Tumble weed

Rip It Up, Issue 187, 1 February 1993, Page 16

Tumble weed

Tumbleweed hail from Wollongong which is kinda near where the planes land in Sydney, and is (I've heard) an unlikely place to have sprouted a bitchinly cool band such as Tumbleweed, who kinda look like cool people from the 60s but, as one of them said in Flipside, "We're not

fuckin hippies". They have an eight album deal with Seed (thru Atlantic) which they got when some suit from Atlantic was over in Aussie and happened to hear one of their early singles. They've played in America with Mudhoney, Rein Sanction and "some other obscure American bands" but

Ritchie the singer man says their appearance at The Big

Day Out in Sydney has been their best response yet. "Yeah I had a good time, I hurt my head but I had a good time, we've never really played to that many people (7000+) before, it was a big surprise that day, by far the best response we've had." Doug Colson, Butch Vig's right hand man, has worked with them on all three of their recordings. Ritchie says: "We thought it would be a good idea to get someone from Smart Studios in Wisconsin, originally we were gonna get Butch Vig but he was kinda busy, so he suggested Doug, and he helped with a lot of things, he came over and we spent a couple of weeks together, just

going over songs, working out the best things to do." A lot of Tumbleweed's lyrics stem from nature and the environment and smoking dope ... when asked if dope was essential to Tumbleweed's creativeness and sound Ritchie replied "Um, I guess so, a little bit, yeah", and if living in Wollongong was important for the band "Yeah, well it's a cool place to live, all ourfriends are there, and it's easy to write there, because we're writing at home and we feel comfortable." The first single off their album 'Acid Rain' isslow, melodicand lovely which they are not live — they are full on, heavy and melodic!

Ritchie says of it: "I don't think it's a good representation of what we're really like. I mean, I like it in the context of the album but we've got a new single 'Sundial' coming out next that we all like better..." Right now Tumbleweed are writing some new material, they are heading off to America, England and Europe mid year and will be coming to New Zealand "definately this year." So go buy their stuff, it's beautifully awesome and makes you want to be nice to people and look forward to seeing them this year.

Is dope essential to Tumbleweed's creativeness and

sound?

Ritchie: "Um I guess so, a little bit, yeah"

SHIRLEY CHARLES