30 Odd Foot of Grunts are a meat-and-potatoes roots rock band from Australia who haven't quite reached the pinnacle of international stardom just yet. As a result, several of the members have day jobs to help pay the rent when they're not busy playing music. The lead singer has done just a bit better than his mates in this department -- his name is
Russell Crowe, and he's won an Academy Award and become one of the world's most bankable leading men as the star of such films as
Gladiator,
The Insider, L.A. Confidential, and
A Beautiful Mind. When his schedule permits, Crowe still gigs with TOFOG (as many of their fans call them), and in 2001 he met up with his longtime friend and lead guitarist Billy Dean Cochran (with whom Crowe had been making music since the mid-'80s) and their bandmates Garth Adam,
David Kelly, Stewart Kriwin, and Dave Wilkins for an intensive round of rehearsals in London, leading up to recording sessions in Austin, TX, for their fifth album, Bastard Life or Clarity, topped off by three packed-to-the-rafters shows at a local beer-and-BBQ joint. Texas is Crowe's self-described "home movie" of the band's stint in the Lone Star State; it allows all six members of members of the group a chance to talk about their life in music, as well as discussing the mixed blessing of having your lead singer become one of the world's biggest film stars not long after he joined the band. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide