He's gone from sitting behind the band to hitting stuff out front on a West End stage. Former Supergroove drummer Paul Russell talks to Joanna Hunkinabout helping put the beat into Stomp
Paul Russell does his best work sitting down. Or he did. Until his wife's random whim changed his life and saw him front and centre on a West End stage, jumping, stamping and clapping along as part of the performance group Stomp.
Russell, a New Zealander, was a familiar face on the local music scene before he headed Up Over. The original drummer for Supergroove, Russell also worked with Brooke Fraser and Anika Moa before he stepped out from behind the drums and began playing pots, cans and other household junk in the critically acclaimed British show.
For those unfamiliar with the troupe, which first formed in 1991, Russell says it is something that needs to be experienced to understand what it is.
"When you describe it in terms of its parts and what it's doing, it's only one aspect of it. It's one of those things where the sum is greater than the total of its parts," he says.
"When you say to somebody, 'We make music out of household junk' that's one aspect of it. But there's a bit of character and personality coming into play. There's a theatrical and visual element, there's the comedy factor, there's the dance element ...
"It is quite a hard one to explain but it's definitely something that when people come and experience it, they get it."
Russell first saw the group when they toured New Zealand 10 years ago and remembers thinking what a dream job it must be for the performers. But he never imagined he would become a part of the troupe.
"It was completely off my radar. When I saw it the first time, it was literally half a world away. I was never thinking, 'Wow, I'll be doing that one day'."
Indeed, had it not been for Russell's wife, who signed him up to the troupe's mailing list, he still wouldn't be.
"My wife was just looking on their website out of curiosity. She signed me up to it and a month later they held auditions. It was kind of uncanny because they hadn't held any for about three years before that."
But while his wife can take credit for that first step, it was Russell's natural sense of rhythm and drumming ability that saw him make the cut and join the prestigious performance crew, along with another Kiwi, Ian Vincent.
The two men comprise one-sixth of the West End troupe and will both feature in the Australasian touring cast, which heads Downunder this month, stopping at Auckland's Civic Theatre from May 19-24.
After 18 months with the troupe, performing six shows a week, Russell is at home on stage now. But it wasn't always so.
When he first arrived at the auditions in Brighton, he remembers feeling overwhelmed as he looked on at the long line of prancing, preening hopefuls.
"It was like looking at a sort of Stomp Idol."
Technically defined (at least by Wikipedia) as a "non-traditional dance troupe", the auditions put the hopefuls through a range of paces - beginning with dance and choreography.
"It was pretty daunting," recalls Russell. "It wasn't until the third day when they gave us some hammer handles and told us to bang on stuff that I felt a bit more confident."
He also maintains that, although some members come from dance backgrounds and do fancy footwork, what he does on stage is not dancing.
"The choreography of the show grows out of the music itself. The movement is there as a function of performing the music and creating the sound.
"So when we're jumping and stamping around, we're doing that to create certain rhythms. But within that, there's a lot of freedom for people to interpret that how they want. So for people who come from a dance background, they'll be able to do that and add a few flips here and there, and splits and crazy things."
It's a far cry from his previous work, sitting up the back of dark concert venues, playing the drums.
"It's very different, physically, to being in a band and sitting behind a drum kit making music.
"It was a real challenge for me to express myself in that way and to relax enough to project to the audience in a different way. I'm literally standing on my feet, which is something I wasn't used to," he laughs.
But Russell hasn't turned his back on regular music-making and says he still loves to get behind the kit and play gigs now and then. And yes, he is still in contact with his old Supergroove bandmates.
"We do keep in touch. They let me know what they're up to and at some point there's some hope that we might cross paths again and do something in the future."
LOWDOWN
Who: Paul Russell, drummer-turned-performing artist
What: Russell will tour New Zealand with Stomp 09: Fresher, Funnier, Faster!
When: May 19-24 at The Civic, Auckland
