"I’ve never been a patron before,” The Cat Empire’s Harry James Angus admits of his new role in relation to the Mullum Music Festival, now in its seventh year up in Mullumbimby, “and essentially what I think it means this year is that I get my own venue to do whatever I want in, and generally just kind of be involved in the festival and a couple of community events. And then next year, we’ll probably take it further down the community involvement kind of path.”

Angus takes up the baton passed him by previous Mullum patron, Mama Kin, so The Music wondered if she’d had any advice for him. “Not really – I should ask her,” he chuckles. “Last year she did a performance with a youth choir made up of kids from the local high school, and they did all her songs with this beautiful choir behind her – it was such an amazing journey. I came in at the end of that concert and everyone in the audience was bawling. So when they asked me to be patron this year, I thought, well, that’s a really hard act to follow – I’m not going to try and do anything like that. So I’m definitely not going to try and make anyone cry – I’m just gonna play some jazz."

'So I’m definitely not going to try and make anyone cry – I’m just gonna play some jazz.’

And Angus will be doing that in his aforementioned venue, dubbed The Village Vanguard, the Ex-Services Club band room renamed for the festival. “Essentially it’s just a chance for me to program some artists that I’m really into or that I’ve worked with over the years, and show people some stuff they wouldn’t usually get to see. Really, what I’m trying to create is a little window into the musical communities that I’m a part of in Melbourne. So a lot of musicians that I’m bringing up are all part of a really exciting scene where, I guess, jazz meets the singer-songwriter-y kind of burlesque-y world.”

That world brought to Mullum in miniature will include Bullhorn, various members of the Pound Records roster, Melotonins, Mojo Juju and Martin Martini among others. As well, Angus will be performing every night with Melbourne’s notorious Jazz Party, their first time at Mullumbimby. It’s not, of course, Angus’ first time there.

“I’ve been to the festival as a performer and as a baby holder while my wife [Tinpan Orange’s Emily Lubitz] has performed, the last three or four years, and Mullumbimby really is a place where, as a musician, you can go and tend to find yourself doing things you wouldn’t normally do in your normal touring life, maybe playing with people that you haven’t played with before or just doing something a little bit out of the box.”

There’s one other challenge Angus has taken up for this year’s festival, as he explains: “When Glenn [Wright], who runs Mullum Festival, spoke to me about being a patron, what he was surreptitiously trying to say was that he wanted me to bring as many horn players as possible for the street parade!”