Whoah… The World According to Wes

By Jonathan Duffy

He's good looking, makes facial hair manly but not bogan, musically gifted and had a childhood imaginary friend named Towel-man. He is also an Australian Idol winner and a top selling recording artist. With this in mind, one can understand why QNews' Jonathan Duffy was slightly nervous before his first ever interview. The butterflies may have been there to begin with but they soon disappeared after finding out about the real Wes Carr - a very tallented young man with a laid back demeanour making for a gentle popping of one's interview cherry.

Hi Wes, thanks for your time. I'll try to make this quick so you can get back to having a day off.

No mate no, it's all work for me. I've been working all day since about 7.30 this morning.

Have you found life to always be so hectic after Idol?

I'm like one of those clowns at the show, you know where you put those balls in their mouth and their head goes round and round forever and they just keep looking, like in a panoramic view and it keeps going on and on, and people just keep putting balls in my mouth. (laughs) Seriously, it's a good life and I'm really very honoured to keep going on with it.

How do you take a break from it all?

How do I? You tell me, no idea.

I guess just let the balls go to a point where you explode?

(Laughs) The balls are completely metaphoric, they're not actually balls.

How excited are you about the album?

I'm very proud of it. I think it's an honest album for me, and I feel like I've nailed it this time. It's the third album I've released. The first one was called Tambarlane (with silverchair drummer Ben Gillies) , the second was Simple Sum which was an independent release on itunes an this is the first major label album and I feel like I've nailed where I want to go and it's a good kind of starting point for a career.

Did you have a lot of control over the process this time?

Yeah, yeah, they're all my songs and they're all hand picked by me. The title track is my song; I wrote it a few years ago and all the lyrics are all about my life. I mean “Feels Like Whoah” was just a sort of three chord rock number that I just wanted to do you know. The kind of tune that you don't have to think about too much and that was it really, you can just listen and jump around nude in your living room if you want to.

And there are probably thousands of people imagining you jumping around nude to it too.

(Laughs) Oh, ok, no worries.

I guess that takes me to my next question which is…

Being nude?

No not necessarily being nude, unless you want to go there, that's fine I'm open.

You're actually my first interview by the way. I'm normally a reviewer so I was very excited about doing this.

Oh mate, well I'm happy to be your first one.

Yes, you deflowered me.

I de-virginised you (laughs)

A lot of people would say that style wise, you've cut your own mould in an industry where there are a lot of pressures put apon you. Do you have to fight to keep your individuality?

No, not at all mate. I think there's this weird perception that when you sign to a major label and all this sort of stuff, they're going to tell you what to wear and change who you are or whatever. If you were to do that then you're just going to suck the soul out of any project. You either have or you don't kind of thing you know. You're either a plumber or you're not a plumber or you're either a singer or you're not a singer.

There's been instances where I've worn a jacket or something, I just wear all of my own clothes an they've gone… But is that you (Laughs) and I've gone well probably not. And I've caught myself doing it where I've gone, 'I might wear that jacket' and thought, 'now is that me who wants to wear it?'

You know and you change styles over the course of lifetime but it's just one of those things where they've just given me the raines and said don't go changing, just be who you are and real and, that's all I could give to anybody. It feels very honest and I would feel like I'm living a lie if I wasn't, or if I did a song that I didn't really care about. It's the same as lying you know. Especially when it comes to by art, I just don't fuck with it.

That's really great to hear. You are about to head off on tour, what is a Wes Carr show like?

A good old fashioned rock show mate. I'm going to get my keyboardist to dress up in a monkey suit. At the first show do a bit of a monkey dance in the middle of the first show which will be absolutely hilarious.

A tribute to Donkey Kong perhaps?

There was a few years ago in Tambarland my tech guys used to do this stupid monkey dance in the middle of the show. And it was just outrageous so I'm going to try to get my keyboardist to do one just on the first show up at East Brisbane so it'll be an incentive to be there I can tell you now.

So everyone who's got a fetish for monkeys needs to get themselves to your show?

Yeah, if you loved the last Cadbury add, you're going to love this.

Well let's hope there aren't too many glass and a half's that night.  Now you probably do a million of these interviews all day so I would like to know something about you that the rest of Australia doesn't already?

Well I was on Idol so how the fuck do I do that? Umm… I used to have an imaginary friend call towel-man.

Towel-man?

Towel-man. He used to come to me at night an freak me out. Seriously… oh Jess Mauboy's just walked in.

(Jess' voice can be heard in the background)

(Wess to Jess) You did so well last night.

Jess: Did I?

Wes: Yeah I was just at home having a beer and I thought you were just great, I'll speak to you later (he bursts into laughter as he realises he's still in an interview). Sorry about that mate, It's bit crazy here.

No worries, we should let you get back to Jess, but congratulations on the album and we look forward to seeing you when you make it up to sunny Queensland later in the year.

It'll be great to see you there too man It'll be heaps of fun. It'll be great we'll have a beer.

Wes' album The Way the World Works is available now