Classic/Pop Rock

One of this year's biggest rising stars, Running Touch continues to go from strength to strength so we sat down with him at Splendour to get to know him.

Mysterious producer RUNNING TOUCH has seen his musical journey progress leaps and bounds over the past few months. From jumping on the Groovin' The Moo lineup to nabbing a spot at Splendour In The Grass this year, he's concentrating hard on sticking to his guns, and people love him for it.

His unique blend of personal and intimate electronica with dance sensibilities makes for an enthralling experience, whether it be in the club, in your bedroom or at the massive Mix Up Tent at Splendour, and his ability to transcend environments to create an intimate experience for each and every person is one that has seen him acquire a rapidly growing fan base.

With a slew of solid singles behind him, and incredibly promising movements to come, we sat down with him at Splendour this year to get to know him a little better.

Those Pretty Wrongs are Jody Stephens and Luther Russell, two old friends and veterans of the music scene in different ways. Jody was the drummer for the legendary band Big Star and now helps run equally legendary Ardent Studios in Memphis. Luther Russell was the leader of seminal roots-rock band The Freewheelers and is now an acclaimed solo artist and producer.

It was the documentary Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me that brought Jody and Luther together creatively, when Jody asked Luther to join him for some promo performances. A chemistry was immediately noticed. They began writing songs and performing them whenever possible, soon taking their name from the opening line of Shakespeare Sonnet 41, which they slipped into one of their first collaborations, “Fool Of Myself”. They released the first track they cut in Memphis, “Lucky Guy”, with “Fool Of Myself” as the flip side. There was an outpouring of support for the new music, which gave Jody and Luther the confidence to move forward.

Those Pretty Wrongs was tracked entirely to 2” tape at Ardent Studios in Memphis, using much of the old Big Star gear, including Jody’s original kit from Radio City and Third and Chris Bell’s acoustic and electric guitars from #1 Record. The album was mixed by Luther Russell and Jason Hiller at Hiller’s Electrosound Studios in Los Angeles, CA. Jody is way out in front on this release--really for the first time ever--taking all lead vocals and co-writing all of the songs with Luther. Through the words on this record Jody opens up about his life, which has been well-documented, but not in this very intimate way. Adds Stephens: “For me the lyrics are a walk through day-to-day emotions and experiences."

Luther lives in Los Angeles and Jody in Memphis, so there was a real commitment to finishing these songs and cutting them until they were totally satisfied. Those Pretty Wrongs will be released in May in a unique partnering between the Ardent Music label and Burger Records. No one could be happier than Jody and Luther, who feel that this keeps a family-like feeling to the release. “Why stop now”, remarks Luther. “We’ve wanted to keep this thing sounding and feeling personal from the start because it’s extremely personal for both of us.” Just like Luther's handmade collage inside the LP, the record is akin to a series of snapshots: of lives present and past, and fleeting moments of simple joy and reflection.

Olivia Rodrigo, in full Olivia Isabel Rodrigo, (born February 20, 2003, Murrieta, California, U.S.), American singer, songwriter, and actress who first gained popularity with a role on the television show High School Musical: The Musical—The Series (2019–) and who later launched a successful music career.

Rodrigo grew up in Temecula, California. Her father was a family therapist of Filipino heritage, and her mother was a teacher of German and Irish ancestry. Rodrigo began taking singing and acting lessons at an early age and a few years later added piano lessons. About the same time, she started writing songs.

In 2015 Rodrigo won the lead role in the musical Grace Stirs Up Success in the American Girl series of family movies. The next year she was cast as Paige Olvera on the Disney Channel TV show Bizaardvark. The series chronicles the comedic adventures of Paige and her best friend, both of whom hope to become famous by writing songs and creating music videos, which they post on their online channel Bizaardvark. After the show ended in 2019, Rodrigo began starring on Disney’s High School Musical: The Musical—The Series. Building on the success of the movie of the same name (and its two sequels), the TV series follows a group of high-school drama club members as they prepare and stage school performances. Rodrigo wrote and performed the song “All I Want” for a 2019 episode. The following year “Just for a Moment,” which she sang and wrote with costar Joshua Bassett, was also featured on the show.

Olivia Rodrigo
Olivia Rodrigo
Rodrigo continued writing and performing songs. In 2021 she released the single “Drivers License,” which she cowrote. A popular pop ballad about teenage heartbreak, it quickly hit number one on the Billboard Top 100. She became the youngest person at the time to top that chart. The song also broke the Spotify records for the most streams of a non-holiday song in a day (about 17 million) and in a week (almost 66 million). A few months later Rodrigo released “Deja Vu.” She cowrote the pop hit, which debuted at number eight on the Billboard Top 100. She thus became the first singer to have her first two singles debut in the top 10 on that chart. The songs were included on her first album, Sour (2021), which features a blend of pop, folk, and alternative rock influences. The concert movie Olivia Rodrigo: Driving Home 2 U (2022) documents the making of the record. At the Grammy Awards in 2022, Rodrigo won for best new artist, best pop solo performance for “Drivers License,” and best pop vocal album for Sour.

