In a moment, the easy, almost casual dude with the
guitar slung around his shoulder turns to the microphone and
suddenly, it's like the electricity has been turned, and Jan
Rynsaardt kicks into life, his voice a succession of caresses, howls
and gut-wrenching hollers. But even that doesn't prepare you for the
moment he steps back, looks down at his fret board, and his fingers
begin to fly. Rynsaardt is on fire, and his sidekicks in Freeway,
bass player Dean Calkin and drummer Ekko Gaha, kick in behind him to
create the kind of hard blues foundation most young Australians have
only ever experienced when Rage or some other television rock show
pulls out some archival footage of the classic power trios of the
late 1960s - Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience or Led Zeppelin
(remember, there were only three players behind Robert Plant, but
they were enough to sent his voice into the stratosphere).
Jan Rynsaardt is something of a freak of nature in a contemporary
scene dominated by manufactured stars at one end and technically
over-processed bands at the other. His playing comes from that deep
well of sheer, undiluted passion for the form that forged the likes
of the young Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and the late great Jimi
Hendrix. He's got the chops but he hasn't forgotten that the sounds
he's wrenching from that fretboard are intimations of the soul
within. And that's why he's not an imitation of those great players.
His playing is from the heart, the real deal, the genuine article,
and that means it's pure Rynsaardt. "Man, some people just freak
out," Gaha reckons, "to see a three-piece in Sydney playing this
older music but with a new flavour. They've never seen anything like
Jan!"
It's not about ego or how fast he can play or all the other
preconceptions people in the cynical noughties assume go with the
image of the stoned-groove lead guitar solo trip. "What can I say?"
suggests the self-effacing Rynsaardt. "We're happy just gigging
man."
"The thing with Jan is he's coming from the Old School," Gaha
expands, "and we're from the 'New' School, but I think it's a good
fusion. We've each got our own sort of style that have nothing to do
with each other really, but they all go together and that makes our
sound. As a rhythm section we just lay it down so it's there so that
Jan, when he wants fly off and do his little licks, whatever he does
we'll always be there."
In the end it's about three young musicians who simply live, eat and
breath the music they're making together. No fashion statement, no
chasing the hits, no hype. You either dig or you don't. Freeway play
for the joy of playing, to make the music that's coming out of the
deepest recesses of their collective heart.
"We're mates as well as being a band," is how Rynsaardt sees it.
"We've sort of gone a little more rocky over the few months we've
been together, but we've kept the bluesiness and the funkiness."
That's what Freeway are all about. The rest is up to you.
Freeway are a BIG DEAL INC artist and are distributed through out
the world digitally on Blue Pie Productions. You can find FREEWAY at
all leading digital retailers on the planet.
