As a teen Lou Bradley kicked off her music career sneaking into the backdoors of inner city Sydney pubs and bars. Playing in a band that included her future husband Phil, Lou realized early that hers was a deep affinity with music. With three young kids underfoot and two heartbreaking deaths in their family, Phil, Lou and the children relocated to the Northern Rivers in 2000 in search of a happily ever after.
C: So were you established as a musician in Sydney before you moved up here?
L: No, not personally. I left home when I was 15 and moved to Redfern with a bunch of boys and joined their little rock band and we played around pubs and stuff. I was snuck into pubs all around the city for years! There was a guy in that band who was a song writer, it was an originals band, so that was my inspiration. I was singing and doing the front thing and playing keyboards. I wasn’t writing songs.
Music has always been in my life. I’ve always played music. Four years old was my first memory of sitting on a train holding a cigarette lighter and singing Marcia Hines songs to a whole bunch of people, my parents used to make me sing! So it was in there but it wasn’t until I moved to Mullumbimby in the hills behind Huenbrook – a beautiful place, 30 acres of beautiful waterfalls, the most inspirational place ever – I started writing songs. So that’s kind of when it started happening.
C: So how old were you when you did that? Can I ask that?!
L: Yeah! I’m 40 now so was that 25, 26.
C: How many kids did you have at that point?
L: I had three. I had all my kids by the time I was 24. I just left school and had babies!
C: And your partner is a musician and plays with you as well?
L: Yeah he was one of the rock band members. I kind of moved out with him. So that’s been going on for ages.
C: That’s a long time you’ve been together with all those kids and playing music together. How do you balance that kind of life working together, having a family together and writing together?
L: I think our relationship was pretty intense from an early age and it was always my mission to make it really intense. He’s 6 years older than me so he was kind of the right age to have children when I wasn’t, so that was a big strong support in that way. He’s also extremely sensible and shy and I’m completely the opposite. I think I’m quite happy with the rollercoaster. I believe that that’s how it is and you’re supposed to ride it out, you’re supposed to hang on and go for it and not stop at anything less. Otherwise you may as well go off and have other partners. If you’re going to stay with someone then you do it as much as you can so no stone is unturned so that’s how I think it hangs in there. It does get intense but it’s extremely rewarding and our family is really close and our kids are all really, really close.
C: So basically you came to the Northern Rivers and started your music journey from up here, in terms of taking it seriously, writing your own songs and building that path?
L: When I started writing I got really into it and found a local place I could just record a backyard EP or demo. That was a really great experience. After I did that, I was driving to Mullum and I saw John Butler in town. He was just with his little kid and I jumped out of the car and said “Phil pull over I want to give John butler my EP” and he was like “oh my god don’t do that, how embarrassing“. So I made him pull over and I ran over introduced myself, gave him my EP and thanked him for paving the way for independent artists. He was only just starting to do that then so it was a really big thing. We had a laugh about kids and stuff and then I got a call a month or so later. He said he was going to put it in as a part of a grant thing they were offering at the JB Seed. I was successful with that and that was enough to make me really take it seriously. I wanted to go on tour, so we went to the Northern Territory and just did a full week tour.
C: With the kids?
L: Everybody in Mullumbimby almost! We took a minibus. It was filled with I think 15 kids and 8 adults or something like that, so we just went with a big entourage!
C: How did you balance the logistics of having kids on tour with you?
L: They were just the boss, we had to kind of work around them. There’d be some mums that would just stay back when it got too late. We camped and did all sorts of stuff, kids loved that kind of stuff, they just love it. It was wild and they just loved every minute of it.
C: What have been the hardest parts of trying to have a career in this area?
L: I think there are a lot of people that are doing it, but there are a lot of people that aren’t doing it but they think they’re doing it. I noticed that quite early on and the kind of person I am thought well I’m going to have to kind of skip over that and try and find a way over these people. They’re kind of like a wall, a barrier to me. They’re just kind of like this steel barrier of “not success”.
