Clare Bowditch and Adalita on Winter Secrets tour to fight outdated sexism
THE music industry gatekeepers used to say female artists shouldn’t tour together but more Australian women are joining forces. And fans love it.
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IT wasn’t that long ago women were discouraged from touring together and radio bosses insisted listeners would turn off if a station played back to back songs by female singers.
Clare Bowditch bristles at the memory as she and good friend Adalita prepare to hit the country’s stages on the Winter Secrets tour.
“I remember early on, I had a manager who would say you never tour with another female, that only one female artist can be the focus. It was always bollocks,” Bowditch says.
Adalita, who fronted rock band Magic Dirt for two decades, said residual sexism in the Australian music industry was a “prison we are forced into”.
“Let’s smash that bias! We can toe the line or say ‘F@#> that!’ I am not going to let that dictate anything or get into my psyche,” she says.
The Go-Betweens multi-instrumentalist Amanda Brown jokingly dropped the F-bomb — feminist — during her rousing speech paying tribute to her bandmate Lindy Morrison at the APRA Awards last week.
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Brown pointed out how much the odds are against women maintaining a long career in the music industry and particularly for a female drummer like Morrison.
Both women said at the awards that being able to share female companionship on the road had been important in maintaining their sanity during long tours.
Bowditch took Lanie Lane out on the Winter Secrets tour a couple of years ago and cites Seeker Lover Keeper, the trio formed by Holly Throsby, Sarah Blasko and Sally Seltmann, as another admirable example of Australian women working together.
“Holly used to crash at my house during the start of her career and Sarah and I shared management for a while,” Bowditch says.
“The reality is there is nothing but admiration for anyone who is giving it a crack because I have never met anyone who has it easy in this artist life and its dense and exciting challenges.”
Bowditch says the internet has helped break down bias and eroded the stereotypes which were traditionally ascribed to female artists.
“There is a much broader spectrum of artists than there was before because it has given them independence to grow and then the power to negotiate with a really humbled music industry,” she says.
Bowditch and Adalita had loved each other’s work from afar for several years before bonding backstage during the Paul Kelly tribute concerts staged by Triple J in 2009.
They proudly boast they performed the first female duet on RocKwiz and spent some days working together at Michael Gudinski’s annual songwriting camp at his Mt Macedon property several years ago.
“We wrote a song but it wasn’t our kind of song and I don’t know what happened to it. We should try to find it for the tour,” Adalita says and the pair laugh.
Bowditch has spread her wings in recent years, not only scoring a Logie nomination for her role in Offspring but founding the Big Hearted Business mentoring enterprise which seeks to “teach creative people about business, and business people about creativity”.
That endeavour has kept her so busy this year she wasn’t sure she would stage her fourth Winter Secrets tour this year.
Until she decided Adalita would be her guest.
The shows are communal affairs with fans encouraged to get involved with one lucky talent being selected to perform a song on stage with her.
A natural storyteller, Bowditch shares much more than songs with her fans who have become as much a community as they are consumers of music.
“I used to be a bit ashamed about how much I want to share with the audience,” she says, laughing.
“I was chronically shy at the start of performing as a solo artist and I could barely look at the audience.
“I had just become a mum and suffered chronic anxiety every time I walked on stage and I suddenly realised part of my problem was I didn’t like being up on the stage without any connection with the people in front of me.
“I wanted to get to know them and now we have some much chatting in our shows, it’s hilarious. They are like talk shows with a few songs in between.”
Fans have taken it on themselves to bring their own instruments along, which has proven to be a hilarious train wreck on occasions.
“There was a time in Tasmania when halfway through a solo, quiet song, a very enthusiastic drunk gentleman pulled out his tambourine and started bashing it,” Bowditch says.
“And in Adelaide we had a chap who played saxophone walking through the audience.”
Adalita adds: “I can’t wait for this!”
Winter Secrets seek to break the rules of the modern concert which has become tightly choreographed with videos and lighting cues.
It also shocked an audience used to having Pavlovian reactions to the performance of a song.
“I think there was so much shock at the humour element. I think people had a very clear idea of who they thought Clare Bowditch was and then got into the room to find it was so different,” she says.
Winter Secrets tour featuring Clare Bowditch and Adalita, The Corner Hotel, Melbourne, July 17; The Gov, Adelaide, July 25, Factory Theatre, Marrickville, August 2, Powerhouse Theatre, Brisbane, August 8.
Originally published as Clare Bowditch and Adalita on Winter Secrets tour to fight outdated sexism
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