As we navigate our way through a world filled with increasing moral ambiguity, Australia’s Xavier Rudd's work serves as a constant reminder to act with love in mind. A musician as well as a philosopher, he has been creating art that prompts existential exploration for several decades. Grateful Web got to sit down with Rudd for a few minutes before his performance at this year’s Cali Roots festival to speak with him about a range of topics. During our time together, he openly discussed issues close to his heart, including his opinions on how beliefs impact society, his thoughts on the danger of the human ego, and his experiences creating music as a father of five.
Grateful Web: As a person who has always been very open about their spiritual beliefs, how do you differentiate between religion and spirituality?
Xavier Rudd: I'm not religious, so I can't really speak on behalf of anyone else's religion. I guess religion for, a lot of people, is spirituality and if religion is able to connect people to the source at all, then it's a good thing, I guess. But I can't really speak on religion because I've never really resonated with any kind of religion. For me, I draw from Indigenous culture and you probably call that more spirit-based than praising any kind of God. It's about being an equal part of the environment. Every person is no different from a leaf on a tree. So we all have our place. We are all of the earth, but when we pass over, we go into a realm where we can travel with and be there for people in the physical world.
GW: Speaking as a figure that many look to for spiritual guidance, we live in times where people use their beliefs to justify prejudice. Where do you see the line between spiritual beliefs building community and creating a dangerous mentality?
XR: It's all based on ego. Our ego, the human ego, is the biggest poison in history. Ego is nothing, there's no physical matter, it just derives from stuff that isn't really real and in your mind. There's nothing wholesome about it, yet, when ego takes over, it can bring down a whole empire as we've seen over generations and generations and generations. This can exist in any community. It can exist in any church, it can exist in any religion, it can exist anywhere. I think humans need to understand that in order to live in harmony, they need to be able to stand outside themselves and see themselves from afar because when you're lost within yourself, it's hard to detect or to get a good read on ego, and ego doesn't always have to be just self emotion. It can be all the different emotions, but it can affect communities in a huge way.
GW: What was the what was the last faux metaphysical trend you saw that really made you question the publisher's sources on it?
XR: To be completely honest with you, I don't see that sort of stuff. I live in the Bush, in Australia. I don't really stay in touch with what's going on online, and so I don't know. I know there's a lot of random shit being promoted on Instagram and all the rest because people can, and people have a forum these days to promote whatever theory they want. In one sense, I think it's probably good, you know, because people feel good about themselves and they get a platform to believe in what they believe in, and you know, who's to judge whether that's right or wrong. But again, it points back to that ego thing. It can get out of hand and it can be toxic in other ways, for other people, and for communities. But I can't think of anything that I heard of like that. My wife sort of stays in touch with that sort of shit, and she'll tell me some funny stuff. But yeah, I can't think of anything.
GW: On your new single “Road Trippin’” you sampled a child's voice. That was your youngest son, correct?
XR: Yeah. He was in the studio.
GW: What's the journey of fatherhood been like lately and what prompted the decision to use that sample on the track?
XR: I wrote that song on a road trip probably five years before and I just wrote it on that trip and wasn't ever gonna release it. It was just a song that was just meant to be a story of the trip. Then when I was in the studio, my wife was on those sessions, she was like, you should do a version of that Road Trippin’ song from when we were camping, so I dusted it off and found the words that I wrote wherever they were, and then one afternoon I recorded it, and, the kids that didn't exist when we went on that trip were playing around in the studio and it was a vibe. So we recorded it and then at the end of it, I asked Jundi, my three-year-old, he was two at the time, to say that, and so he said “Play road tripping Daddy.” So that's how we did it. But, yeah, fatherhood's a journey, man. It's beautiful, you know. We learn a lot. I have five boys and they all have different stories. They've all taught me something along the way and, yeah, just do your best.
