Angie Hart (Frente) interview

THIS BIRD HAS GROWN

Angie Hart has always submitted to growing up before our eyes. Her songs from the very start always came from sharing real experiences; such as the sweet joy of first love (Labour of Love); through I'm-alright-as-long-as-there’s-valium songs (Accidentally Kelly Street); to bitter-sweet songs of accepting human failings (Ordinary Angels). All the while her own monsters and angels remained wrapped around her feet, waiting to be revealed upon the slightest lift of her hem. Even in a time of dead inspiration, Angie breathed into life the very feeling of writer's block (Lonely), showing how close she could go to even making greatness out of nothing at all. There were always indicators of a girl who never did anything by halves. It was extreme joy, anguish, desire etc.. yet always sung in a beautiful medium falsetto. That voice acted as a reminder to its owner to be cautious of wallowing, even in some pretty dark times. Take the title of her debut solo album Grounded Bird (2007) for example. The emphasis was on defeat and restriction - a theme which carried over into the songs themselves – still the work never dipped into hopelessness.

Now after a year or so of cautious steps forward and upward, Angie is truly taking flight on Eat My Shadow. Perhaps her recent marriage - her second - along with a catalogue behind her of well shaped and somewhat disguised ‘venting’ songs has allowed Hart a more contented space to play in. An expanded team of behind-the-scenes musicians have stepped in to act as essential sounding boards for Hart to realise her bold new moves. She continues a partnership with Ben Lee (who co-wrote with Ange on Grounded Bird). Plus there are further collaborations with Mark Seymour and Shane Nicholson. It is, however, Dean Manning (Holidays on Ice) - who Angie only recently worked with on his album Pillage Before Plunder – that invokes discussion. "He's a lot more playful than I am which is really contagious for me, so I love making music with him," Angie explains, "I always leave shows after playing with Dean remembering what's fun about music and how to make it more enjoyable." The Holidays On Ice project which drew Angie and Dean together earlier this year was a welcome distraction for Hart who was working through the songs which would become Eat My Shadow. "Holidays On Ice was so different to what I was working on at the time, and that was just what I needed to stop myself taking things too seriously, which I tend to do at times when I write."

Angie's main writing partnership on Eat My Shadow was Silver Ray guitarist Cam Butler. "There are a lot of guests on the album, but Cam arranged the strings for me and he and I did a lot of the writing together too." On the outstanding Little Bridges, Angie roped in Bonnie Prince Billy for a duet, a dream collaboration come true, she reveals. "That was one of those magic things where I just sent off a letter and hoped for the best and he replied straight away." That song had always been planned as a duet; it was only a matter of finding a voice that fitted. Hart beams; "Billy is my most admired singer and so he was always on the very top of my wish list. It goes to show it really does never hurt to ask."

The new album begins with a couple of affirmation songs - There's Nothing Wrong With You and I'm Afraid Of Fridays - leading me to wonder if Angie had been killing some old demons; "I love the affirmation songs at the moment." She states joyfully, "Fridays was a song for me, and There's Nothing Wrong With You was written for a friend, but every time I sing it, it seems to always come back to me. It's that old story of whatever annoys you about someone else is actually the thing that you most hate about yourself." The track comes across like a letter from the heart, asking the recipient to confront their dark side, go to battle with it and basically toughen up or be forever defeated. This song leads the charge that is Eat My Shadow away from Angie's own low points in life. A time filled with many such low and high points were the six years spent in Los Angeles with now ex-husband and collaborator Jesse Tobias. The two formed the band Splendid, which existed during the six years they were married and produced two albums. The ensuing separation helped inform the songs that became Grounded Bird. A possible further indication of a problem pairing came in the form of Angie's a touch-too-personal cover of Pet Shop Boys' You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk released in 2004.

Also while living in Los Angeles with Jesse, Angie became friends with the Firefly and Buffy The Vampire Slayer series' creator Joss Whedon. Their fast friendship would prove to expand Angie's international profile dramatically, and allow her an exotic new way of working; "Joss and I had a very shy working relationship." Angie begins, "I remember we would just write things down on bits of paper and slide them back and forth across the table to each other. We wouldn't really talk in those sessions either, so it was a whole new way of writing for me." One of the resulting songs from their paper swapping, Blue ended up in an episode of Firefly not long before the singer herself made a cameo in the series giving many in the US their first taste of Angie. "It was exciting venturing out into the world of television, you know completely outside of my line of work." Angie enthuses, "It was fun being the token Australian as well!" It was during the short lived series that she really got to feel a part of the action; "That particular episode I was in was really exciting because I worked around staged explosions and fake gun fights, so I got to do a bit of stunt work there." There were stand-ins of course, Angie for the dangerous scenes, yes? "Well that's the thing when you're an extra like I was; you don't get a stunt guy." She laughs, "We all had to do our own stunts, but it wouldn't have been much fun if we hadn't. I just threw a little fake blood on my bustiea and off I went!"

