By MICHELLE HERBISON
JOE Camilleri loves playing golf in the company of kangaroos at Anglesea Golf Course, even if the creatures do seem a bit judgmental of his technique.
“They always look at me as if to say, ‘Is that all you got, really?’” he laughed.
“Every time you play on a course with roos they’ve got that beautiful mosey-ness, like a stress-free concept. I’m a big fan of that.”
Camilleri will launch Roo Twilights, a new series of music at Anglesea Golf Club, on 19 and 20 July.
He plans to perform with a trio sans drums, leaving plenty of space to play both new material and old favourites in a stripped-down style.
“I think what’s really nice about doing a gig like that is if people haven’t seen you for a long time they get to see a slightly different version of what it is that you do,” he said.
“I get a chance to play the songs that became very popular for me in a certain way without the embellishments – without the fairy dust bits. It’s like a lounge-room performance.”
The former Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons frontman has continued to play with The Black Sorrows since 1983, now as the sole founding member of a transient line-up.
Camilleri said he had changed his focus in recent years, continuing on a journey of constantly improving and redefining his work.
“If people love their job, they cull things and try to create, like no longer being on the radio in my case, no longer being in TV.
“I never was a celebrity and I never want to be one. It’s easy to let all that go because it’s about the music.”
But working as a musician required real commitment to writing songs, creating arrangements, making records and promoting them, he added.
“You’ve got to be the used car salesman out the front trying to sell them stuff. You want them to go home and listen because you can’t get on the radio anymore.”
Camilleri spoke to the Independent amid recording “a fistful of really good songs” for a new double album he hoped to release around October.
