00:00:00
Speaker 1: Well, it has been all too long, but the Magnificent Air Supply are returning to Adelaide to perform their all time classic hits. It's part of the fifty years of music the Lost in Love Experience here at the Entertainment Center on Thursday, the tenth of December. Think Love Another Bruises, All out of Love, the One that You Love, and of course Lost in Love, just to name a few. The great Russell Hitchcolt Russell, welcome, thank you for coming back.
00:00:24
Speaker 2: How we're going to top that introduction?
00:00:27
Speaker 1: That's a lot of love, Russell. You're going to feel that in the room when you return too.
00:00:31
Speaker 2: Well, let's hope. So we're actually working on it.
00:00:33
Speaker 3: So it's funny when you put all the love love love songs together we get a lot of We used to get a lot of flack about love being in the title, and I hope used to say to people, look at the Beatles, all that of love. You know, love love me do love it. Love makes the world go around.
00:00:50
Speaker 1: You know, I was doing the mass Russell. I think the last time we saw you in Adelaide was ten years ago thebby for your fortieth.
00:00:59
Speaker 3: Wow been you know, I don't remember anything these days because I don't. He could ask me where I was last week and I couldn't tell you. It's not a clinical thing. It's just one of my things. I've never had a good memory.
00:01:11
Speaker 2: So yes, well it's a.
00:01:13
Speaker 1: Long time would you a visit? So it's great that you put us on the list.
00:01:16
Speaker 2: We're through, we're happy.
00:01:17
Speaker 3: In fact, we were just talking about Adelaide. We were driving back from a gig a couple of nights ago. There was quite a few churches there and I said to our tour manager, who's at us, guy in Graham? I said, you know, Adelaide's the city of churches. And Graham didn't know that. I think he should have because he'd lived there for two years.
00:01:37
Speaker 2: But yeah, beautiful spot.
00:01:39
Speaker 1: Well what I'm thinking, what a show this will be, Russell, You have such a catalog of songs. I'm going to speak to whoever we need to. Let's drop the curfew, Let's just keep your playing. You play as long as you like, you play as many songs as you want.
00:01:52
Speaker 2: If you can fix that, we're more than happy to indulge, that's for sure.
00:01:56
Speaker 1: Lost in Love, Australia, October nineteen seven, six top of the charts, Song of the year, seven consecutive top fives. You equal the Beatles. You can't have predicted that success, can you, Russell? Was it just a joy seeing it every day?
00:02:12
Speaker 3: Certainly no one could have predicted that. I still remember seeing interviews with John Lennon in probably sixty four and him saying we might be gone tomorrow. You never know. Of course they were gone five years later. That would be ridiculous for anybody to say I'm going to be going on stage in fifty years time. We thought we'd probably be good in Australia for a couple of years, maybe certainly, never realizing what was about to happen to us after Lost in Love was released. But you know, we've and I think one of the a little bit sad for me is that we never really got to enjoy the experience because we were on the road for ten months a year, and most of that was done on a tour bus or tour buses. And I remember people you know, we used to work for us, would be on the bus. We'd get on after the show and go to the next town and somebody say, even though I say bed as number five and now, oh, that's good.
00:03:10
Speaker 2: Can you get me a beer? You know, it just all went.
00:03:13
Speaker 3: By so quickly, and I'm sad that we didn't have a chance to stop and you know, smell the roses then. But hey, I mean, I love my life. As I've said, I love my job. I don't like a lot of stuff around it anymore, travel and hotels and cancelations and stuff like that. But you know, we've to get home. Yesterday we left a hotel in wherever it was at three o'clock in the morning. Two flights, you know, to get home. When we're overseas, it's usually two flights to get to the next place, and sometimes it's not till late in the afternoon.
00:03:50
Speaker 2: You have to play that night.
00:03:52
Speaker 3: And I feel really sorry for our crew because they work their asses off to make it all happen. But you know, it's a tough life. But hey, it's we decided that's what we do. And you know, if I didn't want to do it, I wouldn't be doing it.