Matt Hadgraft and I met a few years ago when we worked together on the musical The Boy From OZ. Matt is a huge Peter Allen fan. He has created his own Peter Allen cabaret show. He has also created an Elton John tribute show and he was part of an ABBA tribute band that toured Australia. Matt has been involved in community and professional entertainment for a very long time.

So I guess music and performing is a bit more than a hobby for you.
It is it is somewhat. I always wanted to be a film director or have my own sitcom. Something else like that. But as a kid I was a choirboy. Let’s skip forward past all of school to I went to uni at the Queensland Conservatorium. I was astonished to find out how much music I had already learned through the choir. Anyway, music just was so much in my bones that I noticed when it was missing. And I think that’s more how I fell into it as a Korea of sorts. But that said, I never started making any kind of a living out of music until I moved to Melbourne, which is part of the reason I came here because there was so much more going on. I played in an ABBA tribute band, which was easily one of the best summative experiences you can have in such a good way to see Australia because no matter where you land, people know ABBA and they are prepared to get loose screaming a lot

What do you personally get out of performing?
I think you’re dreaming if that’s the reason you go into performing in the first place. But what you get out of performing is it’s a it for me anyway. It’s a special kind of sharing. Because I think audiences have an expectation of what they want to get out of a performance. You’ve got something that you want to share in between the two of you for that hour or hour and a half or whatever, you have this relationship that you just do not get anywhere else. When you when you take on a song or Or when you deep into the narrative of a musical, whatever it is you happen to be doing this, this kind of like this outside raise and everyone else is there and bringing it to life and going through that, you know, bringing it to life as a performer but but also going through that journey. as an audience member, there’s something very special about it, you get to express yourself, people give you that instant validation through applause. You both get to feel the same kind of things. It’s tremendous. And you really build a relationship with whoever you perform to.

Do you feel different in different audiences on different nights?
Yes. Sometimes, if somebody’s sitting there with their arms folded or worse on the phone, you know you’re doomed. You’re going to have a terrible time you may as well just kind of read from the from the book the whole time. Sometimes the audience is in sync with you and they are ready to laugh and they’re just ready to take it all in. Some audiences are more easily pleased than others. I’ve got to say the easily pleased ones you just have the best time because there’s this appreciation that takes over the show.

You’ve been in your own shows you’ve been in cabarets, you’ve been in fringe festivals, what keeps drawing you back to community theatre?
Everyone comes from different walks of life for the same reason. And that’s to bring that show to life and put it on stage. And you get different mixes of abilities, different mixes of nerves, different backgrounds, all sorts of things, but the product draws everyone together and I’ve every single show I’ve ever been in, has just had this special heart to it. You make new friends you. It’s just such a wonderful thing to invest in

Matt, when we met you were Musical Director and I was Production Manager for MLOC’s The Boy From Oz. To say that you’re a Peter Allen fan is a bit of an understatement. What sparked your fascination for all things Peter Allen?

Anyone who’s done The Boy From Oz, I think is on the same page where they didn’t realise just what a magical legacy Peter Allen left. And the further you dig into his past and what he achieved, the more appealing it becomes. When you think of, there’s only a handful of the songs he ever recorded that he didn’t write. But when you consider everything he wrote, he performed and he meant it. He also wrote it in this really cleverly ambiguous way where it speaks to any gender. Anyone who needs to hear the song can hear it and it is validating for them. More people sigh and get wistful at Tenterfield Sadler than any other song. They just absolutely love that. As far as Still Call Australia Home, I mean that brings the house down and everyone knows that and everyone’s prepared to laugh and sing it even though they don’t know a lot of the words. That’s fine. That’s not the point. It’s that song. You know, they crossed from being a novelty into, you know, part of the national lexicon,

It’s a really hard time for a lot of people at the moment including people in the performing arts. How do you think theatre and cabaret and performing is going to change?
There will probably be more of an appetite for something new. I feel like people will have more of an appetite for original ideas, but in equal measure They’ll want to just be entertained. I’ve picture in my mind that once all the restrictions are lifted, the world goes back to normal. There’ll be a flood of people going out lapping up theatre, taking it all in having a wonderful time for about a month and then it will die on back down again and people will renew there all these streaming services that popped up out of the woodwork. I mean, who would have thought you could get 24/7 Disney. Personally, I think that there’s going to be a big appetite for original work

We are friends on social media. Daily push ups? Olivia Newton John? Speedos? Old ladies in church? What’s going on??
If somebody’s posting a video of themselves doing push ups every day it is supposed to raise awareness of it’s supposed to be raising awareness for mental health. But how is somebody doing push ups going to inspire? It doesn’t! That’s the problem. So I tried to make this as entertaining as I can, so that if nothing else, if somebody is having a tough time of it, if they watched the video, they can have two minutes of, of, you know, escape from, from how serious life can get and how the bad cards that we’ve all been dealt lightly. But the old women in churches, they are the masters of those platitudes that make you feel better about themselves. You talk to any old lady in church, you will feel like a superstar by the end of the conversation because they’re like, Oh, that’s nice. Oh, that’s great. You know, I’m not going to do the same video again and again in the media or people aren’t going to watch them It better be worth watching. What people are going to churn out, forget it and what happens to all those people with mental illness