Kat Lay talks dance music and downloads with the Aussie legend.

Apparently the Chemical Brothers’ songs are ideal for accompaniment by Rolf’s famous ‘wobble board’.

“Anything with that sort of one-two, one-two is perfect for the wobble board,” he says. “Of course, depending on the speed of the song it needs a different size of board. Slower songs need a bigger board.”

I am chatting to the Australian superstar on the phone – the only way we can arrange the interview during a busy week in which he’s presenting Have I Got News for You as well as promoting his new single.

Rolf’s voice is so familiar from childhood television viewing that it feels like chatting to a cherished older relative. Indeed, for most of the people I told about the interview, Rolf was just a childhood memory (albeit a fond one: my flatmate started humming the Animal Hospital theme tune, another friend absent-mindedly doodling).

But the 79-year-old, is a long way from hanging up his corked hat, drying off his paintbrushes and, erm, packing up his wobble-boards and didgeridoos. He’s just released a download single called – of course – ‘Can You Tell What It Is Yet?’

The single is part of a competition – you download it from the website http://www.canyoutellwhatitisyet.net and try to decode what Rolf is singing about (and in the accompanying video, painting), in order to win a luxury trip to Australia.

“It’s a funny old business, the music business,” Rolf muses. “People have almost stopped creating physical merchandise you can buy – it’s all about downloading.”

Indeed, Rolf seems very much at home, and in demand, in the modern world, called in at the last minute to work on the soundtrack for Baz Luhrmann’s latest film ‘Australia’.

“They called and said, ‘We’ve suddenly realised we don’t have the iconic sound of Rolf Harris’s wobble board on the soundtrack!’” he recalls. “So I did that, and they had a song they’d written called ‘You ride your way and I’ll ride mine’ and it was just a couple of verses. So I and my recording guy wrote a few extra couplets. It got there too late to be included in the film but it was included on the soundtrack.”

Rolf, then, is still inspiring people – something, he says, he loves to do: “One of the best things that happens is when someone comes up and says ‘I loved Rolf’s Cartoon Club’, and they are now working in animation and they say, ‘if I hadn’t seen your show I would never have had the courage.’”

The subject of what effect television can have on its viewers seems very close to Rolf’s heart. The conversation turns to whether there’s space for entertainers like him on television screens filled with altogether more controversial performers, like Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand. 

He seems lost for words trying to describe how he felt about the whole Andrew Sachs affair, deploring “their lamentable lack of any judgement” and wondering if they didn’t think about “how it would affect the general public. And how the BBC went ahead and put that programme on air…”

He’s also no fan of reality television: “I lament that kind of show where there’s no preparation, just, ‘let’s get some cameras rolling and see what’s happening’.”

Rolf seems to genuinely care about British programming. In fact, I’d put a bet on Rolf’s secret being that he genuinely cares about everything he does. The only time during our conversation that he doesn’t seem completely amiable is when I describe some of his songs as ‘frivolous’ (although he does concede that ‘Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport’ perhaps fits into that category).

The insult, before I come under attack for disparaging a national hero, comes as part of a question as to whether he minds being better known for cartoons and, yes, ‘frivolous’ songs than his work as a portrait painter. He doesn’t, of course.

Everything he does, he says, is just “illustrating a talent that I was lucky to have. The most wonderful magic is watching someone doing a drawing in front of your eyes and that’s why drawing and painting on TV is wonderful – it’s always a total mystery, and the training I have had in fine art, I have been able to use that.”

The highlight of his career, though, was more akin to the profession of famous portrait artist that he first came to England to pursue. “It would be painting the Queen’s portrait,” he says, admitting to more than a few nerves.

On the first day the team had to be there before 11 to get in before the changing of the guards, and the sitting wasn’t until half past two. “By 11.30 everything was ready to go – and as you can imagine the nerves escalated tremendously,” he remembers. “It got to be almost overwhelming panic and you even start to doubt your ability, but when the Queen arrived she put us all at ease and once I started painting it all went wonderfully well. She chatted away in a wonderful way like we were old friends.”

What next for the indefatigable Antipodean? If he gets the chance he says he’ll be straight back on our screens. “I’d love to do some more Rolf on Art programmes. I find it so rewarding to be able to demystify art for the general public and let them know they can have a go,” he chuckles. “I think I have done a lot to let people know that they don’t have to be afraid to go to an art gallery and if they don’t understand it’s OK – a lot of the artists don’t either!”

In his role as sage and inspiration, then, what advice for students wishing to follow him onto stage and screen? One very concrete piece, in fact: make eye contact.

“The most important thing for getting into TV is to learn to make eye contact with the people at home,” he says, apparently achieved by looking direct down the camera and projecting your voice at a normal conversational level.

The same thing, he says, applies in live performance. “On stage you must look at people. Quite often people are advised to look at a point on the wall above people’s heads but that’s a fallacy because you let people know you’re not looking at them and give them permission to chat among themselves.

“But if you meet one person’s eye, by some magic, everyone in the room thinks you are talking to them personally. I got given that advice very early in my career and it’s the best advice. I always pass it on.”

Tags: can you tell what it is yet, chemical brothers, rolf harris, wobble board

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 10:16 and is filed under Features, Sidebar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.