With the ARIA Fine Art and Artisan Awards announced and the 2013 ARIA Award nominations revealed, we spoke to some of this year's nominees on their take on the nominations and the state of the awards.
BOY & BEAR
On not being underdogs anymore
Tim Hart: “I'm going to do a Des Hasler here, I think we are the underdogs. With the likes of Flume, Nick Cave, Tame Impala and Birds Of Tokyo we're well and truly the underdogs. I don't think you can get much more under.”
On spending 2014 overseas
TH: “I think it's wonderful for Australian music to have 11 albums come out that have gone to number one, and the fact that it's working overseas for those guys – and hopefully for us soon, fingers crossed.”
Killian Gavin: “We head off in February, we'll be gone most of next year.”
TH: “It's going to be a lot of travelling, and hopefully not an expanding waistline.”
On writing for an audience on album two
KG: “We do it internally and everything external sort of matches you and meets up with you at a certain point.”
Their picks
TH: “I'd love Tame Impala to win. 'Cause they were nominated for seven for the first album and they didn't win any of them. And Flume…”
KG: “Nick Cave's a badass, so he should win something.”
TH: “I hope they get shared around a bit.”
SETH SENTRY
On Aussie hip hop being recognised:
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“I guess there's been more attention to us… For a long time they were throwing hip hop, R&B, whatever the fuck into this one category and calling it 'urban' and I think with how fast the genre has grown and how represented it is in the mainstream [the ARIAs] should really have a hip hop category and maybe not have everything bunched into urban… it essentially is anyway, it's just the name now. I know last year dudes like Guy Sebastian were nominated alongside other rappers but this year it's just all Australian hip hop artists…
“The underground scene in Australia has been flourishing for years and years and they've been working really fucking hard, so I guess it's taken a while in this country for hip hop to come to attention and really be seen as a valid form of music. It's been a long time coming, when in other parts of the world it's been like that for a long time. But, we're getting there.”
His pick:
"I would like to see Horrorshow win, because I think their album is fucking fantastic. But you know, if Horrorshow dont win, I'll take it [laughs]."
JASMINE RAE
“I started writing this album about two years ago and I learnt so much about myself, and about myself as a songwriter by doing that. To be here today is very special.”
On country's push into the mainstream:
“I think because of Keith Urban and Taylor Swift… I think it is becoming more mainstream, which is exciting. I would like it to be more mainstream than it is now.”
On developing a metro audience for country:
“Because I play country music I want to include the regional cities, because they're the people that really support what you do, they're the people that line-up for hours after your show and contact you. I haven't looked into not touring the regionals… There is a smaller audience in the cities for up and coming artists like myself, but they're there. Alan Jackson can sell out huge arenas and there definitely is a fanbase in the cities, but it's just getting to them because there's so many other gigs on in the city.”
RUSSELL MORRIS
On this year's surprise album:
“No one wanted it. It was an album that was an unwanted child, so to speak. I only pressed 500 copies initially just to sell at shows to try and make some of the money back. And at the last moment Robert Rigby from Ambition Records said, 'Nah, we'll run with this'. The first time they called me it was in the charts at 80 and I was delighted. I said, 'This is the greatest thing!' I mean, I'm in the charts after 30 years. Then they'd ring me the next week, 'It's gone to 50', next week it's gone to 21, next week it's gone to six. It was just a total surprise and it was never done as a commercial venture, it was done as a labour of love because I love blues and roots music and I also love history… I don't think we'll win the category, but to get in there after all this time is sensational.”
On why did Sharkmouth resonated with audiences:
“Normally in the past when I've done albums walking forwards, this time it's almost like I've walked backwards into them. They didn't expect it, they didn't expect I'd do a blues roots album and its resonated with community radio and the ABC in particular because it's been Australiana and Australian characters… We had a cultural cringe for a long time, Australians were a bit worried about talking about their history because I think we were made to feel like we were convicts for a long time.
“Strangely enough we were in Tasmania last week and I had a guitar player who is a Tasmanian. And we went into a historic bookshop looking at things and he went, 'Look, look, look look! There's my great, great, great Grandmother in this book!' And there's a half a page on her and the title was Strumpets, Whores And Bad Women Of Tasmania and he was wrapt that she was in there. 100 years earlier he would pretend he never knew her. And I think want a link with that convict past, they want a link with their past history because as a country we've matured and as Australia we're very confident in the world today.”
RÜFÜS
Tyrone Lindqvist: “To be sitting in a room like that, it's got a corporate feel but it's just so crazy because it is realistically an entire industry of people doing what they love doing, it's nice to be surrounded by that.”
Jon George: “There's definitely more of an appreciation for independent artists.”
TL: “Seeing the artists that were nominated today, they're all really great albums… There's obviously tapping into a sick [indie] cross-over that's really nice that people are connecting to it and it's great that the industry's recognising it… A lot of the artists who were nominated for things today are pretty similar to the Indie Awards, and that's really nice.”
