‘Life Plays Out’ As The Hussy Hicks Tour Europe
Globe-Trotting, heart-warming, endlessly charming Aussie ladies the Hussy Hicks are Musicadium’s featured artists this week.
Their debut album, ‘Life Plays Out’ is proudly distributed by Musicadium and we were lucky enough to catch up with them for a chat while the girls were touring in Europe. From Prince, to Phil Emmanuel to Pat Benetar, these folk/pop ladies have eclectic tastes and some interesting stories to boot.
What you have been up to lately girls? It seems like you have been tripping all over the globe!
Tripping all over the globe is exactly what we’ve been doing! We started this year with an Australian tour which had us drive the eleven thousand kilometres from Sydney to Darwin via Perth and Broome, then we flew to China for a run of shows and a festival and the to London where we bought ourselves an old Royal Mail van and proceeded to drive around Europe. So far we have played shows in Italy, France, Belgium, Norway, Holland and Germany and after this weekend we drive back to London for 3 shows before heading to the States.
Where has been your favourite place to perform? Have you ever played at any unorthodox venues?
Everywhere we’ve played has been great in different ways… The most incredible part of touring through different countries (apart from the incredible food, wine and language issues) is experiencing different audiences and the way they react to our music.
The Italians are vocal and passionate (and love to buy CD’s and chat away to you for hours after the show), the French are quiet and attentive until the desperate pull of a nicotine hit will remove them momentarily from the venue, the Norwegians are loud and excitable and lots of fun, The Dutch are incredibly appreciative and will want to ply you full of weird and wonderful beverages and the Germans, oh the Germans… playing to your first German audience is possibly one of the strangest yet most satisfying experiences any musician can have. They sit in total silence, they watch intently and only clap when it’s clapping time. Then they clap. And they clap. Apparently the longer they clap the more they have appreciated the song, which makes sense, but it is very odd for a first timer. And finally all Europeans LOVE a good encore. In fact they are rarely content with only one encore, generally going for at least 2 encores of at least 4 or 5 songs.
So everywhere has something special… In terms of unorthodox venues I would have to say that the underground bomb shelter bars in France are the most unusual… although there are quite a few of them, and they make excellent band venues!
You guys met in 2004, were you both involved in other projects before this? How did you meet?
Both Julz and I have been involved in music our whole lives, Julz started playing guitar at about 7 and by the age of 15 she was playing in Phil Emmanuels band. I started singing at 9 and grew up in the country music industry, I released a country single through ABC records when I was 16 and then formed a trio with my sister and a friend called Miss Radio before decided to go traipsing all over the globe and finally meeting up with Julz. We met through an awesome bass player friend who had been playing some gigs with my band and was best friends with Julz in High School. Both Julz and I had been giggin overseas and upon our return we started hanging out and jamming and it just kinda clicked and here we are now 3 years later in Berlin…
You have a distinctly Aussie feel and sound to your music. Do you think this is important to retain? Have you had many comments on this overseas?
I think the Aussie feel is a very organic part of our music, we don’t deliberately present an Australian tone, but it is just naturally a part of what we do. The folk/roots music movement is quite unique to Australia and it’s really great to be able to take it to international audiences and show them what we’re doing on our little island! We travel with our Woodskin cajon which is an Australian made instrument that gains a lot of attention and really adds something different to our sound.
If you could collaborate with any musician (living or dead) who would it be?
Me’Shell Ndegéocello and Prince come to mind immediately… and I’d really enjoy belting out a tune with Patsy Cline! We’d also love to have Steve Gadd on the next album and Julz would desperately love to play at one of Eric Claptons Crossroads festivals!
Some of your tracks are very emotionally-driven and seem quite personal. Do you ever find it hard to perform tracks that have come from a personal experience or do you find it to be a therapeutic experience?
I think the therapy is in the actual writing process… you get to dig deeply into your emotions and when it all comes out you get a little piece of music that you can do with what you like. I love the evolution of songs, you can play the same song a hundred times and it can take you to a hundred different places and be interpreted in a hundred different ways, and every interpretation is as valid as the initial idea behind the song. It’s the best part of music!
And finally, what is your favourite track to perform and why?
It’s a tough question… audience response is always such a big part of live performance, so tracks like Texas and Ugly are always fun to play. Having an attentive and focused audience is always a wonderful opportunity to play our more intricate songs like We climb, we fall and Play with me, but barely a gig will go by when we don’t play Happy and Close your eyes… ha, I guess we enjoy playing all our songs! Also lately we’ve been throwing in an acoustic version of Pat Benatars “Love is a battlefield” which gives me a chance to scream like a banshee and is a real audience favourite… but you have to get to a live show to catch that!
Check out the Hussy Hicks here
July 20th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Great info - keep up the great work.