i write today, not the surfing lifestyle i was surrounded by.”
waterline out now on sony/epic.
- nick coppack