‘Where Do I Stand As An Indigenous Land Owner?’: Outback Empire On Australia, GarageBand, & Their New Single

The Sunshine Coast’s newest indie rock band, Outback Empire, have today released a fresh track, titled Where Can I Stand!, an ode to Indigenous land ownership.

Prior to the single dropping, The Music managed a quick chat with Outback Empire - made up of proud Wik-Mungkan man Paul Fry, Andrew Marshallsea, Andy Met, Jake Patterns, and Matt Ballantyne - to talk all things Australia, GarageBand, and Where Can I Stand!.

Tell us about ‘Where Can I Stand!’ - What is it about?

Paul: The song is about living and working on an Outback cattle station. I lived and worked on my Indigenous family's cattle station in Cape York for two years. This was in 2011 and 2012 at Batavia Downs Cattle Station near the famous Frenchmans Track. The Frenchmans Track is also part of our Indigenous families' land, which is Kaanju Ngaachi. I also lived at a small cattle station near Coen, Cape York, but that was only for 6 months. The song I wrote tells the story of “where do I stand?” as an Indigenous traditional owner. Some traditional owners of Cape York still have their traditional lands run by the Australian government. So why do we have to lease a cattle station from the government?

There are many reasons why this happens, and not all traditional owners think the same way. It’s hard for families to come up with a suitable idea for their traditional lands in Cape York, so the government usually takes control and turns most properties into national parks, etc. This is a great idea, but is it? Who actually owns traditional lands in Australia? Is it the government or the Indigenous Peoples of Australia?

What was the process of creating the single like?

Paul: I actually created the single in Apple Mac's music app, GarageBand. All instruments in the song are preset instruments from GarageBand. So there are actually 4 guitar riffs or parts in the song, three drum beats, and two lines or presets of drum fills and deep-down vibe shakers. It took me a month to produce this song in GarageBand, and then I sang the vocals.

What do you want your audience to take from ‘Where Can I Stand!’?

Paul: That’s actually a hard question, but I think it applies to all Australians who work hard and buy their own properties, not just my own interpretation of the song.

You’re a fairly new band. What made you guys start creating music together?

Paul: So, pretty much all of the songs that I have produced at home were in GarageBand. However, my next-door neighbour Andrew Marshallsea, from Cleanskin Studios in Montville, on the Sunshine Coast, helped me to finish off a couple of my songs in Ableton Live. Andrew has helped me with the vocals, drumbeats, some percussion instruments, mixing, and mastering, and Andrew has also added a few guitar riffs in my songs through Ableton Live.

Then I got the rest of the band's instrument players, like the bass guitarist, lead guitarist, keys player, and two rhythm guitarists, from Facebook. After the Facebook post, I think it was just word of mouth after that. There are a lot of talented musicians in Palmwoods, on the Sunshine Coast! I also produced and mixed two songs in May and June 2024 through GarageBand, and my front guitarist was Andy Met from Nambour. Andy is a talented blues and rock guitarist who usually performs with the crew at the Sunshine Coast Blues Club. Andy’s guitar riffs are really sweet in our music pieces Simple Way and Where’s the Stars!. Overall, we have more songs planned for Outback Empire.

Jake: I want people to groove to our music!

Matt: For the love of music and seeing a song come together with 5 different people with 5 different influences.

Andy: It was just I could play the guitar to both songs, to the songs that Paul could create on the computer.

Why did you choose ‘Outback Empire’ as your name?

Paul: Outback Empire was developed and took shape in 2011 on the Sunshine Coast after my adventures in Cape York. Outback Empire is a patriotic name that means Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians living together in the Australian Outback. The idea for this concept occurred to me when I finished work on a cattle station in Cape York. During these two years of work, I captured many photographs and images of the Australian outback. I decided at that time to start my own collection of photographs and a brand that would be a way of bringing outback people together with mainstream society.

Bridging the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples is one of the main goals of Outback Empire, and my music, plus photography, will be the important means of building bridges in mainstream society.

What’s next for you guys?

Paul: As we are only a new band, I think we are just going to concentrate on practising and jamming at parties, etc. If we ever get a good gig, we’ll probably do it sooner than expected! And I thought about doing a few song covers soon, including the song by Paul Rodgers and Queen's All Right Now. They did an awesome live version in 2007 with a super cool long bridge. Loved it!

Jake: We want to play for the people.

Matt: Fine-tuning our set list and getting a few gigs around the Sunny Coast. Hopefully getting a bit of a following and seeing people enjoy our music.

Andy: I would like to see the band have a live experience.

Paul: The first album I am going to produce next year is called Kirby’s Road, and then the album after that is going to be called Fall Back In That Line.

This song, Where Can I Stand!, will be the third song that I will have produced for Outback Empire's new album called Fall Back In That Line, which will be released, hopefully, at the end of the year in 2025.

Outback Empire’s new single, ‘Where Can I Stand!’ is out now on all streaming platforms.