On Her Gay Labrador, Staying At Big Boi's Hotel And Learning The Viola

Banoffee

Perched on a bench seat on Corner Hotel's rooftop, Banoffee (aka Martha Brown) was born to stand out with her platinum blonde locks and authentic red tartan Galaxy bomber jacket. Brown has a welcoming presence and it's endearing to discover her black Labrador is called Igby (after Kieran Culkin's character in the 2002 film, Igby Goes Down). "I reckon he's gay," she tells of her dog. "Have you heard the song Eli by Arthur Russell? It's a song about a putzy dog, it says, 'I don't know why nobody likes him,' and we always sang it to Igby as a puppy, because we thought it was really cute. And then one day I was just like, 'You know what? You're a little Arthur Russell-esque.' And then he was into men and I was like, 'You're just Arthur reincarnated'."

"[He] flew me to New Orleans and I stayed in a hotel with Big Boi, it was very funny — same hotel, different rooms..."

Brown went to a Steiner school where it was compulsory to start learning how to play an instrument from Year Three. She chose viola. "I used to wanna be in the symphony orchestra; you know, I thought that that was my shtick," Brown shares. Although she was "first viola in the orchestra", Brown confesses she didn't enjoy practising. "My dad used to bribe me with chocolate," she recalls. Although she's tried to "put some viola into the Banoffee stuff", Brown admits "it hasn't sounded right". "A lot of the stuff that I do I end up having to play all on laptops live," she laments. "So it would be nice to bring out some instruments and interact with the electronics that are going on. Sometimes I get asked, 'Did you write the backing track?' and I'm like, 'Oh, yeah! I made that!' or I'm like, 'That happened live, it's just that it's all electronic'."

Banoffee's music incorporates a very strong visual aspect and Brown acknowledges, "I'm super lucky that a lot of the people that I respect the most in the industry, I've found and connect with and that's just, like, luck. And I'm really grateful for that." Brown's cousin Alice Glenn ("she lives in my mum's back garden in a bungalow and we're really close") has directed all of her music videos so far. "She's a busy girl," Brown says of Glenn, who not only runs No Lights No Lycra, but also Schoolhouse Studios in Collingwood with Brown's sister, Hazel.

While in New York for CMJ last year, Brown received a call from the head of Big Boi's creative team who had heard her track Got It on Twitter. "[He] flew me to New Orleans and I stayed in a hotel with Big Boi, it was very funny — same hotel, different rooms," Brown divulges. She got to see Outkast's last show, which she describes as "amazing". Had Brown been on home soil when she received the call, she reckons things would've turned out differently. "If someone contacted me and said, 'Hi, I'm the chief of Big Boi's creative team, meet me at this café for a coffee,' I'd be like, 'Yeah, sure mate. Pull the other one'… And there was, you know, a big chance it wasn't going to be Outkast and I would end up in some freaky scam." Fortunately, it was a legit offer. So are there any plans to collaborate with Big Boi? "Oh, I think our music's too different, but..."