It’s not so much that Holly Throsby is many artists at once – it’s more that she is changeable in what kind of artist she wants to be. The Sydney-born musician divides her time neatly between making solo records; touring; performing as one third of Seeker, Lover, Keeper; making children’s music; and writing novels.
But whatever else she might be at any given time, there is always one thing that remains constant in Throsby’s life: reading. Ever well-prepared, Throsby has already picked out the bookshop where she will take up a day job, if she for any reason needs to someday.
“I always read a lot and if I’m writing, I read even more,” Throsby says. “It’s not the same with music – I switch off music when I’m in novel world.” And, make no mistake, this is how Throsby imagines her creative process: there is the world of the novel, and there is the world of music. Never the twain shall meet. “I can’t do music and writing at once. I can’t can sit down, write a thousand words and then practice guitar that afternoon – I’m not built that way. It’s one or the other. I feel like I need to be in one world or the other to give something the attention it needs.
“They are just very different processes,” she continues. “With songs, no-one requires much of a song. If it speaks to you emotionally, you might not even know the lyrics. Songs are a moment, like: ‘Here is a small part of a thought I had among 1000 thoughts.’ Putting a novel together is much more like assembling all of those 1000 thoughts into a giant jigsaw puzzle.”
Admittedly, given she is about halfway through the first draft of her follow-up to debut novel Goodwood and has a solo tour on the horizon, these split worlds are becoming harder and harder to manage. “It’s been painful to put my draft aside and come back to music, but I figure, after this tour, I’ll be finishing the book. I’m hoping that it will be released in the later end of next year, and that all in all will take me away from music for quite a while.”
Not that Throsby has been locked up under self-imposed house arrest recently, toiling away on the book – she has granted herself the occasional break. Back in September for instance, she played Unity in Sydney, a night of music in support of a YES vote for marriage equality. And on this issue, Throsby’s thoughts have not changed since she penned an op-ed for the Sydney Morning Herald back in 2013. “Arguments for same sex marriage have remained unchanged,” she says. “Arguments against though, they have morphed into all kinds of other things. They have made this debate about safe schools, gender fluidity, trans issues…”
I just really love small-towns and small-town life.
Throsby’s upcoming tour will see the musician take to the stage alone in front of small-town crowds in places as far flung as Bulli, Wagga Wagga, Newcastle and Cronulla. The idea, she says, was to make the shows intimate – to make them feel more like a gathering than a gig. “It will be quite nice, I think. I just really love small-towns and small-town life. As a family, me and my partner and my daughter all have this ongoing fantasy about moving away from the city to a small-town.”
After all, regional New South Wales doesn’t just feature in her upcoming tour – it is the setting for her two novels, and a locale she spends a lot of her time thinking about. “I treat that world quite lovingly. There is a tradition in Australian fiction that sees the landscape of smaller towns as being kind of menacing, or full violence. Goodwood is full of violence, but the tone of it is quite loving.”
Evidently, Throsby truly knows the world that inspired her novel. Not only does Goodwood smile down on the lives of those in small-towns (though, as she says, it does feature a pinch or two of murder), Throsby has a real ear for the voices, characters and narratives that define them.
But really, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Throsby has recorded a number of her records in New South Wales’ Southern Highlands and on its South Coast, and she says that her family loves most to holiday in Australia’s “smaller places.”
Perhaps small-town life will be the setting for yet another chapter in Throsby’s artistic life. “I imagine myself, old and gray, doing continuing education courses in the summer holidays – in a small-town of course – and meeting in the town hall with like-minded residents.
“I’ve always been a bit like this. I’ve turned down a lot of opportunities that I should have taken, in a career sense. I always need to do what I feel like I want to do. Like, I feel like I should do another children’s album. People send me adorable letters about it, and the shows went really well – but I can’t do that until I’m really ready to do a children’s album. I think I will be ready eventually, though.”
Indeed, Throsby’s wonderfully whimsical See! started as a joke that eventually became a reality. In that way, it is just another feeling that Throsby followed through on to its completion; another whim chased down by an artist who has made her career based on leaving no stone unturned.
Throsby plays The Basement on Friday November 3. Read our review of Throsby’s most recent record, After A Time, here.
