No Moss gathered as father and son rock ‘n’ roll together

Ian Moss’s eighth album offers plenty of his sturdy signature sound and a big surprise – a gorgeous duet with his 19-year-old son Julian.

Ian Moss with his son Julian during a concert in Sydney. Picture: Robert Hambling

For five decades, Ian Moss has been known for reliably delivering fullbore, blues-tinged rock ‘n’ roll, first with Cold Chisel and later as an acclaimed solo singer-songwriter.

His newly released eighth album, Rivers Run Dry, offers plenty more of Moss’s sturdy signature sound, including Nullarbor Plain, a scorching single whose narrative describes tearing up the long highway in southern Australia while dodging kangaroos at speed.

While alternating between electric and acoustic guitar, his soulful voice is backed by a powerful three-piece band. The new songs are coloured by horns and shimmering, gospel-style backing vocals, as well as a guest vocalist in country star Kasey Chambers.

Ian Moss has released his eighth solo album, Rivers Run Dry. Picture: Robert Hambling

But it’s the final track that contains the biggest surprise, for it features 19-year-old Julian Moss, who sings a gorgeous duet with his dad as they cover Stevie Wonder’s Blame It On the Sun, from the 1972 album Talking Book.

Moss, 68, first heard this beauty in the early days of Cold Chisel, the group he co-founded in Adelaide in 1973.

“I remember when John Swan was in the band for a little while, we were living in a farm house at Kentucky, 30km out of Armidale,” he told The Weekend Australian. “We both loved that song to death; we’d jam it up and sing it together. We both swore that we’d record our own version one day; I think I beat him to it.”

Blame It On the Sun marks the first time that the two generations of Moss musicians have appeared on record. Their debut live collaboration was in May 2021, when they performed the Wonder cover together at The Factory Theatre in Sydney, when Julian was 17.

Moss recalls first sensing that his son might have a strong musical ear when the boy heard his parents playing The Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

“He appeared in the room, doing this funny little walk in a circle; he was almost in a trance, just completely lost in it,” said Moss with a laugh.

“He was reluctant there for a while, because I play guitar, and he didn’t want the comparison,” he said. “Then, three or four years ago, it clicked; the penny dropped, and he’s become a fantastic guitar player now. He does his own thing; it’s not like a replica of me at all.”

Yet like father, like son, for Julian has a beautiful voice, too: he was 18 when they recorded the cover of Wonder’s song, which appears on his dad’s newly released eighth solo album. “I’m just thrilled; stoked,” said Moss senior, with evident pride. “It means the world.”

For Review’s Confessional feature, where well-known arts figures are grilled about their inner and outer lives, Moss reveals the pre-gig vocal warm-up routine he shares with Cold Chisel singer Jimmy Barnes; his love for night-time driving paired with true crime podcasts, and a surprise backstage run-in with one of his guitar heroes, Jimmy Page.