When he’s not songwriting, recording music or playing live, you can find Lou Barlow trying his best to keep his young son under control.
As we chat, Barlow is doing his best to answer my questions while his two-year-old son Hendrix screams up a storm.
He also explains how naming his son was not just a matter of paying tribute to one of the most respected guitarists of all time.
“He was born on Jimi Hendrix’s birthday, the name of the doctor who delivered him was Hendrix, and he had met the man previously as well,” he said.
“It all kinda worked out and it was just meant to be.”
And luckily for fans, it’s unlikely that Hendrix won’t be adding his screams or providing any guest vocals on stage when Barlow returns to Australia for a series of intimate acoustic shows in April.
After recently touring locally last September as part of reunion tour with one of his other bands, Sebadoh, Barlow jumped at the chance to come back to our shores so quickly.
“Australia has always been really good to me in terms of playing solo shows – and I find it’s a great place to hang out,” he said.
“The kind of awesome thing about Australia is when you play there you fly from each show and there’s almost a day off between every show as well.
“And I’m not away for long because you only play a few shows and it’s not a marathon slog of Europe or the (United) States for a month.”
The downtime he’s spent in Australian hotels has also produced some of Barlow’s most productive songwriting sessions.
“I’ve written a lot of songs in Australia… the hotel rooms are generally like apartments.
“They’re just really nice and they get you in the writing mood.”
And there’s a good possibility that he might use some of his hotel time to write material for the new Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr. albums, which he is intending to help create in the near future.
These records will then be followed up by a full-scale tour, which he imagines will definitely include Australia.
“I’m definitely going to record a new Sebadoh record as well as a new Dinosaur Jr. record this year… you make records and then you go on tour,” he said.
“Living out of a suitcase is what I’ve done and what I have to do.”
Lou Barlow plays dates in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane in April. For all the details click here.
