Titan of the Telecaster Redd Volkaert has barely stopped in a career spanning almost fifty years, and he’s bringing that energy back to Australia, where he’ll team up with our own Ray Beadle, writes Samuel J. Fell.
“I’ve always been the guy who never says no to a gig,” says Redd Volkaert, his deep and twangy voice resonating through my speakers on a muggy Tuesday morning. “Somebody calls at eight thirty and says, ‘We’re playing at this shithole starting at nine until three, pays forty bucks, do you want in?’ Oh yeah, yeah! Just for fear of never working again, and I’ve done that all my life.”
This he has – I venture to Volkaert that, since he was a teenager, he’d not have had more than a handful of nights off, to which he laughs, deep and twangy, adding, “Yeah, I think I’m over it now a little bit. So, when I moved here… I finished up in Texas [in 2019], New Year’s Eve was my last thing and I came out here and then covid hit in March, so I instantly had a year and a half off and I thought, well, if I thought of retiring, now’s the time to do it.”
These days, Volkaert runs cows and horses, donkeys and the like in South-West Virginia, but don’t go thinking he’s not playing music anymore. For it would seem, if one were to cast an eye back over his fifty-year career of slinging six strings all about this big ol’ world, that he’d not be able to retire even if he wanted to.
He cut his teeth playing all sorts of music in his native Canada as a teenager (although it was old time country that truly inspired him), moved to LA in the mid- ‘80s and put up his shingle as a gun for hire. He’s lived in Nashville and Austin and has, of course, played with the best of the honky tonk best – George Jones, George Straight, Rhonda Vincent, Dwight Yoakam, Brad Paisley; he was the picker of choice for Merle Haggard’s band from 1997 until Merle died in 2016. His own combo held down the Saturday afternoon residency at legendary Austin venue The Continental for twenty years. He’s the man, the Titan of the Telecaster. He couldn’t stop if he tried.
“About a year and a half ago it was like somebody flipped a switch and everything came back, and I started getting emails and calls for all kinds of great stuff,” he says. “Finland and Switzerland, Norway, different places to play for a couple of weeks then back home to nice, quiet farm life where I’m not waiting by the phone for a call to play that night, so that’s the reason I [moved out here] I guess.”
The second of three children, Volkaert grew up outside of Vancouver in Canada’s British Columbia province, picking up his older brother’s guitar at the age of ten. He learnt to play by ear, jamming with neighbourhood kids and playing with his brother who’d taken up the drums. The big music of the time was, “Zeppelin and Deep Purple, Grand Funk, bands like that,” he remembers, “but my parents had a really good record collection. My dad liked a lot of blues people… and my mother had everything, Les Paul and Mary Ford, she had a Jimmy Bryant ten-inch EP that had ten songs on it, so I just wore that thing out… that was kinda my introduction. She also had Buck Owens and a couple Merle Haggard albums, Waylon Jennings’ first album, Jerry Reed’s first album… so that got me interested in dabbling a tiny bit in each style.”
Volkaert has an insatiable appetite for learning. It’s how he began in music, and it’s what’s kept him at it, always looking to expand his musical knowledge, his sonic repertoire. “When I was thirteen, I ended up playing in a couple of weekend bands… they were country guys, played in the Legions and Elks clubs… kinda like your RSL clubs,” he says. “They were hard country, old school, playing Jim Reed and Buck Owens. So, I really got into that, because it was fun to play with those guys. And it was a real challenge to learn, and as they challenged me with stuff to learn, the more I liked it.”
“At that time, they had to come and get me for the gig then drive me home, because I didn’t drive yet,” he goes on with another laugh, “But when I got my license I started playing more and more, I started filling in… I was living outside of Vancouver, and so I would drive into the city and play with some blues bands, popular radio pop/rock bands, and I took those gigs for the exact same reason – I didn’t know any of the music and I wanted to learn it. So OK, I’ll jump in with both feet.
“And I was still playing with the weekend country bands, and then a couple of road opportunities came up to go out on the road for a week or two with the country band, so I ended up doing that, loving it, thinking, ‘This is what I wanna do!’, so like a dumbass I quit school a year early and went on the road, and I’ve been on the road ever since.”
Where Volkaert will roadtrip next is to Australia, a country he understandably hasn’t been since 2018. “I came probably every year for about seven or eight years [before covid],” he recalls. On this particular trip he’s teaming up with local guitar hero Ray Beadle; dubbed the Guitar Gumbo tour, it takes in a slew of dates through Victoria and New South Wales, Volkaert and Beadle trading licks the whole way, culminating in a stop at Studio 301 in Sydney, where the pair will lay down a live record in front of a small audience.
