Cash Savage On Finding Inspiration In Unlikely Places

When asked how often she gets back to her hometown of Port Albert these days, Cash Savage replies, "Not as often as I'd like, but as often as I can," before admitting two of the songs on her new album were inspired by the coastal town. "One of them is about the town itself [Port] and the other one [Run With The Dogs] is about a ghost that lives there," she laughs, as if realising this probably sounds odd, before elaborating, "I like to think that that's where the spirits of my family all hang out. My cousin died last year and I sort of just like to think that. I don't really believe in ghosts, but I guess that that's where I feel she hangs out."  

Savage's late cousin also informed the album's title, One Of Us. "When my cousin died we, you know, we were like, 'Well, one of us is gone now,' so it was just sort of like, 'What does 'one of us' mean? What is that?' For me that was the only song that I really forced, the others just sort of all came quite naturally… Usually the inspirations for songs are in moments. I have a little notepad I keep in my back pocket."

"Everybody in the whole place was dancing except me and the guy next to me eating chicken wings…" 

Fortunately, Savage had a notepad and pen handy when she "had an hour to kill" one evening and wandered into The Victoria Hotel, because what transpired inspired Do You Feel Loved. "I did actually walk into a go-go dancing class at The Vic Hotel and it was raining," she recalls. "And I sat down and wrote the lyrics to [Do You Feel Loved]." Anna's Go-Go weekly class was in full swing and Savage chuckles, "Everybody in the whole place was dancing except me and the guy next to me eating chicken wings… We were both sitting at the bar. It was a really strange night… I'm pretty sure there was a cat in the bar."

Musical genius runs in the family, but Savage feels nervous about being compared to the great Conway Savage (her uncle), declaring, "It's a big shadow". "I put it out there because people used to think Conway was my dad and I still spot that around; someone put that on Facebook the other day that I was Conway's daughter."

Last year was a busy year for Savage, who also married her girlfriend at "a big ceremony" in Port Albert surrounded by "family and friends". "Of course that's not legal or recognised by our government," so points out. They also tied the knot in Vegas and Savage is baffled that "the trashiest wedding you could have in Vegas [is] recognised by the US government" and "legally binding". "If we hadn't have had our original ceremony, the Vegas one would've been, like, heart-breaking. It was so trashy! [Laughs] I just felt so sorry for all the brides and grooms who were coming in for their wedding, the wedding, you know? The one they're gonna remember."

Cash Savage & The Last Drinks toured Europe in 2015 and Savage marvels, "We had one fan actually who followed us around a bit." He even "made his own" merch: "It was the cover of our first album on a T-shirt and then it had the name of the album on a sleeve, like, he'd gone all-out!"