00:04:05
Speaker 1: I mean, well, hopefully you get to enjoy the victory lap now, because I think about the forty million plus albums, how many people have music, how many people love your music? And Russell how many people have been conceived to your music. You imagine they might be an attendance, Russell, them and their parents.
00:04:23
Speaker 3: I wish I had a dollar for every one of them. I wouldn't be talking to you. I'll be sitting on the beach in Monte Carlo.
00:04:31
Speaker 1: Can you imagine? You know the sliding doors, and we're thankful in life, We're thankful in music. You and Graham you meet on the twelfth of May nineteen seventy five for Jesus Christ Superstar. Imagine if that doesn't happen, Russell, imagine if we never get the magic of the last fifty years.
00:04:48
Speaker 3: You know, it's staggering. I didn't intend to be in music at all. Before an audition for Superstar. I was working in an office for a computer's company in Sydney and I was kind of made aware of a by a newspaper article for auditioning for singers in Melbourne for Superstar. And I was kind of nagged into going down there and not knowing what to expect, because I you know, i'd sung a couple of songs with a band when I was sixteen, when.
00:05:17
Speaker 2: I played drums, but and I was so naive.
00:05:20
Speaker 3: I got off the tram because I took a tram into the to the city. I went to a Brashes music store, it's called I went to a sheet music section, picked out Bridge over Trouble Waters, and I thought, I'll give this the ghost. I didn't know if it was in the right key for me or anything. So by the time I got to sing the song, I remember they had an upright piano for the guy to play a company, so I had to hang on at the piano because I was so scared.
00:05:47
Speaker 2: My knees were shaken and had them, you know, uncontrollable vibrato.
00:05:52
Speaker 3: But anyway, they called me back a couple of times. But you know, I got the call, would you like to be in the show for a couple of years? And of course met Graham on the first day, and he the first day of rehearses was actually not singing. It was like the choreography and we were doing what we thought we were dancing.
00:06:12
Speaker 2: We couldn't dance, say anything.
00:06:15
Speaker 3: So he fell over and he's six foot five, and three or four of us went and grabbed him and took him backstage and put his ankle in hot water and cold water. Blah blah, blah, So you know, that's when I actually met him, and then we talked after that and I found out he was from England, big Beatles fan, stayed working class families, didn't have a car, didn't parents, never owned a house. We had so much in common, but it was the Beatles connection that really cemented our relationship.
00:06:45
Speaker 2: And we started singing together maybe a month after I met him, and he was the guy and still is. He was the drive.
00:06:53
Speaker 3: To make it all happen because he kept saying, We're going to be ready when the show ends. We didn't know when that's going to be. Could be a month, could be six months. Was fortunately is for two years. But by the time the show had ended, we'd recorded the album in Australia with Love and Other Bruises on it. It was released, it was a big hit, obviously, and on the strength of that success, we were asked by Rod Stewart's management to open for Ride for three shows in Australia, which we gladly did, and then Rod asked us if we looked open for him all across North America in Canada in seventy seven, which we also did four months on the road with him, and we came back to Australia thinking would be the conquering heroes.
00:07:30
Speaker 2: But that wasn't to be.
00:07:32
Speaker 3: So we couldn't get as I've just said, we couldn't get arrested. I think there were seven guys in the band and we were getting offered two hundred dollars a night to play. So you do the math and it's not going to work. So Graham went to Adelaide to write some songs. I went and stayed with my sister and he called me a little bit, maybe two or three weeks after he went there instead of written some songs, come over and the first time he played me was lost in love. Guitar and voice and situing, that's a hit song. That's a hit song, or you know, I'll quit. So that was the hit song that you know, became huge in Australia, then two years later in.
00:08:10
Speaker 2: The US and then magic happens. Magic happened fifty years.
00:08:15
Speaker 1: It's your sound, it's the friendliness of radio play. It's musical lighting in a bottle. And you've got the Aria Hall of Fame, and you've got the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and you've got awards coming out. You Arezo and that's all nice, Russell, that is all nice, But I know that it's all about your live shows. And I saw you close to six thousand now, like you must just love getting out on stage getting that immediate feedback from your fans.
00:08:39
Speaker 2: Well, well we do.