“I’d just like to capture a bit of chemistry that can be made when two guitar players are genuinely having a great time,” is Beadle’s pithy modus operandi on this record. The pair have never met – the tour being organised by Karl Bergersen and manager Geoff Trio – but for Beadle it was an opportunity to be jumped at. “I’ve only dreamt of meeting Redd, let alone being able to play along-side him,” he says. “A friend of mine… introduced me to Redd’s guitar prowess long ago. I remember first hearing him and feeling excited and inspired, I hear a lot of personality in his playing. I was lucky enough to be approached [for this tour] so I jumped at the chance. “
For Volkaert, it’s another chance to hit that never-ending road, continuing his career into its sixth decade. “Oh yeah, this last year I’ve been busy as hell,” he smiles. “This summer gone I’ve been playing with a western swing band from Fort Worth called the Western Flyers, kind of a cowboy swing band; we did a tour out west for about a few weeks, then I flew home and drove to Maine and played a few weeks up there, then back home then I flew to Finland for a week… just always something, I’m off for a few weeks then home for a few weeks.
“Last week I was in Louisiana with Bill Kirchen, we do a duo a bit, so I work with him, and I work with a guy called Robbie Fulks, we do a duo, or a band and another fella named Dallas Wayne, he’s a singer. He lives about two hours from me, so we do some duo stuff there. So, I’ve still got my fingers in a bunch of different situations, which isn’t just all my trio or whatever.”
On the upcoming Australian run, Volkaert is blissfully ignorant on how it’ll all pan out, but it’s something he’s taking to with his usual gusto – keen to learn, to jump in with both feet. “No, I’ve not met [Ray] yet,” he laughs. “It’s gonna be a treat though, he’s awesome, I’m looking forward to it, it’ll be really fun to do it with him.” As Beadle says of Volkaert, “Redd is able to slot in with anyone in the world,” so there’s little doubt, as Redd Volkaert keeps on keeping on, that this’ll work out just fine – there’s no saying no to that.
Redd Volkaert and Ray Beadle are touring through February 2023.
WEDNESDAY 1ST FEBRUARY – THE BAROQUE ROOM – KATOOMBA, BLUE MOUNTAINS NSW
www.thecarrington.com.au/baroque
Tickets: https://tickets.oztix.com.au/outlet/event/52251bf3-f47e-4d7d-872b-b1c48355f0f8
THURSDAY 2ND FEBRUARY – ROYAL HOTEL – QUEENBEYAN NSW
www.royalhotelqbn.com.au
Tickets: https://royalhotelqueanbeyan.oztix.com.au/outlet/event/1912c114-0a3d-4d75-ae56-4ae60085a4c4?Event=155940
FRIDAY 3rd FEBRUARY – ZIGGY POPS – ST KILDA VIC
www.newmarketstkilda.com.au/ziggy-pops
Tickets: https://ziggypops.oztix.com.au/outlet/event/03e9a4f1-a6ed-4ff8-b0b1-ead8034c16ad
SATURDAY 4th FEBRUARY – CARAVAN CLUB / ARCHIES CREEK HOTEL – ARCHIES CREEK VIC
www.caravanmusic.com.au
Tickets: www.caravanmusic.com.au
SUNDAY 5th FEBRUARY – BRUNSWICK BALLROOM – BRUNSWICK VIC
www.brunswickballroom.com.au
Tickets: https://moshtix.com.au/v2/event/redd-volkaert-usa-ray-beadle/146852
WEDNESDAY 8th FEBRUARY – STUDIO 301 – BOTANY NSW
www.studios301.com
Tickets: https://tickets.oztix.com.au/outlet/event/6c7f6956-d495-4539-897d-1d2398d165af
THURSDAY 9th FEBRUARY – STAG & HUNTER – NEWCASTLE NSW
www.stagandhunter.com.au
Tickets: https://stagandhunter.oztix.com.au/outlet/event/510c627c-87a8-46e9-8dfe-dbec9a38993c
FRIDAY 10th FEBRUARY – BRASS MONKEY – CRONULLA NSW
www.brassmonkey.com.au
Tickets: https://brassmonkey.oztix.com.au/outlet/event/5a02314b-9ad7-4a13-a2e3-f62548fc512b
SATURDAY 11th FEBRUARY – THE GREAT CLUB – MARRICKVILLE NSW
www.thegreatclubsydney.com
Tickets: https://musicboozeco.oztix.com.au/outlet/event/75dde03b-d880-4959-9756-62d4e1ebc719
SUNDAY 12th FEBRUARY – MILTON THEATRE – MILTON NSW
www.miltontheatre.com.au
Tickets: https://www.stickytickets.com.au/ty8cn