Flint Eastwood On Her Love For Detroit

Flint Eastwood is the stage name of highly talented young American indie pop artist Jax Anderson. She hails from the Michigan city of Detroit, also known as 'Motor City', due to it traditionally being the centre of motor vehicle manufacturing for the United States. It's a city that has experienced major economic and social problems over the past few decades, mainly brought about by the decline of the automobile industry across the States and around the world, and Anderson has felt the hardship of the city and its people as an artist over her career.

Speaking from inside her car, which is warm and quiet as the northern states of the US return to another frigid, bitter winter, she tells us she feels that her city and its issues have helped shape the artist and the person she is.

"I grew up through most of my childhood in the city, and my dad has always worked in the city from when we were kids," she related her story, "so I spent a lot of time there, and to see some of the changes that have happened over the years and the effect that everything has had on the citizens has really been something that at times has been hard to swallow. As an artist, I think the only thing that I can really do is offer a helping hand whenever I can."

She believes that, rather than the actual hardships that her city has faced - which she actually feels have been exaggerated and over-sensationalised in the media and other coverage - it is more the resilience and spirit of its people in the face of that hardship that has seeped into her consciousness as a writer, and which subsequently comes out in her work.

"With Detroit, what's phenomenal to me is that the neighbourhoods are so tight-knit and so inspiring," she admires. "They had to just step up because the city didn't have money to help everybody. The whole city is just very connected and very honest and hardworking, and it's been great to see that as an artist. I just can't say enough good stuff about the city.

"Yes, Detroit has been through some really shitty situations and we've been through a lot of crap, but the people themselves are super-connected and super-positive, and just like 'Yo! You're having a hard time, I'm having a hard time, let's help each other out.' That's what I'm taking out of it as an artist."

Something else that's invaluable to Anderson as an artist and musician that her city has given her is a rather unique and varied musical upbringing. Her music gets put into the 'indie-pop' category but is significantly more varied than the images that that term might conjure: of course there is pure pop, but also electronic elements, it gets funky at times and even features some more jazzy and loungey moments. Anderson attributes that diversity, at least in part, to where she was brought up.

"Specifically being from Detroit, the city's background is in so many different areas," she explains, "we had Motown, we're the birthplace of techno, birthplace of garage rock, there's so many genres that have burst out of this city, so naturally I just feel like I've always been around so many different types of music. So I never limit myself to one style of writing. The connector for me is my voice and my lyrical content, and it's all a great representation of who I am."

It comes across to best effect in her live show, and Aussie audiences will get to experience that for the first time ever over the New Year period when she comes out for a run of shows on the Falls Festival tour, plus a couple of smaller gigs in pubs in Melbourne and Sydney. "My live show is very intimate, very vulnerable, very honest, very energetic," she describes. "It's my place to expose my soul a little bit. I just want to connect with people and put myself out there as much as possible and have the people put themselves out there as well.

"My whole goal with performing is to have people feel vulnerable and comfortable with themselves."