by JOHN LOW

After such a long association with rock music, what lead you to an interest in Australian folk music?

After the demise of War Machine I spent five years outside of the music scene and lived a very different lifestyle. Aside from getting married and having a normal day job, my wife Raema and I travelled around and across Australia in a number of trips in our van. As I was not committed to playing professionally, I had a lot more time to explore all sorts of music, from all the familiar forms of rock to folk, jazz and classical. However, our trips throughout the outback gave me the inspiration towards one particular category, that of Australian traditional folk music. I had hardly known it existed until I heard small segments both live, through some folk music enthusiasts and friends and on country radio occasionally while we were actually out there.

Students For Australian Independence Concert at Uni of NSW, Sydney 1978 L to R: John Poleson, Dave Johnson, Keith Snell, Ray Grieve, Bob Bolton

On one occasion in 1975, we were in Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory on the same night that Warren Fahey and the Larrikins were playing there. I decided to hang around a bit, introduce myself to Warren as a good regular Folkways customer and see if I could get up and play along with the Larrikins. Apparently, however, there had been a lot of trouble in the town that night with drunken fights and brawling and the cops moved us on twice, with a warning not to come back. The audience appeared to be very well dressed local property owners or dignitaries and I don't think I would have got past the front door anyway, especially in the way I was dressed. We had been travelling for weeks around the Territory! Country music sounded too American to me, not much was heard of any sort of Aboriginal music at this time and, after faithfully performing mainly US music in my previous bands, Australian rock or pop music didn't sound any different to me from the American or English equivalents. It came as a surprise to discover that there was actually a traditional Australian music form.

While I would always retain a love of the rock music I grew up with, the experience of hearing Australian traditional folk music at various times while on these outback trips changed my musical direction completely. Although I did not intend to ever play professionally again, I decided to get a few instruments together to play for my own amusement at home.

In your earlier life you'd been primarily a vocalist. What were the instruments you decided to take up?

I had been told that my Grandfather played the tin whistle a bit and in fact I had his old one, so for no particular other reason that instrument became my first choice. I bought a range of new English Generation whistles and eventually a new hand-made Smart wooden flageolet from America. I also restored an old Ecko semi-acoustic electric guitar that Gary Lothian (ex Elliot Gordon Union) had given me years before. I had played it a bit in my rock bands, but now decided it would be worthwhile restoring it properly. What I really needed, however, was a fully acoustic model, so I bought a good quality new Japanese Aria guitar.

Later when I was preparing for professional work, I thought I had better expand my musical instrument line-up and taught myself to play the bones and the spoons. The spoons were acquired from our kitchen but the bones situation was a bit more complicated. Although plastic ones were available, I did it the truly traditional way by getting some from the butchers, drying them out, filling them with resin for the right acoustics and polishing them.

Over time, as my playing on the tin whistle improved, someone suggested I try the flute and I managed to buy a cheap old Buisson model which I then went on to learn. A lot of my energy went into learning and playing the flute, so eventually I didn't bother contributing further with vocals.

About 1978, during my time with the Rouseabouts, I replaced the old Buisson flute and bought a new Japanese Hernals concert model with silver plated head. I also managed to find some old wooden flutes and flageolets at the premises of a second-hand dealer in Leichhardt and had them restored. I had special cases made for the three concert flutes. These flutes were at least 80 years old and comprised English, French and German models.