00:08:40
Speaker 3: I've said this in the past a lot too, that when somebody buys a recording or streams it these days, you don't get to see how they feel about it, you know. But when you play a concert and you start a song that's been played twenty thirty million times or one hundred million times on radio, and you see how that affects that person. Because I usually trade on two or three people before when the show starts.
00:09:03
Speaker 2: To see what they're feeling.
00:09:05
Speaker 3: Is just it's mind blowing and so emotional for me and Graham as well. And you think, wow, this song, it's three chords, simple words, played very well. This has made a difference to this person's life and that person's life, in those people's lives, and you know, we just played a show.
00:09:26
Speaker 2: In Nashville at the Rhyman Theater, very famous.
00:09:31
Speaker 3: Then you Alms played there and you know, Johnny Cash and everybody, and it's not a big venue. I think it was twenty five hundred people, but they sang from start to finish, and after the show that our sound front of house sound guys said the audience was singing fifteen decibels above the front of house level. Really, that's twenty five hundred people. Not one person wasn't standing or wasn't singing, So you know, well, yeah, the music has affected everybody, including us, because we're lucky enough to get to played every night that we go on stage, and no matter what the hussle's been during the day, travel, hotels, cancelations, you know, tiredness. As soon as the houselights go down and you hear that response from the audience, it's time to go, and we go.
00:10:22
Speaker 1: That is what it's all about, seeing the band that you love, hearing the songs that you love, and being part of a community. We are honored to have you coming back to see us here in Adelaide. Cheers Graham Russell. Russell Hitchcock Air supply the Lost in Love Experienced folks Thursday, the tenth of December. It's aid the Entertainment Center. Tickets are available now via tike tech. Russell, thanks so much. I mean, you're such a legend. Thank you for your time.
00:10:45
Speaker 3: Absolutely mate, thank you so much for your time and we'll see you in a couple of months and just safe.
00:10:51
Speaker 1: Cannot wait see you in December. Thanks so much, Russell. Cheers mate, the Legend Russell. Hitchcock Air supply my guess.
Speaker 1: Well, it has been all too long, but the Magnificent Air Supply are returning to Adelaide to perform their all time classic hits. It's part of the fifty years of music the Lost in Love Experience here at the Entertainment Center on Thursday, the tenth of December. Think Love Another Bruises, All out of Love, the One that You Love, and of course Lost in Love, just to name a few. The great Russell Hitchcolt Russell, welcome, thank you for coming back.
00:00:24
Speaker 2: How we're going to top that introduction?
00:00:27
Speaker 1: That's a lot of love, Russell. You're going to feel that in the room when you return too.
00:00:31
Speaker 2: Well, let's hope. So we're actually working on it.
00:00:33
Speaker 3: So it's funny when you put all the love love love songs together we get a lot of We used to get a lot of flack about love being in the title, and I hope used to say to people, look at the Beatles, all that of love. You know, love love me do love it. Love makes the world go around.
00:00:50
Speaker 1: You know, I was doing the mass Russell. I think the last time we saw you in Adelaide was ten years ago thebby for your fortieth.
00:00:59
Speaker 3: Wow been you know, I don't remember anything these days because I don't. He could ask me where I was last week and I couldn't tell you. It's not a clinical thing. It's just one of my things. I've never had a good memory.
00:01:11
Speaker 2: So yes, well it's a.
00:01:13
Speaker 1: Long time would you a visit? So it's great that you put us on the list.
00:01:16
Speaker 2: We're through, we're happy.
00:01:17
Speaker 3: In fact, we were just talking about Adelaide. We were driving back from a gig a couple of nights ago. There was quite a few churches there and I said to our tour manager, who's at us, guy in Graham? I said, you know, Adelaide's the city of churches. And Graham didn't know that. I think he should have because he'd lived there for two years.
00:01:37
Speaker 2: But yeah, beautiful spot.
00:01:39
Speaker 1: Well what I'm thinking, what a show this will be, Russell, You have such a catalog of songs. I'm going to speak to whoever we need to. Let's drop the curfew, Let's just keep your playing. You play as long as you like, you play as many songs as you want.
