Country-flavoured troubadour MATT ELLIS tells ADRIAN POTTS that his decision to move from Sydney to the sun, sand and grime of LA’s Venice Beach was one that came easily.

Venice Beach in LA is famed for its palm trees, rollerbladers and buffed bodies. It’s not the sort of place you’d imagine being home to country-tinged troubadour Matt Ellis after listening to the mellow and sometimes melancholy songs from his new album, Tell The People. However, Ellis says that the postcard image of Venice Beach belies a much more cosmopolitan, and sometimes grimier, edge.

“Yeah, although it’s been cleaning its act up in the last few years,” says Ellis from his LA home. “It’s not what it used to be in the ‘60s and ‘70s, that’s for sure. The artists that live here now seem to be making a bit of money so they’re cleaning up the streets a bit. It’s got a great atmosphere, it’s kinda like if you could imagine Bondi, Byron Bay, Kings Cross and St Kilda all mixed into one.”

Shifting bases is something that Ellis has been doing all his life. Growing up, the singer/songwriter lived everywhere from New Zealand to Australia to Hong Kong. It’s perhaps not surprising then that the decision to relocate to America in 2005 was one that came quite naturally for Ellis.

“I had booked 30 or 40 acoustic dates across Canada and the States promoting my second album and that just kinda kept rolling – I had a lot of momentum and gigs kept coming my way,” he says. “Then I set up camp at a friend’s place in LA and met some great musicians and got a band together and everything fell into place without too much effort. It was just one of those things that I just couldn’t say no to.”

Re-establishing himself Ellis sought the assistance of his drummer and close friend, Brendan Harper, to not only produce his latest album but to help cobble together a workable backing-band. The resultant record, Tell The People, sees Ellis hanging up his electric guitar to focus on more pared-down arrangements that are closer to Neil Young than the hard-rock outfit Sedgwick Pie that he fronted in the ‘90s.

“There’re a lot more acoustic instruments than before – there’s a lot more upright bass, mandolin, lap steel, pedal steel and all that – so in that way it’s a little mellower. There are less loud electric guitars even though I’ve always been an acoustic singer/songwriter and I’ve always written with an acoustic guitar, that’s always been in the mix but I guess with this album it’s a bit more upfront.”

Not surprisingly, he nominates ‘change’ as being big theme of the album. “Yeah definitely, this was one of those albums that was written on the road, I toured six months straight, by myself, so I had a lot of time to sit down in hotel rooms late at night and write and think about stuff. I had that great situation of being on the outside looking-in back at my life in Australia and things that were going on around me, and new experiences, new cultures – so that’s definitely a re-occurring theme in the songs.”

Matt Ellis plays the Troubadour Wednesday July 25. Tell The People is out now through Krow Pie/MGM.

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