1. Growing Up
When I was six, my mum’s younger brother immigrated to Australia from Indonesia and bought me a tiny guitar. We wrote ‘The Beatles’ on in fat black marker, and played it every night. I had a weird mix of pre-teen influences including The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, lots of music from Indonesia, Aussie bush music and folk, with some Michael Jackson, Prince and James Brown mixed in.
2. Inspirations
I’m inspired by different kinds of musicians – songwriters, charismatic performers, great bandleaders and musicians that pioneer new genres. So some Hunters influences include Te Vaka, Hiatus Kaiyote, Herbie Hancock, Circle Of Rhythm, Nahko, Paul Kelly, Opiuo, Kodo, Avishai Cohen, Fat Freddy’s and SambaSunda. We started playing taiko drums and Indonesian music. It was hard to find musicians to play this music, so as a community drumming teacher I looked to my student base. To cut a long story short, I offered traineeships to the kids in my classes. Like sponges they learnt fast and were playing professionally from as young as 13. We played bazillions of multicultural events, corporate shows and then got into music festivals.
3. Your Band
The core group is Rose Callaghan, Luke Fabila, Joseph Smith and myself. The group started with me as teacher, downloading rhythmic concepts, techniques and traditional music, but this has developed into sharing ideas from all our influences. The guys have since all studied percussion at Newcastle Conservatorium. There is a horn section and a group of sassy babes that perform frenetic dance – on their knees. This year we are looking forward to Nicky Bomba joining us in the Jenolan Caves.
4. The Music You Make
Our music reflects a love of culture and tradition, but also beats, groove, jazz and folk. You can expect a pretty high-energy show. There is a fusion of groove music, songs, traditional Indo, electronics and killer physical drumming.
5. Music, Right Here,Right Now
The music scene is hard because supply is bigger than demand. Things like open mics are great and it would be great to see a rise in that kind of thing. When we chase fame and fortune, it’s easy to forget why they started. I’m saying, don’t let the lack of breaks affect your love of music. It’s an ongoing struggle for artists, money versus exposure, versus fun, versus getting behind a cause, and it goes on. Obviously relationships and who you know have a massive impact on a career.
The Grand Arch, Jenolan Caves plays host toRhythm Underground, along with Nicky Bomba and Si Mullumby onSaturday November 21.
