Mothering Music

ama Kin, Danielle Caruana, is the youngest of six, in a sprawling Maltese family that has music in its very fabric. Every child in her family was expected to play an instrument growing up, and to play it for members of the Maltese community who would flood their house on the weekends. 

“I think my dad saw it as what we would give the community,” says Caruana. “We'd sing together and dance together and party together. And that's what we did for the community. And whenever somebody would come over to our house, that was what we would do: play music for them.”

Caruana resented it when she was younger. She resented being forced by her father to play for people, the expectation to be a part of the family band. Only recently has she realised what an act of generosity it was. “'You have the opportunity to make people feel good.'” Mama Kin says, quoting her father - “'You have the opportunity for people who come over here to leave feeling different. Put yourself aside and play.'” 

“And sure enough, every time time we would do it, for the first few bars or for the first verse you would kind of be rolling your eyes and just regurgitating, but the song would take you and by the end of the song you would be singing it in full flight, and you would be playing it. You'd be doing it. You'd be in it. And I realised it was an incredible gift for him to give us all, because it's totally what we are as people. As a family unit, we are generous musicians.”

Considering the musical upbringing, it's not surprising that two of Caruana's older brothers went on to become career musicians. Nicolas Caruana is better known as Nicky Bomba, and Michael Caruana has been a member in several of Nicky Bomba's bands. It was a difficult shadow to grow up under and it grew longer when she met and married John Butler. 

“He was the ultimate archetype of what it is to be creative,” says Caruana of her husband. “You know: really driven, a prolific writer. A man. I had all these fears going on about it – all these ideas of why he should and why he could, and why I shouldn't and why I couldn't. And I built a really strong case around that and I just kept reinforcing it.”

She is adamant when she stresses that this was a self-imposed shadow. Both of her brothers and Butler regularly encouraged her to play music, but she was always ready with an argument against. Though she gave lots of reasons, in truth her arguments were covering up a darker, more dishonest motive. 

“It felt like the biggest risk I could ever take,” Caruana admits. “It felt like the ultimate risk for my psyche. The ultimate risk for my spirit. I had this kind of confusion that if I put my work out and then people actually came back and said it was shit, then that would confirm what I've always thought about it anyway. And I would rather live with not knowing whether it was actually shit and secretly harbouring the idea that it was, than living with the confirmed thing that it was.”

As suppressed expression will, the situation over time bred resentment, and eventually resulted in quite a toxic environment for herself and her family. She realised that if she wanted to change things, she was going to need to change the way she reacted. 

“For me it was the simple thing of starting to say 'yes',” Caruana says. “When people ask me about my music, I'm going to say 'Yup.' Rather than going, 'Aw, nah, I haven't written anything; everything I write is shit,' I'm just gonna say, 'Yes, I've written a song. Yes, I'll play it for you. Yes, I'll do a gig.' I just started saying yes to everything. As hard as it was, as much as it made me want to vomit – actually physically feel so sick – I just practiced the art of saying 'yes.' And shit just changed.”

The Magician's Daughter, released earlier this year, is Caruana's fourth release to date. She has become a successful musician in her own right – not the wife or sister of one – and now her brother Michael plays in her band, too. She's toured extensively and continues to do so. 

And then there's The Seed. The Seed is a philanthropic fund, set up by John Butler, Caruana and a few others, that helps practicing artists and musicians to become self-sustained. Their flagship project is the Management Workshop, which puts twenty-five carefully selected emerging managers into a big guest house in the Blue Mountains, where they undergo three days of intensive workshops with experienced industry managers of internationally famous Australian bands. 

Additionally, the Management Workshop is an exercise in supportive networking. “They create their own network,” Caruana says. “So all of the sudden 25 managers know 25 managers... and then they have a national network of managers that they can call on; who were at the same workshop as them, who received all the same information that they did for three days. Lived in house, got drunk with a couple of nights, watched a showcase, watched a thing. You know – had a time together. And they're now connected.”

The main motivation behind creating such an organisation, Caruna says, is to create community within the music industry. “We believe in the potential for it to be very community-minded – or the way a community would operate, which is a generous, sharing thing where everyone supports each other in their endeavours. We believe that's possible if only given the arena for it to happen. And that's totally been our experience with the seed. Every time we've gone, “Will you come, O top manager of amazing international band that's Australian, will you come and tell us all your secrets at a management workshop for three days in a room of 25 emerging managers. And they're like, 'Yup.' That is the resounding response.”

Caruana argues that by calling on that instinct of  community, the music industry won't only be stronger for it, it will perpetuate. “The idea around it is that the seed holds all the information for the fruit,” she explains. “Not just for the tree – for the fruit. And then that fruit holds the seed. It's that thing where it's in a healthy community that cycle perpetuates itself endlessly.”

Both of Bulter and Caruana's young children play music. The seed has been planted in them. Their mother, meanwhile, with a fourth release and another national tour, is now bearing fruit – despite  the fear, despite difficult points. “We're so risk-adverse,” Caruana says. “We're so pain-adverse. We're so like, 'Can't have any of the low bits.' Bring on the low bits – that's where the creative shit exists as well. We've gotta be on the ride. We're so obsessed in everything being nice and good and easy. You know? That's the killer.”

Mama Kin will be playing the following dates:

Thursday 18 April - No. 5 Church St, Bielsdown Hills NSW
Friday 19 April - Civic Hall, Mullumbimby NSW
Saturday 20 April - No. 5 Church St, Bielsdown Hills NSW
Sunday 21 April - Pelican Playhouse, Grafton NSW
Friday 26 April - Fairbridge Music Festival, Fairbridge WA
Thursday 30 May - Fly By Night, Fremantle WA
Friday 31 May - Clancy's Fish Pub, Dunsborough WA