Anyone keen to be in a Coldplay film clip today? There are still places available. They need the first 250 people lined up at The Courthouse Hotel. TODAY show is there right now too filming. We interviewed Wade, keen Colplay fan and no. 1 in line at the Courty.

‘I’m from Florida. I go to the University of Florida and am here studying at UNSW.

I saw Coldplay in 2012 with a friend. It blew my mind – I’ve always been a big Coldplay fan but it wasn’t until Viva La Vida was when I really started to like them.

I knew that they were going to be here in Sydney on June 19 and I tried to buy tickets while I was at the airport flying here and they sold out in three minutes. My flight got delayed and I was distracted. All these things went down. I was really resigned to the fact that I wouldn’t see them even though I was going to be here. Last night we were sitting at home. We’re big Game of Thrones fans and we’d just downloaded it. And then I saw their tweet about coming down here to get in line to be in their video.

That was around 8pm last night. We showed up here at the Courthouse last night around 9pm but there was nobody in line. We went back home and came back at 6 this morning and we were first in line.

They haven’t said anything about what they’re going to do. That’s the exciting part. I don’t know if they’re filming here at the Courthouse or I think they’re going to take us around and film. They have their plan and we don’t know it. I’m assuming I’ll see the band.’

‘The mainstay of my work is sideshow. I swallow razorblades, walk on broken glass, eat lightbulbs and stuff. For a circus performer, I’m neither fit nor flexible. It’s all in my fingers and tongue. I had an act where my assistant would feed me razorblades. She’d then swallow some string and then we’d snog. As we snogged, we regurgitated what we swallowed and tie the razorblades under the string with our tongues.’

How did you get in to this?

‘It’s weird. I studied business. I thought that was the smart thing to do. I didn’t study art and drama like I wanted to because like that’s ever going to make you a living. I picked up fire twirling just by randomness and started getting work for it. I then started to diversify. I went from fire dancing to fire eating to fire breathing to sword swallowing to swallowing other things to just working on controlling responses of the body that are normally automatic that we normally don’t have conscious control over – that your subconscious takes over itself.

‘What I do, it’s not like an adrenaline rush. I’m not seeking death or pain or anything like that. It’s actually more methodical. It’s more mastery of your body. It’s not even mind over body. It’s more mind over mind really. My old assistant used to say, “Everything is in the mind. Even the mind is in the mind.”’

And so the tables are turned.

If you were to give advice to a large group of people, what would it be?

‘It’s about the bigger picture. You think that the world is your little bubble but take a bird’s eye view of where you’re at. My dad actually told me that you picture your situation and then you zoom the camera out a bit and you take in the suburb you’re in and then you zoom out and take in the state and then you take in the country. It puts your experience in to perspective because there is a lot going on outside of where you are that’s also important.’

Thanks to the lovely Jo from ABCTV for this morning’s interview (her’s and mine) and a lovely hug!

‘Greg, the redhead, bought a sousaphone so then we decided to make it an official band. People were loving it so then we kept going and started getting offers for gigs. We’re lucky now, we’ve got a bit of a following especially for the busking thing. We can start huge dance parties in the street. It’s awesome – we love it!’

What’s one of the best things that’s happened while you’ve been busking?

‘We were marching down Crown Street in Surry Hills. A lot of the pubs there are double story and people were throwing money off the top. We had our girlfriends there with buckets catching the money. A guy gave us a $100 note once too. That was pretty cool.’

‘My friends were surprised to hear me sing because they didn’t know I could sing really. I’ve been playing guitar for the past seven years – since I was seven. I only started singing just a few months ago though. I’d sung just a bit around the house because my dad plays bass and my mum plays guitar so we always play together. I’ve heard that it’s 90% confidence or something and I think if you can get past that, anyone can really sing.‘I’ve got a bunch of songs written and have recorded two of them so hopefully I’ll finish that off soon and release an EP. I’ve also uploaded one of my songs on Triple J Unearthed High. It’s called ‘But then you find life.’

‘The hardest part of breaking in to the industry is getting originals gigs rather than just playing covers. I had my first gig last week at a restaurant in Glebe. I’d be happy with any gig really – nothing too crazy.’

What do you love most about music?

‘Everyone plays it differently so it’s always going to be something unique.’

https://www.facebook.com/IsaacFreemanMusicOfficial
https://www.triplejunearthed.com/artist/isaac-freeman-0

‘When I was 15, a lady came to our school and spoke about exchange programs so I went and spent a year in Costa Rica. I did my year 10 in Costa Rica and learnt to speak Spanish and lived with a local family there. We lived in the mountains surrounded by coffee fields. Before I went, I didn’t speak Spanish or anything so I didn’t really know what was going on. It was a poor school – 3,000 students with just a couple of teachers and none of them would turn up. No one really cared.
‘There was one teacher; she was a biology teacher, and she really cared that I understood what was going on and that I actually learnt. She told me to go and buy some rope and some paint and she taught me to make a really thick rope – like macramé. She was teaching us about DNA so it looked like a DNA thing. So I made a really big one – she taught me how to make it – and she told me to paint this knot blue and this knot green and I did everything she said and at the end she was able to explain all the parts of the DNA. To this day, I still only know them in Spanish.
‘Then she told me to go buy some smaller string so I could make bracelets for my friends and family. This is the jewellery I make and sell now.’