1. Growing Up
My house was a musical utopia – my folks had records and CDs constantly playing, everything from Elton John and The Beatles to Duran Duran and Mötley Crüe. I still remember my dad teaching me and my little sisters to throw ourselves off the sofa to ‘Mota’ by The Offspring. My folks were in a super ’80s band too, called Hotel Berlin. Big hair, synths, catchy pop riffs, pretty much Client Liaison.
2. Inspirations
I adore the huge showmen of the ’60s and ’70s like Mick Jagger, Robert Plant and Freddie Mercury, and I’m also a massive Tom Petty fan. When I was 15, my mum handed me down her old record collection and I listened to You’re Gonna Get It! on vinyl for the first time. The world finally made sense.
3. Your Band
Hidden Candy is basically the love child of me and keys player, Chris Long. We’ve been friends for ages, and he was studying jazz piano at the Con and I was singing with a very average cover band called Agent 69 (seriously). Chris and I started playing covers together to make a bit of money, and then finally we got our shit together and said, ‘OK, let’s do our own stuff.’
4. The Music You Make
We really just wanted to record songs that made people want to get up and dance. We love Elton John and Lady Gaga, Gary Clark, Jr. and Grace Potter, so we just threw all our influences in the ring and said, ‘Let’s go!’ We released our debut EP this month, which we recorded at Linear Recording with Wade Keighran.
5. Music, Right Here, Right Now
I’m loving the rock’n’roll babes tearing up the scene right now, like Haim and The Preatures, and in Sydney, bands like Burn Antares, She Rex and Hot Spoke. Brighton Up Bar is always an awesome place to go and catch new bands, and of course Frankie’s Pizza, whose house band is killer and their pinball machine collection is epic.
Hidden Candy out now independently, and they play Frankie’s Pizza on Wednesday June 24.