00:01:52
Speaker 2: If you can fix that, we're more than happy to indulge, that's for sure.
00:01:56
Speaker 1: Lost in Love, Australia, October nineteen seven, six top of the charts, Song of the year, seven consecutive top fives. You equal the Beatles. You can't have predicted that success, can you, Russell? Was it just a joy seeing it every day?
00:02:12
Speaker 3: Certainly no one could have predicted that. I still remember seeing interviews with John Lennon in probably sixty four and him saying we might be gone tomorrow. You never know. Of course they were gone five years later. That would be ridiculous for anybody to say I'm going to be going on stage in fifty years time. We thought we'd probably be good in Australia for a couple of years, maybe certainly, never realizing what was about to happen to us after Lost in Love was released. But you know, we've and I think one of the a little bit sad for me is that we never really got to enjoy the experience because we were on the road for ten months a year, and most of that was done on a tour bus or tour buses. And I remember people you know, we used to work for us, would be on the bus. We'd get on after the show and go to the next town and somebody say, even though I say bed as number five and now, oh, that's good.
00:03:10
Speaker 2: Can you get me a beer? You know, it just all went.
00:03:13
Speaker 3: By so quickly, and I'm sad that we didn't have a chance to stop and you know, smell the roses then. But hey, I mean, I love my life. As I've said, I love my job. I don't like a lot of stuff around it anymore, travel and hotels and cancelations and stuff like that. But you know, we've to get home. Yesterday we left a hotel in wherever it was at three o'clock in the morning. Two flights, you know, to get home. When we're overseas, it's usually two flights to get to the next place, and sometimes it's not till late in the afternoon.
00:03:50
Speaker 2: You have to play that night.
00:03:52
Speaker 3: And I feel really sorry for our crew because they work their asses off to make it all happen. But you know, it's a tough life. But hey, it's we decided that's what we do. And you know, if I didn't want to do it, I wouldn't be doing it.
00:04:05
Speaker 1: I mean, well, hopefully you get to enjoy the victory lap now, because I think about the forty million plus albums, how many people have music, how many people love your music? And Russell how many people have been conceived to your music. You imagine they might be an attendance, Russell, them and their parents.
00:04:23
Speaker 3: I wish I had a dollar for every one of them. I wouldn't be talking to you. I'll be sitting on the beach in Monte Carlo.
00:04:31
Speaker 1: Can you imagine? You know the sliding doors, and we're thankful in life, We're thankful in music. You and Graham you meet on the twelfth of May nineteen seventy five for Jesus Christ Superstar. Imagine if that doesn't happen, Russell, imagine if we never get the magic of the last fifty years.
00:04:48
Speaker 3: You know, it's staggering. I didn't intend to be in music at all. Before an audition for Superstar. I was working in an office for a computer's company in Sydney and I was kind of made aware of a by a newspaper article for auditioning for singers in Melbourne for Superstar. And I was kind of nagged into going down there and not knowing what to expect, because I you know, i'd sung a couple of songs with a band when I was sixteen, when.
00:05:17
Speaker 2: I played drums, but and I was so naive.
00:05:20
Speaker 3: I got off the tram because I took a tram into the to the city. I went to a Brashes music store, it's called I went to a sheet music section, picked out Bridge over Trouble Waters, and I thought, I'll give this the ghost. I didn't know if it was in the right key for me or anything. So by the time I got to sing the song, I remember they had an upright piano for the guy to play a company, so I had to hang on at the piano because I was so scared.
00:05:47
Speaker 2: My knees were shaken and had them, you know, uncontrollable vibrato.
00:05:52
Speaker 3: But anyway, they called me back a couple of times. But you know, I got the call, would you like to be in the show for a couple of years? And of course met Graham on the first day, and he the first day of rehearses was actually not singing. It was like the choreography and we were doing what we thought we were dancing.
00:06:12
Speaker 2: We couldn't dance, say anything.
