Vote for SA’s Electric Fields to be Australia’s Eurovision entrant
Adelaide’s big hope for Eurovision, electro-soul duo Electric Fields have touched thousands – even the unborn – with their culture-blending music ever since their own genesis, in 2015.
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Adelaide’s big hope for Eurovision, electro-soul duo Electric Fields have touched thousands – even the unborn – with their culture-blending music ever since their own genesis, in 2015.
Tears often flow at their shows, but lead singer Zaachariaha Fielding says a moment in Hanover, Germany – when he stepped off the stage to leave a life-lasting impression on a pregnant fan – stands above the rest.
“That would be one of my favourite moments with an interaction with the audience ... I could feel the baby kicking,” Fielding tells Music Confidential.
Turns out, the mother named her child Nina after the song Fielding sang to her.
It all feels a million miles away from the APY Lands where this one-time music student grew up.
Leaving the community at just 13 years old to further his education, he studied at Woodville High before an aborted attempt at Aboriginal Studies in Music at Adelaide University.
Producer and creative colleague, Michael Ross, can only chuckle at the irony.
“Z failed music, and when I went to university and did music, I didn’t complete my degree either,” says Ross, originally from Brisbane. “Who needs a piece of paper when you’re actually swimming in the ocean.”
“But when we do travel, we travel with one of my lecturers,” Fielding says with a laugh.
They may not have passed in the classroom but they’re scoring straight ‘A’s in the real world, with Electric Fields in the running to be Australia’s contender for Eurovision this year. The winner will be decided in a live SBS broadcast, Australia Decides, on February 9 on the Gold Coast. They are up against some heavy pop hitters from Sheppard and Ella Hooper to Ross’s “dear friend” Kate Miller-Heidke.
But the pair are prepared, having separately both gone through the tough test of TV talent show The X Factor.
“It taught me how to let go of my thoughts and just be 100 per cent authentically myself,” Ross says. “Because with that many cameras, with that many people, if you try and produce yourself – be what you think you should be – it’s so clear to the camera that it’s not real.
“So now when there’s cameras around … I just look at that lens and I just say: ‘Look, you’re just going to get us, our authentic selves. Whatever you see you see, whatever you hear you hear. ButI’m just going to be honest’.”
The pair first met about nine years ago when a mutual friend, a songwriter, wanted Fielding to sing her songs and Ross to produce. They eventually went their separate ways until Fielding sought a reunion about three years ago.
Sharing the common experience of reality TV, Ross says the coupling was explosive.
“When we combined our creativity, it wove together in such a magical way we ended up experiencing these moments of euphoria, just through the sheer beauty of this music,” he says. “We joined forces and saw if we could share that with people.”
And share they did, with the multi-award winning duo have earned an army of fans across the globe for their “electronic soul” mixed with a range of other elements – Ross lists African rhythms and drumlines, Middle Eastern flavours, classical harmonisation, didgeridoo to western bass lines as influences.
“It creates electric magic, which hopefully you feel it rather than hear it,” he says.
They have racked up more than 70 shows over the past 12 months – across eight different countries – including four at the Sydney Opera House.
Eurovision is now the focus, although Ross admits it’s never been on their to-do list.
“The goal is to share our music with the world,” he says.
“It is a way for us for that goal to come true, a way to share our truth with the world.
“And in that way, it’s a very visible stage to actually sing our music to 230 million strangers.”
Despite their success, Ross says the pair have no plans to use their platform to highlight indigenous issues in Australia.
“We don’t believe in telling people what to think, we believe in showing them our truth,” he says. “If you see original Australia and modern Australia in perfect respectful harmony on stage, and you feel that, and you want to incorporate that truth into your life, we think that’s absolutely beautiful.
“And if you want to have a dance and have a great time and feel deep happiness purely from the sound and the lights and the colours, then do that.
“Because you be you and we’ll be us and there’s room for everybody.”
WATCH: Electric Fields on Australia Decides
SBS, February 9
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