Nahko And Medicine For The People

“[We’re] really feeling a lot of hype and a lot of really powerful stuff from everyone out there,” says songwriter and bandleader Nahko. “We’re getting a lot of feedback from people. It’s going to be great.”

It’s not unusual for visiting musicians to voice affection for Australia. However, due to the brevity of most international bands’ Australian tours, these appraisals generally refer to nothing more than their experiences in the major cities. Nahko’s another musician who speaks adoringly of the land Down Under, but he’s actually managed to get a reasonably in-depth look at the country.

“It’s kind of part of our schedule to have time off, because your country is absolutely magical,” he says. “Our tour manager out there has been a great tour guide for us. Also, one of my close friends that I befriended within the first week of being in Australia my first time there was Xavier Rudd, so he also showed us some really beautiful places.

“I’ve scheduled in this tour coming up some time, after we’re done touring, to just hang out. Half of the band is surfers, so we’re all pretty keen to get in the ocean. Also, I always look forward to spending time with elders and being with a family.”

It’s certainly rare for a member of a touring party to make an effort to connect with the Australian land and the country’s original inhabitants. But Nahko isn’t your run-of-the-mill rock musician. While traversing the stages of the world, Nahko makes a point of endorsing cross-cultural unity and respect for the planet we live on. The band’s forthcoming tour is titled Water Is Life, which is more than just a cute catchphrase.

“This tour is dedicated to a prayer for the awakening of the water within you,” Nahko explains. “As a human being you’re pretty much made of water. [We want to] help awaken people to an understanding of what’s important to the basic human condition.

“You only get one source of fresh water and you only get one clean ocean. Amongst so many other things right now on our planet, we’re facing serious shortages of uncontaminated water and clean resources. That has a lot to do with, of course, policies in different governments towards energy.”

Far from being a bratty rock singer, Nahko is well educated on the causes he advocates. Alongside the likes of The Herd and Tex Perkins, Nahko will perform solo at next weekend’s anti-fracking benefit Rock The Gate, being held at the Enmore Theatre. Fracking is an issue he feels especially strongly about.

“In America we’ve been facing so much destruction of our ecosystem due to fracking – which is something that we also know is reflective of the Australian community – with this huge push for the last decade or two decades of moving us off of fossil fuels into the use of natural gas.

“With so many different indigenous people of America being on the front lines of a lot of these contaminations and shortages of real clean water, and being the first ones to face the consequences of these decisions that have been made at the top, we wanted to dedicate a tour to a collective prayer at our shows for the longevity of having a clean water source. You can’t drink NestlО water for the rest of your life.”

Even though Nahko is a conspicuous crusader for the reversal of environmental destruction and the eradication of civil imbalance, he realises that not everyone attending the band’s shows is interested in witnessing a politically motivated treatise.

“I don’t like to bore people,” he says. “You have to say just enough to remind people that this is going on. I touch on it a bit, but I don’t get too preachy. I don’t spend too much time talking about the details. I just say, ‘This is what’s happening, you guys either know or you don’t know about it, and this is the intention that we have for this tour.’”

Evidently, despite his proactive bent, Nahko’s not suggesting he’s an environmental saviour. At the end of the day, Nahko and Medicine For The People are a group of entertainers, whose most powerful resource is music.

“There’s so much that goes into changing things for generations,” says Nahko. “You have artists, you have activists, you have all kinds of people that create change in the world, and I’m just doing my part.

“I certainly don’t have any solutions to any of these things that I’m speaking out about. There’s definitely a lot of push towards being able to create solutions. I don’t have those answers. I’m here to tell stories and to get at the heart of people in a way that’s unique. And I know that now. So, politics aside for the world that I’d prefer to live in, I know that I’ll probably travel and play songs and tell some stories for the better part of my life.”