C: So all of the people that say they are a musician or an artist but they’re not really living it?
L: Maybe they’re living it but only around here. They don’t have big ambitions whereas I’m extremely ambitious and I really want to succeed in what I’m doing. I mean that’s fine if you just want be hanging around and doing that. So I just pretty much just skipped over that whole thing. I interact a little bit with local musicians but not much, I kind of tend to stay away. It’s almost like the sock vortex to me, you get sucked up and lost! So I don’t really want to do that. It’s very cliquey. I travel a lot too with music so I get to see a lot of different things.
C: Being Northern Rivers centric and trying to get your creativity happening completely locally doesn’t seem to work for most folks. Most people have to look outside of this area if they’re trying to make it. How has that played out for you?
L: That’s exactly what I’ve had to do. I’ve done that through touring. I’ve made contacts with industry people as well. I climbed into one industry I wanted to be involved in and just kind of went to the top as soon as I could and just knocked on those doors really.
C: So can you tell a story about the doors at the top that you went and knocked on? You did that with John Butler and it paid off really well, so a story of having to be a bit brave and it paid off.
L: I think it’s always that thing, if you believe in yourself. It’s a momentary belief to me. I don’t go around believing in myself, but I have these waves, these momentary things and I just go wow yes! It can easily be interpreted as being over excited or too starry-eyed but every time that I’ve had those moments it seems to have worked, something happened. So I applied for this thing online that I saw after I came back from the JB Seed tour, it was called the Country Music College. I had been interested in country music. Not as popular as people would know, not the Dolly Parton or Kenny Rodgers or Lee Kernigan nothing like that. I had seen Kasey Chambers at Blues Fest for the first time and felt, wow that’s pretty awesome. What’s that about? That’s just someone singing and playing their songs to me with acoustic instruments. So I kind of explored that a little bit. We got more music and found out who was producing what in Australia and what there was around and then I saw this Country Music College thing come up and felt, I’ll have a go with that, I’ll apply, I’ll audition and see if I can get in and I got in.
C: Where was that based?
L: That’s in Tamworth and it was held 2 weeks before the actual festival started. It was just like this intense 2 week program where you pretty much learn about the industry and who’s in it and how it works. You also all get together with skills workshops, trying to teach you song writing and all that kind of stuff. The good stuff was just the people. Meeting everyone and learning how the industry works. And actually the tradition of that particular industry is very interesting to me. It’s really old, it’s as old as the hills in America and it goes back and back forever and the more you look into old mountain music the more you see that Bob Dylan was influenced by that, all those people. So to me that’s very interesting and it’s an infinite source of inspiration too.
I’ve always been on the outside. My little audition was me and Phil walking down the road, going to get our cows who had escaped during the flood. So that was our video. Walking down the dirt road and he was interviewing me as I was walking and we’re fighting. We didn’t know how to edit so we just left everything and ended up being back at the house and me sitting on the lounge and playing a new song that I had written. That was my audition.
So they knew what they were getting. You can imagine what the other auditions were like. You know it’s completely different, very polished and very country, talent quest type stuff. Because it’s the kind of industry it is, it seems to me they can see that kind of side as well. They see my side that’s a lot like, maybe Kasey Chambers or someone like that, and so they have been interested in that side of me. I was bumped around, you get contacts at the college, they said you should call this producer, you should play at Bill Chambers show at the festival, we’ll see if he’ll let you get up for a song. I got up for a song and met him and he said wow you are like the carter family and all, which is a really old mountain group in the hills in the 20s and I had never heard of them or Emmylou Harris, all these people I had never heard of. It kind of just built like that and each year I just go back to the festival and met more and more people
C: How important has all that networking been?
L: It’s so important. To me it’s networking but it’s also just like a family. You kind of build your friends and family as well around you. It feels like a very family orientated industry. I think the networking side is really important if you love it. Not just for the sake of it, because there are plenty of people who go around and network just for the sake of it in this industry. They know that they’ve got to go to functions, they know that they’ve got to go meet these people and shake their hands
C: How do you balance that? Because that’s not in the nature of a lot of artists. Networking is something you hear you have to do but doing it is not comfortable. How do you get comfortable with that?
