I don’t really feel like it’s me and the audience. “ That’s sort of the blanket that seems to sort of settle in the room, or on the venue when I play, but I sort of feel not solely responsible. “ It’s all about peace and happiness,” he says of his performances. “ What I do now is just more me,” he says. Though it was a short- lived experiment, as Rudd quickly found that it wasn't the right way to go for him. He drew inspiration from artists such as Leo Kottke, Ben Harper, Natalie Merchant and multi-instrumentalist David Lindley, as well as music from diverse sources, such as Hawaii and Native American music.Īs with most solo artists, Rudd has experimented playing in a band. He started performing at his school, with solo gigs following. But to see that show and that whole thing happening, I sort of felt comfortable as a human, and thought.” He learned to play the digeridoo, the 50,000-year-old wooden trumpet of the Aboriginal people, by practising on a vacuum cleaner pipe.Īs a teenager, Rudd really got into songwriting. It sort of made sense, because I’d always lived in my head, in this world of song that was my own little secret. “ I remember seeing it and knowing that that was what I was gonna do,” he says. Rudd recalls that when he was 10, his dad took him to see Paul Simon’s Graceland tour. But the real magic comes when he opens his mouth and his soulful voice spills upon his audience. It's an experience to watch him perform his songs live, as he plays the guitar, digeridoo and various percussion instruments simultaneously, using a unique stage setup.
Rudd is skilled with a variety of instruments, include guitar, shaker, didgeridoo, Weissenborn slide guitar, Tongue drum, stomp boxe, djembe, harmonica, ankle bells, and slide banjo. The songs are written and sung with compassion and they urge the celebration of life.
His songs include stories of the mistreatment of the indigenous people of his homeland they tell of humanity, spirituality or the environment.
Rudd's music is compassionate and always manages to render emotion in his fans. In 2004, Rudd released Solace, his first album to be distributed by a major label. He also played saxophone and clarinet as a child.īefore launching his solo career, Rudd began playing music as part of the band 'Xavier and the Hum'. While primary school-aged, Rudd used his mother's vacuum cleaner as a makeshift didgeridoo and he began playing his brother's guitar. Growing up in a family of seven children in Torquay, Victoria (Australia), near the famous surfing location Bells Beach, Rudd showed a keen interest in music. He recorded as Xavier Rudd & Izintaba for the 2010 album "Koonyum Sun" and as Xavier Rudd & the United Nations for the 2017 album "Nanna". Xavier Rudd (born ) is a soulful Australian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose songs encompass themes such as spirituality, humanity, environmentalism and the rights of Indigenous Australians.