Jade Lane catches up with Peter Renzullo to talk about his brand new show ‘CLOSE TO NOWHERE’. A weekly radio show streamed live across the UK and the world focused on highlighting local West Australian music.

Prior to presenting Perth Music to a UK audience, you released an 18 track compilation record of Grass Roots music from Perth. What is it about Grass Roots music that draws you in?

I really enjoy hearing music stripped back to all its raw glory, and I really think the only kind of music that gives you that feeling is grass roots music.  There’s nothing in the way of the song-writing, no over produced backing to the lyrics and clear messages since the music is born out of personal experience.  Don’t get me wrong, I love electronic and dance music too (In fact I produce a segment on my show which is almost entirely electronic driven music) but I just enjoy the fact that I can go to a bar somewhere around town and come across an artist I’ve never heard of singing about something I know all too well.

The record ‘Folklore’ released through your label SCUDLEY RECORDS, received interest from UK Radio Presenter Justin Wayne and you were contracted to do a half hour radio show for Recharged Radio (UK). The half hour slot called ‘The Scudley Sessions with Peter Renzullo’ allowed you to interview local artists and have them perform live to a broad audience. How was this received by the public and What bands featured in the show?

In the UK it got a great reception.  Listeners to Recharged Radio subscribed to the Scudley Sessions and have left very encouraging comments about the show.  I guess with anything new it takes a good while before people take notice, which is something I was totally aware of before doing the show, so I was under no Illusions of immediate success, but the response has been surprisingly good!  And for the grass-roots artists who could get an entire half-hour episode dedicated to them and their music, I got a huge amount of support, and I’m so glad they could get this exposure in the UK, something that a lot of them had never dreamed of.  I’ve interviewed artists such as Heath Marshall, Helen Shanahan, Pins & Ladles, and heaps more, all of which are doing really great things now.  In fact Heath has just returned from a festival tour in China and is about to embark on a national tour here in Australia.

Following this, you were offered a 1 hour segment entiteled ‘Close to Nowhere’ in which you had free reign to bring music from the isolated city of Perth, across the globe. The show features 3 interactive segments, the first, YOUTRIVIA gets audiences involved by having them answer questions about clips of live performances from local bands that you have recorded and put on Youtube. What sort of effects has having audience interaction had on the shows ratings? Do you think that local bands have seen a rise in overseas following based on the availability of clips and music to a wider audience?

It’s still early days, but this segment has been hugely beneficial for artists getting hits on YouTube and consequently myspace and facebook.  Artists such as Terri Eggie, who I’m currently producing an album with, has received 100’s of hits on YouTube because of my inclusion of YouTrivia, and in turn the listeners who have done this also tell their friends about it and the cycle continues.  So it’s a great way to generate a bit of buzz around an unknown (at least for now!) artist.  I’ve got a whole bunch more to put up on YouTube in the coning weeks so if you go to the ScudleyRecords channel on YouTube you’ll be able to see what is already up there.

In the segment PERTH101, you give your listeners interesting facts about Perth. Having had some weird overseas experiences myself, in which I was often asked if we ride Kangaroos to work, What sort of facts are you giving listeners? Do you think that as such an isolated state, we are often missunderstood? What effects do you think this isolation has on local music and how can we try to break that barrier?

Surprisingly I am actually learning a lot about Perth myself by researching things about this city, and I’ve lived here all my life!  I give them a brief history about the founding of Perth way back in the day and the cool facts surrounding that time.  Also trivia things like Mt. Augustus up in Canarvon is actually the largest rock in the world, at least twice the size of Uluru, but for some reason Uluru was mistakenly given that honour – I never knew that!  I tell them about the fact that right here in WA we had whaling up until the 1970’s, and how Rottnest was named because a dutch explorer decided that the Quokkas were actually giant rats, so he called it Rats Nest.  I also venture into the darker parts of Perth’s history and talk about Eric Edgar Cooke who was a serial killer back in the early 60’s.  So there’s always something new to learn about.

The isolation honestly doesn’t have as dramatic an impact as some people would think on the music scene.  Apart from the fact that there are only a handful of venues around Perth that cater for original music, we do alright.  We certainly haven’t got the booming local scene the way cities do in the East Coast, but then that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, at least I don’t think so.  We aren’t constantly competing with each other for bigger and better, we just get on with it and enjoy hearing each other’s music.

My favourite of your ideas is definitely MY CHICKEN PLAYS MUSIC, which is a bizarre and brilliant concept in which you bury a drum in your chicken coop and cover it with feed so you can record the sounds of the chickens tapping. From this, you create an entire song based around the Rhythm of the chickens and broadcast it on the show … Strange as it may seem, I think you might be on to something. What do the listeners think of this segment? What is the process of creating a song around chicken noises? How does this tie in to your idea of bringing a greater understanding of Perth music and do you worry that it isolates us further by making us look … insane? (Personally, I like the idea … But I wonder how it is recieved by people who suspect us of riding Kangaroos).

This is by far everyone’s favourite segment on my show.  The main reason I do it is because it’s a really bizarre concept, but one that will give me an endless creative outlet for producing pretty catchy back ground music.  I actually named my studio SCUDLEY RECORDS after one of my chickens!  It is a strange looking breed called a ‘Punk Rocker’ which has no feathers around it’s neck and has a Mohawk – so reminds me of Sid Vicious from the Sex Pistols.  So I decided to call it Cuddley Sid Vicious – then mixed it all together and ended up with Scudley!  Seems weird but it made sense to me!

I hope this segment DOES make us look INSANE!  Insane but interesting.  I’d hate for Perth to be thought of as a typical coastal town – how uninterestingly common.  Why would we want that when we could be a coastal town that gets chickens to play music and have an island named after Rats – I know where I’d rather live!

The way I get the chickens to play music is to record their pecking sounds on the drum, using a portable recording device.  I then go into the studio and load up the recording so I can find something that sounds like a rhythm.  I then create a drum beat around the pecking sounds, making sure I capture the beat of their pecking precisely, then I build a bass line, fill it with either guitar or electronic melody and chords and there you go!  Top it off by giving it a name such as “Full Clutch” or “Scrambled” and you’ve got yourself a Chicken Plays Music song!

The whole process of recording the show is done from your home studio and sent off for broadcasting across the UK, allowing local bands to really promote themselves to a wider audience and get some recognition for the great talent we have here. The show is great and as we are such an isolated city, it’s really refreshing to see people working tirelessly to help close the musical gap. What can we expect from you in the future? Do you have any more tricks up your sleeve? And last but not least, when and where can we hear this exciting new show?

I appreciate your support of what I’m doing.  I certainly feel that it is a great way for local artists to get their music heard in the UK.   And with shows averaging 1,600 downloads a week at Recharged Radio I am confident that these artists are going to make an impact over there.

I have a few albums on the go, so I’ll be looking to finish producing them and promoting their release, as well as hosting a number of live gigs with the artists who are featured on the show.  And of course to continue churning out these shows each and every week for not only the UK but the rest of the world to hear, since I have subscribers in the U.S.A, Ireland and New Zealand as well.

I am going to run with this opportunity for as long as I can, because it is something I am passionate about and something I feel is well overdue for the artists in this city.

The show is streamed live in the UK through: www.rechargedradio.com each Wednesday night at 7pm (Or 3am our time!)

and then is available for the world to hear at: www.scudleyrecords.com/category/podcasts/close-to-nowhere/

You can also get the show sent straight to you if you go to: feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=CloseToNowhere

ENJOY!!