L: I think if you are genuinely interested I think that is something that you can’t help but to do. If you have someone in any artistic industry that is your idol or someone that you look up to, it always starts with that someone. Go and meet them and introduce yourself. You challenge your beliefs when you do that, whether you’re comparing yourself to them or you’re seeing how their journey is and going “wow I can” or “I can’t” see myself going there.
I remember 5 or 6 years ago being at a Kasey show up in Queensland somewhere. They gave us some tickets so we went up and watched and it was full. Like a completely packed entertainment center or art center or whatever it was and I remember sitting there going, I really can’t see myself doing that. I her and went no I could never do that.
C: So how did you work out if it was a sign to say that’s not really where you wanted to be or something you needed to work on?
L: I think because I really loved it I said hang on this is the whole idea of me being so ambitious, get real or get better or go home! To me getting better has only meant doing it more often, stripping it back, making things more simple, less crap, more work. Really the only person you should be nervous in front of is yourself because if you are as plain as can be and as honest and true as you can be on stage or when you’re doing your work that’s all there is.
C: That being honest and then putting it out I think holds lots of people back. Because art work can be so raw and personal to put it out there you’ve got to be pretty brave. How do you talk yourself through that?
L: I think you just have to prepare yourself that you’re not normal! I believe that’s how it works, that’s what true art is and the people, the public, whether they are art savvy or not, they will always respond to honest art. That’s the only thing they respond well to I believe. Sure there is fads and fashions and all sorts of stuff that people get swept up in but true art is something that is enduring. I think the audience or the interpreter, they always know that the artists are a bit weird, that’s how they are, so I think you embrace it. Be weird, play with it and that’s how you get through, its your little protection. I’ve got my protection of being my eccentric self, it’s a hat that I wear. When I get on stage I use a different name, it’s not my married name. I make sure I be in that character, eccentric as I want to be, which I can’t be in everyday life. But as soon as you get on stage or you’re doing your art work you can be as weird as you want. I think that’s the thing people want, so do it! You have to be really comfortable that they don’t want to see the other stuff. They don’t want to see the stuff that’s protecting you. The stuff that’s covering you up. I don’t think they want to see it.
C: Performing arts seem to really favor young people and I mean young like 20, 25 and it’s all over. How do you keep the mindset going that it’s not over?
L: I struggled with that about 5 years ago. I started going shivers, because I was really kind of crossing that boundary. But I don’t care anymore, it’s just not about that anymore to me. The industry I’m in doesn’t care one iota about that, it provides for it. Also I’ve been involved in the industry in other ways.
I’ve campaigned for the last few years for an alternate-country Golden Guitar award. Alt-country, things like bluegrass, indie folk, alt sort of stuff. It’s that whole fringe area that never goes near country music. That genre is coming in really beautifully and its working, like indie roots and that sort of thing. You don’t have to be an age group for that, you can be as old as you want because it’s not about that so I’m totally happy.
C: So then on the flip side of the challenges, what has been some of the main opportunities you’ve experienced in the area?
L: I think it’s just the whole culture of the area, the landscape and just the vibe (I hate that word!) but just that feeling around here. The way that you can be yourself around here a lot more, you can go down the street in your pyjamas in Mullumbimby and its okay! I think that is really inspirational and I think if you are an artist and you’re relaxed that’s when your stuff comes out.
C: Do you have a “day job” to support your creative work?
L: When started I had money from some other sources so I wasn’t working as such but I had was able to have access to money and it did cost me to have my first full length album. I went to the best producer I could find in Australia for what I wanted to do and gave him my work and paid for it. It cost me money to do it. It was Aria nominated and all sorts of stuff so it paid off in a lot of ways.
C: It was worth investing money in it?
