Spiderbait legend Kram and one of Melbourne’s best roots artists Ash Grunwald have teamed up as KRASH to support Park Rangers across the globe. We got the chance to ctach up with Krash and Sean Willmore from The Thin Green Line Foundation before tonight's gig at the Prince Bandroom in Melbourne
How did the opportunity to support The Thin Green Line come about?
Ash: I’ve known Sean for a couple of years, and caught up with him at Bluesfest, and he told me a little more about everything that they do and I saw it as a great opportunity to help out rangers around the world and the Thin Green Line.
Because you are both such successful artists, has using that notoriety to aid charities and foundations become an important aspect to your career you didn’t really expect?
We’ve always seen it as an honour to be able to help out using our music, and we’ll surely do much more to help out with Krash. It’s early days for Krash and this is amongst the first gigs that we’ve done, and the higher the profile we have, the more opportunity there is to help people out.
You are both musical forces to be reckoned with individually, what can audiences expect from the Krash double-threat?
It takes us both into new musical realms and the show is very dynamic. We go to the very trippy levels, doing soundscapes, and then to the other extreme, rocking out with a blues/swamp kind of sound, extending even further sometimes it goes heavier than that. A big part of the whole Krash thing is a ‘Krash & co’ element, where we’re planning on jamming with other people, and even having special guests on recordings, so we’ll have different singers, and we’re the band. We’ll be hopefully organising a few special guests at the Thin Green Line show too.
What can Kram and Ash Grunwald fans look forward to from Krash in 2012?
Hopefully an album. We have about 20 songs mostly done, but nothing fully recorded yet, so it’d be great to have a release out next year, but both Ash & Spiderbait will have releases out as well, so its going to be a juggling act. Just trying to do as many shows as we can.
Finally, if Krash were an animal, what animal would you be?!
A surly old grizzly bear, or an old silverbacked Gorilla – sleepy, loose, seemingly not with it and able to be occasionally dangerous and ferocious, but often docile.
Sean Willmore
Being a Park Ranger is an occupation that seems to go unappreciated and somewhat unheard of amongst the masses, what was the motivation behind starting The Thin Green Line?
I was a Park Ranger and I met rangers form all over the world at a congress in 2003b and was inspired by their passion, commitment and stories, and shocked by 20 cm machete wounds across the head and bullet holes. I then realised the scale at which rangers were being killed and the lack of support for rangers in the field and their families if they were killed. Something just clicked and I knew I had to do something about it. The film and the foundation were then conceived and born
You mentioned that music has been a big part of the foundation and it’s fundraising, can we expect gigs such as this to be a regular occurrence?
Definitely. We’ve already had a music festival, and every event we’ve had over the 5 years has included great music. We’ve had people like Xavier Rudd, Nicky Bomba, John Butler, Gotye, Archie Roach, Shane Howard, Mia Dyson, Blue king Brown, Ben Harper and others get involved by either giving music, acting as ambassadors or actually playing at an event. Music is way of bringing people together , raising awareness and a sense of community, without beating people over the head about a serious issue. It also helps to keep it mentally manageable for me! We aim to do four music events per year plus our annual dinner. The next one after Krash will be all female artists and we’ll call it mothers of Nature or something corney like that! But at the moment I just cant wait to hear the guys on Saturday night- its going to go off!
The Thin Green Line reaches across many countries, have there been similar gigs and events happening around the globe?
Yeah. When we released the film we had 315 premieres simultaneously in 35 countries including Kazikstan! Also when we had the Thin green Line Festival we had over 30 satellite events organised by grassroots community groups. Theres a big one planned for next year and the year after!
What is next for The Thin Green Line in 2012?
Raising more support, more awareness and giving more support to hopefully another 100 ranger families aswell as our proactive conservation projects. Unfortunately the list of rangers being killed keeps growing and another 100 rangers will be have been killed this year. So our work continues and with each family we support and each project we implement, it might not change the whole world, but for those rangers and their families the world has changed for the better.
Finally, a question that is somewhat fitting, if The Thin Green Line were an animal what would it be?!
Good one- Maybe an OTTER, small but agile, quick to respond, Like s to play , but serious at times..and enjoys community!
Lauren Young - AAA Backstage
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