This Record Changed My Life: Conrad Sewell

Image: Conrad Sewell performing at Nova’s Red Room at Paddington Uniting Church last night

Michael Jackson
Off The Wall

My mum played it non-stop, particularly She’s Out Of My Life and Girlfriend. For me, it was the perfect mixture of R&B and groove. As I grew up I started to listen to a lot of other music but his timbre in his voice is what I fell I love with; that made me go out and search for a lot of other singers that had unique tones. 

Mum played a lot of stuff, she was into pop and Motown, she’s was a big Michael Jackson fan and listened to The Temptations, Stevie Wonder… That soul, whenever I write music, whenever I sit down at the piano and play gospel, soul chords, those are the chords that resonate with my ear first. 

I grew up in the ‘90s so pop music very much affected me; anything from the Backstreet Boys to Train and early R&B like Usher and Craig David… For a white kid in Australia, I didn’t know what to do with that. I knew I loved it, I knew I could sing it - well I was the closest thing to any white boy that I’d heard in Australia sing it. 

When I heard [Jackson’s] She’s Out Of My Life – you can hear him cry at the end of that record – mum pointed it out to me but that stayed with me, that quiver in his voice. It amazed me that he could be that emotional on record and I didn’t understand why other singers didn’t do that.

I think that [emotional element of my music] is naturally built into me because I grew up listening to singers like him and Simply Red and Stevie Wonder who evoke emotion with their voice without even trying. So when I grew up mimicking those people, I learned to do that, [to offer] an emotional vocal and a sense of rhythm within your mouth. Michael didn’t need a band to keep time because he was constantly being rhythmic with his mouth. I didn’t even think of that but I naturally picked that up as well. When I’m explaining a beat to someone I naturally make it with my mouth.

I have to pull back from [the influences I’ve picked up]. There’ll never ever be another Michael Jackson and I don’t want to try to be. Because I listen to him so much, I can get in a booth and I can mimic him, I can sing a song and people would be like, ‘Oh that sounds like Michael.’ But I can’t do that, I also have a tone myself, I sound like Conrad. Why would I try and imitate one of the greatest artists in the world when I can sound like myself? It’s been hard because everyone wants to hear someone that sounds like Michael; so when I get in the studio and that little [influence] comes in I have to pull back and make sure it’s sounding like me. 

Off The Wall was the most, and still is the most, influential album that I’ve ever listened to.

:: Watch Conrad Sewell’s Nova Red Room performance in Sydney here