L: Totally worth it. I don’t regret it for one little bit and I have made the money back and some. I think you have to spend money at some point. It doesn’t mean you have to continually keep spending money but you do have to spend big money at some point I think. Whether that means you have to stop work and that’s the money you’re spending on your career. I have had day jobs and I just had to stop my last day job. I was working at a service station in Mullum for the last couple of years pumping gas during the day but that’s because I got tired of gig hunting. It has never stopped me writing. I always write and record albums.
C: So how do you balance the two out?
L: I just keep doing it. Just keep your hand in, keep your dream alive and know that just because you’re working pumping petrol doesn’t mean you’re not an artist, it’s fine you just got to pay bills! That’s how I looked at it. Also you meet the public and you meet the people. I use that as my art inspiration in that way
C: Did it inspire any songs working in the petrol station?
L: It inspired me to really keep going because I don’t want to work in that petrol station for ever and I think there will be songs that will come from it but not yet.
C: Are there certain things you do within your music business that you do just for the love of it and then other things you do because it makes you an income or because that’s the most profitable way to go about things? Are there things that you do just for business?
L: Yes of course. Of course you do stuff that you don’t want to do. Like if I’m in some really shitty festival. There are plenty of shitty country music festivals, you can imagine, daggy shit that is so bad. I’m talking about grannies sitting there crocheting, which is nice, but it’s like why? Because you’re going to sell albums. I do that sometimes. I’ve cut back a lot, but you do end up doing stuff like that.
Otherwise I really try to keep it as real as I can. I don’t play covers, only a couple if I have to if it’s a three hour gig or if I’m playing in a shitty club or RSL or something like that, which I try not to do most of the time. I’d rather go and work somewhere for 80 bucks that’s a nice soulful experience than work somewhere for $800 that’s a shitty experience
I still have this funny belief that I’m going to get money someday from it anyway so that keeps me going. If not this album, then the next album. It’s all about song writing to me. The actual content of the songs and selling the songs and it’s something that I’ll be successful in.
C: What are the areas of the business that you find most challenging?
L: Being a business person at all! Having tax and doing paper work. I really have to get my shit together in that way. I think it’s a real psychological barrier that I need to get over. I think it’s important for people to treat their business like a business. My brain is not at all like that. I don’t even know the names of the strings on my guitar that’s how bad I am in that way! I know shapes and colors and vibe, tax is not my thing at all! My dad used to always offer to do it. I’d say I don’t have to do that and he’d say you do have to, its important. It’s important for you to psychologically know that what you’re doing is a business. I really think you should get an accountant you should get a business name and you should just do it all properly
C: So what are your main goals moving forward within your creative business and within your creativity?
L: The banking thing and the accounting and the taxes that’s a pretty big goal! It seems like a small thing but it’s a big thing to me, I might tackle that soon I might even go the bank after this (probably not!)! I’ve got this whole new promotion company that I’ve just signed up with and I’ve just finished making a new album with Bill Chambers so that’s coming out in a few months. I’ve just finished another album, so I’ve got these two albums. One of them was just released a few months ago and one of them is going to be released in a few months.
C: That’s interesting to have two backed up.
L: I know! The one that I just released is called The Other Side, so it’s the other side of me, not my traditional kind of stuff that I usually do. It’s more like Carole King, 70s type songs. It took 2 years to make. I went and played at Bill’s show again down on the Central Coast. We were driving through and I just popped in. I had a song I had written, this mountain song and I played it in his show and he said “we have to make an album next week”! I said I’ve just finished one I’m not about to make another one he said “no we are and I’m just going to charge you 1000 bucks and you are going to come and we’re going to do an album in two days completely live”.
C: You really can’t say no to Bill Chambers making an album for 1000 bucks can you?!
L: No! So I’m like, okay! He has always been part of my music, he’s always on my albums, we’ve written songs and we’ve always said we’re going to work together probably one time. He just said we’re doing and gave me the date. It was completely live, just me, Phil and Bill upstairs at his house and it just took us two days and we were finished. So now there’s two albums that the marketing company have.
C: How are you going to market the two?
L: I’m not!
