By Kyra Gillespie
When it comes to legendary musicians, two names that stand out in the Australian music scene are undoubtedly Ross Wilson and Richard Clapton.
Both with careers spanning more than four decades, the pair boast a swag of hits to their name and have played to more packed houses than they can count.
Taking to the West Gippsland Arts Centre in November, Wilson and Clapton will take audiences through their extensive back catalogues and perform hits that have shaped Australian music today.
Daddy Cool himself, Ross Wilson, said the audience reception in Warragul will determine the fate of the tour.
“This is a bit of an experiment actually; our show in Warragul is the first ‘trying out’ of what this double bill will be like. So if it’s a success, we’ll probably take it to a lot of other places,” Wilson said.
“The show with Richard came about just talking with one other. We’ve done a few shows together like A Day on the Green and I said we should do something together and it’s kind of built on from that.
“Richard’s got an incredibly strong catalogue and of course I’ve had a pretty long career, so it’s going to be a really strong double bill.”
Wilson and Clapton will not only be performing crowd favourites but may also test some new material.
“I’ve got a few new ones that I’ll be playing down at Warragul but I’ll leave the details as a surprise.”
Even with songs such as ‘Cool World’ and ‘A Touch of Paradise’ in his arsenal, Wilson is showing no signs of slowing down; continuing to write, perform and garner new fans year on year.
But classics like ‘Eagle Rock’ and ‘Come Back Again’ are yet to lose their charm.
“Even now that we’re in the streaming era, and Spotify has become such a big thing, Eagle Rock is up to 10.5 million streams, averaging about 20,000 listens a week. It’s just amazing.
“Eagle Rock is pretty unique, and Daddy Cool is a very unique band; it’s got something that you can’t quite define. So that song’s always got people up, moving around and having a good time.
“I’ve always been really proud of that song and of and playing with Daddy Cool. That’s sort of the foundation for everything that’s come since.”
When asked if he ever got sick of playing ‘Eagle Rock’, Wilson replied with a passionate “no.”
“Not at all, it’s a great song. It’s actually very hard to play it like Daddy Cool did – we were a special group of guys, so sometimes I have to go back and listen to the record again to make sure I perform it right.”
All these years later, people still engage in the bizarre tradition of dropping their pants when ‘Eagle Rock’ is played; a tradition that still makes the songwriter laugh.
“The dropping of the dacks is a relatively recently development; the record came out about 47 years ago and somewhere around the halfway mark every inventive Australian punter decided to drop their dacks around their ankles when the song played.
“Queensland University think they sort of started it – which I’m not exactly sure about – but they have this plaque on the wall at the bar with the rules of conduct – how to behave and all that. When you get down to about number eight it reads: ‘Patrons are not to be ejected if they drop their pants to the song Eagle Rock.’ And then number nine states that they must immediately replace their pants at the end of the song.
“The guys got us up there to do to world record of dack-dropping, so we played in their bar and sure enough, it just went nuts. They were crowd surfing in their undies, it was really whacky stuff. Now I’ve seen it happen en masse,” he said with a laugh.
In the four-plus decades of his career, Wilson has played in a number of bands, produced records, written songs for the likes of Jimmy Barnes and performed solo, among many things.
Of all the experiences he’s had, producing stands out as a favourite.
“It was being part of Daddy Cool; it was one of my first big successes. But after a few years I got involved with producing, and one of the best things I did was producing Skyhook’s album Living in the 70’s.
“I think it’s still a unique album; there’s no one else in the world that sounds like Skyhooks except Skyhooks, and I had a big part in that and I felt pretty proud of that work.”
In the early years, Wilson had a number of his written songs banned.
“I had a few songs banned in the early days when I was just an angry young man in one of my first bands. We sang about all kinds of stuff, and because we were playing all our original material we decided to print out a song book so people knew what we were singing about.
“I think one of the mums at school picked it up, and in those days, Victoria was quite a dark and dismal place, which made it a good place to sing outrageous songs and upset everybody.
“But they actually had a Vice Squad who would go around and stop people from doing sinful things and they seized these songbooks from where they got printed and burnt them. I didn’t actually get into any trouble, but the publisher did.
“With that I learnt the lesson that it’s actually good to be banned if you’re in rock ‘n’ roll, it kind of adds to your aura. Daddy Cool actually had a couple of songs banned as well as Skyhooks.”
Wilson has had his songs recorded by artists as diverse as Jimmy Barnes, John Farnham, DEF-FX, Custard, Renee Geyer and Troy Cassar-Daley.
When it comes to dream collaborations, Wilson has just about ticked off the wish list.
“Who knows, maybe I can write a song with Richard Clapton?”
“I’ve written a couple of good songs with Barnsey and he’s extremely easy to work with; he just likes getting in there and doing it.
“Back in the day I wanted to collaborate with Nile Rodgers, but INXS beat me to it.”
While some of his best-known music slots neatly into the ‘70s and ‘80s, his music tastes are certainly far from old-school.
“One band that I really like is The Preatures, with Issy up front. I went and saw them live and they were excellent; a really good live band. I think they’re the real deal.”
“Another young guy I spotted quite a few years ago, Harts, is a really good musician. He got a call from Prince and went over and hung out with him, and from that he’s received really good publicity and is releasing new music all the time. So they’re out there.
“There’s such an avalanche of music out there, it’s hard to hear it all, but I feel there’s good and bad examples with all kinds of music. It’s like a big pyramid, down the bottom there’s a lot of rubbish but at the top it’s excellent. But music is very subjective; what I like won’t necessarily appeal to another person.”
The prolific singer-songwriter is adamant that rock ‘n’ roll is not dead.
“I’m working all the time, it never stops. Just last week I played at Rock the Boat and there were around two thousand people hanging out for that. So there’s definitely an appetite for it.”
Ross Wilson and Richard Clapton’s unique double bill hits the West Gippsland Arts Centre, Warragul, on Saturday 24 November.
Tickets are on sale now and available for purchase at www.wgac.com.au
