‘For me it’s like a form of meditation. Sometimes my mind can become so chaotic so I just need to do it to clear my mind.
‘You have to be completely aware of yourself. You constantly need to be thinking ahead and be 100% aware of your body.’
‘For me it’s like a form of meditation. Sometimes my mind can become so chaotic so I just need to do it to clear my mind.
‘You have to be completely aware of yourself. You constantly need to be thinking ahead and be 100% aware of your body.’
‘I’ve always sang – at school and stuff. I played trombone for a really long time. I kind of got a bit sick of it so I thought I’d sing instead. I sing in a band called The Venusians.’
How do you feel when you’re singing on stage?
‘It depends. Sometimes you do a gig and people respond to it well and it’s a really nice happy feeling but sometimes it’s just really fucking scary!’
If you could describe the Oud as a human, how would you describe it?
‘It’s pretty much like me – short necked, half pear shaped. It’s perfect. I’m exactly like the instrument!
‘I’m playing next Thursday (26th) at Camelot Lounge Marrickville in a repertoire called Angel. We only play that repertoire twice a year to commemorate my parents’ passing. It’s nice to commemorate them through music. This one is to commemorate my mother’s passing two years ago.
‘She was quite sick towards the end. I think there were quite beautiful moments within the short space of time you spend with them in the end. It doesn’t get easy not having your parents around. I think it really gives you fuel for your music. It helps you as a human being and helps you grow. We’re constantly healing and that’s the beautiful thing about music. I guess you’ve just got to take these things as a lesson and grow from them.’
‘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.’