00:06:15
Speaker 3: So he fell over and he's six foot five, and three or four of us went and grabbed him and took him backstage and put his ankle in hot water and cold water. Blah blah, blah, So you know, that's when I actually met him, and then we talked after that and I found out he was from England, big Beatles fan, stayed working class families, didn't have a car, didn't parents, never owned a house. We had so much in common, but it was the Beatles connection that really cemented our relationship.
00:06:45
Speaker 2: And we started singing together maybe a month after I met him, and he was the guy and still is. He was the drive.
00:06:53
Speaker 3: To make it all happen because he kept saying, We're going to be ready when the show ends. We didn't know when that's going to be. Could be a month, could be six months. Was fortunately is for two years. But by the time the show had ended, we'd recorded the album in Australia with Love and Other Bruises on it. It was released, it was a big hit, obviously, and on the strength of that success, we were asked by Rod Stewart's management to open for Ride for three shows in Australia, which we gladly did, and then Rod asked us if we looked open for him all across North America in Canada in seventy seven, which we also did four months on the road with him, and we came back to Australia thinking would be the conquering heroes.
00:07:30
Speaker 2: But that wasn't to be.
00:07:32
Speaker 3: So we couldn't get as I've just said, we couldn't get arrested. I think there were seven guys in the band and we were getting offered two hundred dollars a night to play. So you do the math and it's not going to work. So Graham went to Adelaide to write some songs. I went and stayed with my sister and he called me a little bit, maybe two or three weeks after he went there instead of written some songs, come over and the first time he played me was lost in love. Guitar and voice and situing, that's a hit song. That's a hit song, or you know, I'll quit. So that was the hit song that you know, became huge in Australia, then two years later in.
00:08:10
Speaker 2: The US and then magic happens. Magic happened fifty years.
00:08:15
Speaker 1: It's your sound, it's the friendliness of radio play. It's musical lighting in a bottle. And you've got the Aria Hall of Fame, and you've got the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and you've got awards coming out. You Arezo and that's all nice, Russell, that is all nice, But I know that it's all about your live shows. And I saw you close to six thousand now, like you must just love getting out on stage getting that immediate feedback from your fans.
00:08:39
Speaker 2: Well, well we do.
00:08:40
Speaker 3: I've said this in the past a lot too, that when somebody buys a recording or streams it these days, you don't get to see how they feel about it, you know. But when you play a concert and you start a song that's been played twenty thirty million times or one hundred million times on radio, and you see how that affects that person. Because I usually trade on two or three people before when the show starts.
00:09:03
Speaker 2: To see what they're feeling.
00:09:05
Speaker 3: Is just it's mind blowing and so emotional for me and Graham as well. And you think, wow, this song, it's three chords, simple words, played very well. This has made a difference to this person's life and that person's life, in those people's lives, and you know, we just played a show.
00:09:26
Speaker 2: In Nashville at the Rhyman Theater, very famous.
00:09:31
Speaker 3: Then you Alms played there and you know, Johnny Cash and everybody, and it's not a big venue. I think it was twenty five hundred people, but they sang from start to finish, and after the show that our sound front of house sound guys said the audience was singing fifteen decibels above the front of house level. Really, that's twenty five hundred people. Not one person wasn't standing or wasn't singing, So you know, well, yeah, the music has affected everybody, including us, because we're lucky enough to get to played every night that we go on stage, and no matter what the hussle's been during the day, travel, hotels, cancelations, you know, tiredness. As soon as the houselights go down and you hear that response from the audience, it's time to go, and we go.
00:10:22
Speaker 1: That is what it's all about, seeing the band that you love, hearing the songs that you love, and being part of a community. We are honored to have you coming back to see us here in Adelaide. Cheers Graham Russell. Russell Hitchcock Air supply the Lost in Love Experienced folks Thursday, the tenth of December. It's aid the Entertainment Center. Tickets are available now via tike tech. Russell, thanks so much. I mean, you're such a legend. Thank you for your time.
00:10:45
Speaker 3: Absolutely mate, thank you so much for your time and we'll see you in a couple of months and just safe.
00:10:51
Speaker 1: Cannot wait see you in December. Thanks so much, Russell. Cheers mate, the Legend Russell. Hitchcock Air supply my guess.