C: Did you think about delaying one?
L: Well I have, but there’s this company called Footstomp who manage Busby Marou and Melbourne Ska Orchestra and they’ve got this great following. They’re right into the indi roots scene, Double J, that other kind of world and this fellow that runs it, Graham Ashton, he rang me and said I want to do your stuff so what can we do? I told him what had just happened and he said I’ll meet you in Mullum and he said I want to market both of them at the same time. I’m like “what?! how is that going work?!” and he said no I did it with Paul Kelly 6 years ago at EMI and this is what I’m going to do. He has his great big plan and he’s going to do it. So I’m like okay awesome! It’s going to cost me money but not much and I don’t have to do it so I’m stoked. I’ll still go to Tamworth in January and do my little country launch with Bill and Phil and I’ll just go on doing what I’m doing.
C: How helpful is it to outsource these things?
L: Its really helpful, but it’s not easy. I have been working really hard for a long time trying to find a good team. I think it’s extremely important to have a good team of support around you, whether that’s just somebody that is a real fan and wants to help thor whether it’s a record company or some kind of other publishing company. No-one does more work than you do on your own stuff so I think it’s important to know what that means. Really work hard yourself, put as many hats on as you can. Be the publicist be the promoter be everything.
C: Have you done that?
L: Yeah I have
C: Do you find it hard?
L: Yeah it’s really hard
C: The whole publicity and marketing side is a barrier that so many creative people have. How do you war with yourself over that?
L: Yeah, you got to ring up and say hi I’m great can you hire me! It’s just ridiculous, it feels bad. We’ve situations where I’ve had the whole family sitting around and I go your turn, you do the next call. If we want to go and have a little trip for two weeks out in the middle of whoop whoop we’re going to ring up pubs and say “hi my name is this can we come and play?” They all have turns, they ring up and go my mum does this can we come out and play? I think nothing beats hands on experience but you got to constantly sell yourself and that is definitely quite draining.
C: How have you kept yourself going through that, apart from like getting your kids to help?!
L: I don’t know I just keep doing it. Like at the moment I’m thinking since I haven’t got enough work I should ring and get some more music work. It’s not enough, that’s not satisfying for me, to just to amble along for years. I’ve still got this other side of me that’s working the promotion thing and the writing. It’s a machine in itself so I’m comfortable that I’ve got that, if I didn’t have that I’d be feeling pretty anxious about just “oh here we go again to do a couple more pub gigs if that’s all it was”.
C: Has it helped having a partner involved? Is that a big support?
L: Yeah big support! I mean it’s been kind of a struggle sometimes because my family comes first, even the dogs and sometimes I don’t want them to, but they do! Like I had this weekly promotion company I was supposed to have a deadline with to give my first half of my payment and then both my dogs got ticks so the money went to them. The family comes first. Not everyone works like that. Plenty of local musician have that mindset, “my husband works so I can do my album and my kids know its mommy’s career and it’s the most important”. I’ve never done that, I’m not into that, I don’t care if it takes me until I’m 50 .
C: Do you feel that that’s paid off in a way to not take that approach?
L: I do family wise. We got such a strong family. I think it would bite me in the ass in other ways, I’d have these delinquent teenagers or just something that I didn’t pay close enough attention to. So I think it has and I’ts warming. I think its part of my show to be that person, it’s part of who I am. The audiences and fans they know that’s what I’m like.
C: Where would you like to see your music in three years time?
L: Overseas, specific markets overseas. There is talk of places in Canada and Texas and that kind of stuff. I’d be happy to have quite a successful album by then, that one of the albums is getting a fair bit of attention through the indie roots scene.
C: So what are your three top tips for local artists, any artists?
- Never give up
- Be as true to yourself and art as you can.
- Get out there as much as you can. Don’t ever think that something is too hard to reach or too impossible or the doors are too locked or something like that. Always knock on the doors.
(Maybe it comes from too much door knocking as a kid, we used to do that in the neighborhood, always go and be knocking around, little rascals!!)
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