Before Frente and the glitz of LA, Angie boasts the humblest of beginnings. Growing up in Hobart until the age of ten, Hart experienced her first years of life from inside a Christian commune. The experience however never left her feeling particularly stunted as she transitioned into adulthood, and into life as a musician; "I remember it being a pretty happy environment, I think Hobart is a great place to grow up; being so close to nature and that." Moving to inner Melbourne at ten came as something of a rude shock to the young Ange. She explains; "I think I took to it more than my sister (Becky Hart) did, but it was definitely a shock to the system. I found Melbourne a little harsh compared to Hobart looking back, but I’m glad that we did move because it was a really great place to get involved in theatre and music. All the things I was interested in.” Angie’s upcoming tour will take in Hobart this year for the first time since her days with Frente in the early 90s. Her recent support slot for Johnette Napolitano’s tour saw Hart revisit a few classic Frente songs, so how does the singer feel now about the music she was writing then; “Well I think like most people our age (at the time) we took it pretty seriously.” She laughs. “We would chuck as many words into a song as we could and they of course had to mean sooo much to us.” She ads unapologetic, “I look back fondly though, I mean I can actually enjoy playing those again now because I realise I can never go back and write songs like that anymore. I just can’t, I am a different person now and I have all the intricate knowledge about making music and all the many possibilities. The Frente stuff was written by someone who was very green and didn’t know very much.”

lEIGh5


Click the link to follow Angie's activities on her mySpace. 


 http://www.myspace.com/angiehart 

Dean Manning (Holidays On Ice) interview, 2009

COLD COMFORT

Singer, writer and multi-instrumentalist Dean Manning maintains the ultimate bohemian lifestyle. Dividing his time between music, travel and fine art, the former Leonardo's Bride guitarist - who penned the 1998 ARIA song of the year, Even When I'm Sleeping - has exhibited his paintings several times, many of which are impressionist postcards of his tireless travels, and more recently has reunited all five members of Holidays On Ice – a kind of East coast super-group – for album number two and a tour. The writing on Pillage Before Plunder, much like Dean's art, is a document of a restless troubadour. Talking from his Sydney home (no doubt a place he holidays in), Dean considers his every response and wastes no words as he shares with me what feels like fragments of a great untold story.

"Traveling is a buzz, obviously" Dean begins; "I like the rollercoaster lifestyle, because I get bored rather easily and I need to be out of my comfort zone to work. I also like to have a purpose and so I have sort of fallen into this life where I can be purposeful and satisfied." Living the romantic life as an artist and musician, Dean is rarely required to compromise his great loves. "I don't compromise my personal relationships in favour of work, there are a lot of impracticalities about that, but I do think it's important to keep pushing myself whether it be in painting or writing." Dean's artwork often features a self portrait within - if not the main feature - prompting me to wonder, is self-examination a motivation to paint. "I think that's a subconscious thing really, and I have tried painting friends many times, but always at the risk of horribly offending them." He laughs, "I have had some strange reactions to my portraits (of friends) they say things like, 'is that `really how you see me?' so it's probably for the best I stick to self portraits. I mean I think it's really cool how Paul Kelly can write songs from the perspective of a woman, but I'm quite lazy in the way I really only give my own personal take on things." One of the most notable things about Holidays On Ice's album is the breadth of styles on offer. Dean puts this down to time spent writing in different countries on his own, and sporadically with his band mates as the opportunity arose.

"Some of the songs were actually recorded many times in different ways to see what genre they would best work in. The heaviest track on the album Ribbon Round A Bomb, started out as an acoustic piece and ended up with layered electric guitar and a duel vocal between myself and Angie (Hart). It's funny how some of the criticisms about the album have been people saying 'I really love the heavy tracks, (like Ribbon…) but what's with all those other folky ones' or visa-versa but really the heavier tracks could have ended up softer, depending on what we thought worked when we got in the studio." Dean tells me French avant garde singer Serge Gainsbourg was a reference due to his constant switching in genres. "Eat A Peach on the album is a little tribute to Serge. He put a lot of noses out of joint, that guy for having the audacity to not stick to playing one type of music. He'd put out a reggae album and then a blues album and it seemed to piss off a lot of his fans because I guess they wanted him to repeat whatever it was they liked him for in the first place. I like that he was against the idea of repeating himself, and that he didn't give a fuck what anyone thought of him."

As we talk of idols, Dean reveals a surprising affection for 1930s Hawaiian tattoo artist, Sailor Jerry who patented many of the identifiable sea-farers marks (anchors, mermaids etc..) I wonder if Dean is bit of a salty-dog at heart. "I never really acknowledged an interest in the sea and sailors until it was pointed out to me by a guy who wrote a bio for our website." He laughs. "Perhaps I shouldn't have included so many sailing boats (in the album art) and sailing references in the songs. (No Flowers Grow On A Sailors Grave) There's no getting away from it now!"

lEIGh5