INTERVIEW: Air Supply’s Russell Hitchcock still rocks after 40 years

Russell Hitchcock, vocalist and co-founder of Air Supply, is a man who likes to keep the audience happy. He’s demonstrated this quality over the course of four decades with his Air Supply partner, Graham Russell, and he shows no signs of stopping.

Air Supply will bring their mega-hits, including “Man Lost in Orbit,” “Here I Am” and “Sweet Dreams,” to the State Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Sunday, Feb. 26 at 8 p.m.

“We have a couple new things in the show,” Hitchcock said in a recent phone interview. “We don’t like to give those away because then they wouldn’t be surprises, but it’s a new show. … I’m very proud of it after being on the road now for 42 years. It’s a rock ‘n’ roll show, and I think it’s dynamic and well-paced, well thought out, emotional, everything we want it to be.”

Air Supply began in 1975 after Hitchcock and Russell met during rehearsals for a production of Jesus Christ Superstar in Sydney. They became fast friends over their common interest in the Beatles and singing, and the success came quickly. CBS Records was knocking on the door. Rod Stewart used them as  an opening act in Australia, the United States and Canada.

After connecting with legendary producer Clive Davis, Air Supply began receiving recognition throughout the world, not only in their native Australia. The 1980s were good for the band. The albums Lost in Love, The One That You Love, Now & Forever and The Greatest Hits have collectively sold more than 20 million copies.

“To still have the career that we do, and to travel as much as we do all over the world and perform to great audiences everywhere, it’s a great achievement,” Hitchcock said. “I’m very proud of where we are and what we’ve done, and if it’s all said and done tomorrow, it’s over, we’ve left a great body of work. And we’ve had a career to be very proud of, but we intend to keep going as long as we can until we drop.”

The music industry in the late 1970s and 1980s is quite different than 2017. Today artists rely more on the open road, and albums are a nostalgic art form. Hitchcock admitted to not being in touch with the digital era of music, but he’s definitely aware of the changes that have occurred.

“When we began, obviously, there were record companies who took acts under their wing and kind of supported them,” he said. “[Today] you can make a recording in your bathroom that sounds as good as anything anybody can make anyway because of the equipment and the technology, but I miss the old days because even between acts there was a sense of camaraderie. You’re all in the same boat together. Now it’s very separated, and I don’t really care for that. … I mean, we did shows in Australia with AC/DC. We played with Midnight Oil, and it was great. Everybody was, as I said, in the same boat, really excited to be able to work in music for a living, and I miss that.”

As Hitchcock has grown older, he recognizes the need to take care of his health and his voice. That tenor is, after all, responsible for so many hit songs, from “Goodbye” to “Making Love Out of Nothing at All.”

“Anybody that’s been around for as long as we have, at some point, you have to realize that you’ve got to pay more attention to your health and try and stay in as good of shape as you can and get as much rest as you can between shows,” he said. “I’m very lucky, I have to admit. I’ve been blessed with a voice that surprises me sometimes after some of the schedules. It sounds good to me and obviously sounds good to a bunch of people, but I don’t think there’s really a secret. I think it’s just common sense after all these years.”

Hitchcock seems quite content with Air Supply’s place in the history books and the current run of shows throughout North America, but there’s one item he hopes fans and journalists pay attention to: the label “soft rock.” Air Supply is often categorized differently than many other mainstream rock groups, and Hitchcock prefers to be grouped together.

“When people come to the shows, it’s very loud,” he said. “It’s very dynamic. It’s very passionate. It’s certainly far from being soft rock, and obviously we’re not Led Zeppelin or Metallica. But we’re a rock ‘n’ roll band and always have been, so I prefer to just be called a rock band, anything but soft rock.”

Air Supply is also not a nostalgia act. Fans don’t have to worry, Hitchcock and Russell will play their best-selling hits, but the set list is varied. New songs enter the fray all the time.

“We play all the songs that people expect to hear, but we don’t rely on the past,” he said. “Every tour that we play, we’re playing new material. Fortunately we have Graham Russell, who I think is one of the most underrated songwriters in pop music or rock ‘n’ roll. He writes something every day. … He’s always got his headphones on and a notepad out. We want to stay current. We don’t want to be nostalgia. I mean, I don’t decry anybody that does that, but it’s not who we are.”

The key to Hitchcock and Russell’s success might be their understanding of their roles in Air Supply. Hitchcock loves to sing the songs, and Russell loves to write the songs. They recognize these unique skill sets in each other.

“I’m the first person to admit that I can’t write songs, and I don’t want to because I can’t do it,” Hitchcock said. “Graham has never wanted to be the lead singer when it came to his original compositions and anything we recorded. If there was any doubt about who should probably sing it, we would both give it a shot and kind of democratically decide who the song is best suited for. He comes to me from time to time and says, ‘I just wrote this. I think you should see it. I just wrote this song. Let’s work it out together.’ That kind of relationship. We’ve been working since 1975, and it’s hard to believe — and most people don’t — that we’ve never had a disagreement about anything important.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

Air Supply will play the State Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Sunday, Feb. 26 at 8 p.m. Click here for more information and tickets.