Not so many years ago, the only path to success for a recording and performing artist was to land a record deal. The marketing and administrative muscle of the major labels was essential to getting albums made and tours promoted.
But in recent years, the music industry has undergone seismic changes, and today it’s possible for an industrious artist to make his or her own way without the backing of a record label.
The success of Australian blues rock singer-songwriter-guitarist Hamish Anderson is a case in point. Touring a short run of West Coast dates in support of his latest release, Electric, Anderson comes to the Catalyst Jan. 10.
There’s a blues foundation to Anderson’s original music, but he was raised on a healthy and omnivorous diet of music thanks to his father.
“When I was growing up, my dad listened to all kinds of music,” he says. “Everything: rock, classical, Indian music. But he was very deep into the blues.”
Beyond listening to his dad’s CDs, Anderson’s first exposure to a blues artist was watching a film made more than a decade before he was born: 1980’s The Blues Brothers. “There was just something about John Lee Hooker,” he says. “I thought he was the coolest person I’d ever seen.”
Hooker became a hero of his; the legendary bluesman made an impression on Anderson just as he had done years before on guitarists like Keith Richards and Eric Clapton. Anderson dug deeper into the American music tradition and developed an enduring appreciation for other blues artists including Muddy Waters, Hubert Sumlin and Howlin’ Wolf, going back even farther to explore the work of Robert Johnson.
“I’ve always loved history,” he explains. “So when I discovered blues, it was a perfect [combination] of history and music.”
Anderson’s music is informed by artists who were influenced by those blues greats, too. His website features a playlist of artists whose work has inspired him, and the list includes tracks by T. Rex, Otis Redding, the Kinks, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, George Harrison, the Beach Boys and Wilson Pickett. He notes that at the end of T. Rex’s “Get it On (Bang a Gong),” Marc Bolan quotes a line from Chuck Berry’s “Little Queenie” (“Meanwhile, I’m still thinking”). “You can find all these little connections between all these amazing artists and amazing music,” he enthuses.
Anderson released his self-titled debut EP in 2013. Since then he’s released another EP and three full-length albums. There are significant threads connecting all five of those releases: one is that Anderson writes all of his own music.
“For me, it all comes down to the song,” he says. “You can’t have a really cool guitar solo [but] a shitty song; it has to all be happening at once.”
He’s a serious student of songwriting, exploring and learning from the nuances in songs by Lennon and McCartney, Joni Mitchell or the Kinks’ Ray Davies. “Just by listening to these amazing songwriters, you get a crash course in how a song should be.”
Another common characteristic of all of Anderson’s music is that it’s self-released. He’s one of the new breed of musicians who have found a way to build a career, tour, release albums and connect with fans, all without signing on the dotted line with a label.
“I’ve come up in an age when you can be unsigned and get your own path going, carve out a little something,” he says. Anderson finds that he’s able to self-release records and focus on playing in front of people. “Especially in America, there’s a real appetite for the live experience,” he says.
For most of his studio releases, Anderson worked with seven-time Grammy winning producer-engineer Jim Scott, renowned for his work with Tom Petty, Foo Fighters, Tedeschi Trucks Band and many others.
“He’s worked with everybody,” says Anderson. “Working with Jim is effortless.”
But along the way, Anderson learned a great deal about production himself, so when the time came to make Electric, he chose to co-produce with David Davis, engineer on The War on Drugs’ A Deeper Understanding, Frank Ocean’s Blonde and nearly two dozen other projects of note.
“I’m influenced by all the classic music,” Anderson explains. “But for Electric, I wanted to bring more of the influence of stuff that’s the modern version of that [music].” He says that he wanted to make a record that would fit on a playlist with artists like Alabama Shakes, Arctic Monkeys, Jack White and Gary Clark Jr.
There’s a through-line in his production approach, though. As with Anderson’s previous records, the tracks for Electric were laid down live in the studio; he believes that approach gives the music a more direct feel. “What my records have in common is that there’s a live band playing,” he says.
Ultimately, that live experience is what the music is all about for Hamish Anderson. For his West Coast tour, he’ll be fronting a classic power trio: guitar, bass, drums.
“It’s very electric, very heavy,” he says. “There are no backing tracks or any of that stuff.” When Anderson describes the music he’ll play, he could just as easily be summing up his music influences: “It’s a mixture of modern rock ’n’ roll, blues and soul.”
Hamish Anderson and Quinn Sullivan play at 8pm Jan. 10 at the Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. Tickets: $22.50. catalystclub.com
