He was raised on a farm; he finds the blues “super-limiting”; he’s a big Frank Zappa fan; you can dance to his new album…
Troy Redfern is a blues rocker with a few twists. Recent success has planted him squarely in the blues world (he was nominated for Contemporary Artist Of The Year at the latest UK Blues Awards), but at heart he’s an eclectic soul, with roots that span Van Halen, W.A.S.P, Frank Zappa and Mississippi Fred McDowell. Not that he’s interested in mimicking anyone. “Since I was a kid I didn’t really learn other people’s music,” 50-year-old Redfern says. “I was always interested in writing stuff. I get that people are trying to keep the [blues] tradition alive, but to me it feels super-limiting.”
Accordingly, his new record, Invocation, is a swaggering, sexy, non-purist marriage of early blues, stompy glam-rock and slide-guitar screams, all in tracks you can dance to.
Hill country blues (and unusual tunings) set him on a path.
Redfern found the blues through hill country pioneers and slide players like Fred McDowell, Hound Dog Taylor and Son House. From there he discovered the works of Chris Whitley, in particular his use of the Celtic-derived Orkney tuning. “It’s just one of those that resonated with me,” he says. “So most of my guitars are set up in that tuning, and I write in it pretty much exclusively. It just works for me, it feels natural, it’s very organic.”
But Frank Zappa is his hero.
Raised on a turkey farm in the Wye Valley, with three older half-brothers, Redfern found his escape in rock’n’roll. His eldest brother gave him Queen’s ANight At The Opera album, which he loved. Marty McFly in Back To The Future, along with the 80s likes of Mötley Crüe and Aerosmith, steered him on to the guitar. But it’s Frank Zappa who holds a special place in Redfern’s heart: “I live that music, still. It’s one of the things I listen to in the car a lot. There’s lots of rhythmic and harmonic tension. I’ve always been drawn to that.”
He makes music quickly, and often.
Invocation was written and recorded (with Simon McBride producer Dave Marks) in under five weeks. It’s a good reflection of Redfern’s work rate: he gained traction with recent, bluesier records, but his full catalogue spans at least 15 albums. Check out the 11 on his Bandcamp page and things get much weirder, veering into psychedelic space-rock territory that nods to his Zappa fandom. “I don’t consider myself to be a Nashville writer. They write in a more methodical way. I’m the opposite of that. For me it’s more like switching off the analytical part of your brain and letting ideas come through in the moment.”
Books and butchery are both on his CV.
Redfern has held down an interesting spread of jobs to
