The Audreys

Now, well, nobody knows what’s going on, really. First, illegal downloading tore the guts out of album sales. Then streaming services became so efficient and affordable that most people don’t bother to download anymore, since it’s actually easier to get your music legally. But that doesn’t give the artist much wiggle room to make a living, which makes live shows even more important to musicians than they were before.

The Australian Worldwide Music Expo, taking place in Melbourne in November, is a unique event; a music industry conference and showcase for roots music. It’s designed to give artists a platform to foster stronger relationships with industry associates by bringing together musicians, industry partners/representatives and festival audiences for three days of non-stop performance, networking and conference sessions. For the average music-loving punter, it also means lots of great artists like The Audreys, whose co-founder Taasha Coates is looking forward to using the home field advantage to woo overseas movers and shakers.

“It’s a good opportunity for us to get in front of overseas booking agents and buyers without having to actually go overseas,” Coates says. “Which we have done several times as well. If an American act comes to to Australia, we’re like, ‘Wow, you’re from America,’ but an Australian act goes over there, they don’t really care. You’re not special in that way – you’re competing with all the American acts, so it’s really hard to get noticed. Whereas here we have a good profile so we should be able to convince the American bookers that we’re worth going to see. That’s the plan – but you know how it is with plans!”

Coates offers some advice for musicians playing any schmoozy conference event, which is fitting in time for Sydney’s own Australian Music Week, also happening next month. “Do you know that theory about how once someone hears about you for the third time, then it sticks? We went to South By Southwest and then we went to Americana, and some of those people will be at AWME too, so they’ll be seeing us for the third time. Apart from anything else, it’s showing that you’re serious about the market because you keep turning up. I think that’s part of networking: being seen and being charming and not being desperate and not being pushy. I think a lot of networking happens at the bar when you’re just having a yarn. You make a personal connection with someone and that can flow into work.”

That’s almost at odds with the Australian propensity for tall poppy syndrome, or rather the way that the fear of tall poppy syndrome tends to lead our artists to underpromote themselves. “Americans are so good at self-promotion because they’re so positive about everything,” says Coates. “I read an article with Keith Urban where he said it took him a few years in America to realise that people were just being super polite.”

The Audreys have been around for a decade now – 2016 will be the tenth anniversary of their debut album – and in that time they’ve seen the musical landscape utterly reshape itself. For a band with a few ARIAs under its belt but not falling into the “multimillion-seller like Taylor Swift” category, it’s not necessarily all glamour.

“I just got my publishing statement and saw that I had 109 plays on a German streaming service and I made three cents,” Coates says. “Streaming does not a career create, certainly. Look, if people were paying really great money to come out and see shows then that’d be fine, but people still grumble about the price of a concert ticket, and a lot of festivals struggle. It’s not like they’re just putting their money somewhere else in the music industry, they’re withdrawing it from the pool that artists have to make a living from. There aren’t more people coming out to gigs. Ticket prices haven’t gone up. Gone are the days when you can make a living from music. It’s pretty tough to do.”

The Audreys will preview their AWME set at The Vanguard in Newtown on Friday November 6. “We’ll be bringing our drummer and playing as a trio, and I recently acquired a cherry red bass ukulele, which is incredibly awesome,” says Coates. “It’s so good. I love it. I wish I could do justice to how awesome it looks with my playing, but we’ll get there.”