Fire and rein
Andrew P Street learns to take office fire drills seriously from Old Man River.
Old Man River does some blue-sky thinking
Ohad Rein, aka Old Man River, is sounding pretty laid back. And yes, that's entirely in keeping with his music - but perhaps he's a little too laid back for his own safety. In fact, it appears to be contagious since even the threat of a fiery death isn't enough to spur those around him to action.
"I've just spent the last couple of days mixing this track in a studio and it's part of an office building, and all of a sudden the fire alarm goes off - and nobody cared, man!" he laughs. "People were just walking around like nothing had happened, so we just thought it was triggered by mistake - but it was so noisy in the end that we had to leave. And then all of a sudden the fire brigade comes, and there's actually a fire on the top floor and it was spreading through the whole air conditioning system."
And now would be a bad time for Rein to be burnt to a crisp, since things are going exceptionally well at the moment. Aside from his success here in Australia with his universally-acclaimed Good Morning album, he's just enjoyed some very successful touring overseas (including Europe and Japan) and is now starting to look towards what comes after the Good Morning era.
"I like that, ‘the end of the Good Morning era', that's nice. So is it Good Night now?" he laughs. "I'm feeling pretty good, man. Part of it's because for the first time in two years of touring I've actually had a bit of time off, and it gave me a good opportunity to check everything, see if things are still in place and see the spirit of the river and where it's flowing - and it's all good! I'm feeling really creative. As soon as I sit in the one place for long enough I start coming up with new songs so I'm really excited about that, and just about dreaming a new album."
It's a welcome opportunity, since he's not written much new material since the album came out. "Up until now it's all been my fault - it took ages to get that album together anyway, and then touring it was a whole ‘nother issue. Every time it got successful in a new territory meant starting the whole thing again. So I was basically completely dedicated to that album, but now that energy's slowing leaving my system and leaving a cool void behind - and that void's going to get filled up by new things. I'm really excited!"
He's interrupting this break to do a run of shows with Clare Bowditch, and fans should be advised that there may be some new material in the set. "Not playing at all for two months gets me a bit itchy: something happens to you when you've been on the road for so long. It's addictive: something's been missing in my life. But she's playing solo, I'm going to play solo, and it's an opportunity to play some new stuff and just have fun."
Old Man River plays with Clare Bowditch at the Basement on Fri 27 and Sat 28 June.
Get a quick preview by listening to Old Man River's track Better Place using the player below