Travellin' Man
(Time Off Magazine, August '02)
there's nothing new about an australian male in his early 20's heading off to europe with nothing but a backpack and his meagre life savings.
there's thousands of them there, mostly drinking too much in aussie theme-pubs and driving around in convoy with vanloads of kiwi males of a similar age. they usually end up back in london packing boxes and house sharing with a dozen assorted travellers, often from their own hometown.
sometimes sydneysider charlton hill is an example of someone, other than accountants and computer geeks, whose overseas experience amounted to more than a bunch of happy, blurry memories.
"i guess one band too many fell apart for all the usual reasons and i took off travelling, kind of guitar in hand when i was about 20," the 25-year-old says, somewhat romantically.
"i travelled around europe and checked it out, then ended up in the uk for a while travelling around and just writing songs and playing wherever i went - busking, pubs whatever i could get. songwriting is just a perpetual thing for me, a bit like diary entries, really."
along the way he met the english musicians who would become integral to his success story.
"for a couple of years i was based in london, living with musician friends and demoing stuff up," he says. "i'd have a song that i wanted to get down so we'd get (into the studio) in an afternoon and bash it out. the guitarist, i lived with, and of course his brother's a bass player, and there's a drummer who lives around the corner. it just made the demo's come together really easily."
when hill found himself back in sydney, with the demos attracting major record comapny interest, he didn't have to think twice about where he would record his forthcoming debut album waterline.
"it was always my intention to go back to london and record an album worth of stuff with those guys. so when i signed with sony it allowed me to go back and make the album i was going to make, just with a lot more support.
that support included producer ian grimble renowned for his work with travis, manic street preachers and beth orton. and if single '2's company' is any indication, grimble has lifted hill's music from impressive singer/songwriter fare to sophisticated adult pop-rock in the vein of david gray or even, dare we say, alex lloyd.
"it does rock, but with the keys and stuff it's quite moody," he searches for a description. "and there's a pop element to it in the sense that it's melodic - it's about hearing melodies that feel like they're old friends. so i gues you could say it's moody pop-rock."
an impressive effort indeed, but surely he didn't entirely miss out on the phenomenon of being 'aussie overseas'? at some stage somebody must have dragged him along to one of the 'walkabout' chain pubs for a fosters.
"i can happily say i've never been there," he grins. "but i would have to admit there was a lot of drinking."
'2's company' is out now on murmur/sony.
- julian porter