If there is an ‘I’ve arrived’ moment for any designer in this country, then winning ‘Belle Coco Republics Interior Designer Of The Year award in 2011 would have to be it. Not surprisingly it has been the pinnacle career ‘tick’ for Australian interior design maestro, Greg Natale, who also celebrated a milestone 10 years of design service in November. Whilst to some it may feel his success has been an almost meteoric rise to public recognition, the man is quick to point out that his success has been a lifetime in the making. From moments of moody,edgy contemporary chic switching disparately to the unashamed opulence of his now almost signature Hollywood Regency style, Natale presents an impressive portfolio revered by many. Adam Scougall speaks with the designer about his first 10 years.

2011 marks a decade in design for you. Your profile has expanded rapidly to major success. Are you pinching yourself right now?

I am so happy for all the success [but] it means we have work. Before starting Greg Natale Design 10 years ago, I worked for five years in private practices, and before that studied four years at university. But I’ve always loved technical drawings and art, even as a kid. I was one of those weird kinds that new what I wanted to do from the age of 10.
  
 

How have things changed in essence over the last few years in your business? And what lessons have you learnt in recent uncertain economic times?

I work with bigger budgets than when I started and I have more staff, but the change has been very organic. Usually, I am a very impatient person and always want things to happen more rapidly! During uncertain economic times I always had the philosophy that if I kept the work diverse and mixed up commercial and residential work, we would be recession-proof, and to some extent I was right as the residential work has been consistent. The crash in 2008 has seen the commercial work go up and down, so what I have learnt is that if I keep the work diverse and not specialise in one area – but always specialise in good quality design – people will remember that.

You won interior designer of the year for Belle Coco Republic which was a huge accolade, including a trip to the UK to meet design diva Kelly Hoppen. We hear you got along famously. Has she inspired you to build on your brand to even greater proportions?

Kelly was great. I went there with a photographer and thought we would get the shots and be out of there, but she was so lovely, she took me to her lounge and we sat for an hour and talked about our businesses, and she did inspire me to do more with products and licensing. I am currently working on a furniture collection for Studio Mobilia in Perth and another collection for Designer Rugs. Also – fingers crossed – I am talking to a top fabric supplier about doing a fabric collection.

How important is advertising for your business and do you proactively advertise now? I don’t advertise, I only do editorial. Editorial is very important because it gets the work out to tens of thousands of people. It helps build our profile and the phone calls usually follow.

We hear you are about to move into new digs after a number of years living in a one-bedroom loft. What the new abode like?

The new place is in Harry Siedler’s Horizon [apartment building in Sydney], I am a huge Harry fan so I take inspiration from his work. The apartment will be black and white with touches of camel and gold. It will feature granite, Poplar Burl and geometric carpet. It won’t be eclectic like my current place. My personal taste does change and you can judge when you see it if I have matured.
  
 

We keep seeing more of you on television, most recently on Channel 10′s ‘The Renovators’. How do you feel about the small screen and marketing yourself in this way? Will we see more of you on TV?

I like doing TV and it is another medium to help create a greater public profile, I used to think I wanted to be a compare or something, but after doing some TV I have to realise it’s a hard job and I don’t want to be taken away from the design business. I love doing guest spots and would love to be in an Australian ‘Million Dollar Decorators’ if it is ever made. The last month would have been the perfect time leading up to the 10^th anniversary. We have had five houses to finish before Christmas and not without a couple of disasters [incidentally, Natale means Christmas in Italian - Ed]. That period would have made very funny television. 

Finally, what advice would you give to anybody contemplating interior design as a career? Some key things to take into account?

1.     A natural good eye.

2.     Interior design is very technical, a logical understanding of construction.

3.     A good sense of one’s personal style.

4.     Persistence – you need to fight for your designs like it’s your child.

5.     At the end of the day, it takes hard work. Hard work and talent will see you succeed.

It has been over a decade since The Whitlams told us to Blow Up The Pokies ­– at a time when they were famously known as the ‘hardest working band in Australia’. Now, with the torching of poker machines more relevant than ever, Whitlams front-man Tim Freedman has come out with a solo album that seems to break away from his band’s hardworking image: entitled Australian Idle. Indeed, Freedman admits he hadn’t written a song for three years. “I certainly did relax a lot more than I used to. I sort of gave myself long service leave,” he tells Cream.

The album cover image – a close-up of Freedman lounging in a crystal-clear pool, looking very much the ‘idle’ rock star – makes us question whether he is having a go at the glitz and glamour lifestyle propagated by certain reality television and talent shows.  But Freedman explains the pun is intended to be light-hearted: “It’s more to do with that suburban dream of having a pool – that great Aussie dream of having somewhere of your own to swim,” he says. Asking him how he feels about the Idol television series proves that its part in the pun is a small one: “I always think the kids are great singers. I don’t think it’s on anymore, I think it’s called X Factor…”

Freedman’s solo album is full of his signature storytelling charm. However, this time around the stories are decidedly not based on his own experiences, but on the lives of others. Twenty years in the spotlight has taught him that opening your whole world to the public is not always desirable.

“I think that as you get better known around the joint, you feel like revealing less of yourself, because privacy is a good thing,” he says. “I reckon the best lives are lived under the radar.”

On Australian Idle there are problem drinkers and ageing romantics, there are fathers and daughters and ex-girlfriends. There are also characters that are very much real and remain close to Tim’s heart – such as an old friend who has been recovering from cancer “in lots of places”, and a wedding speech from Tim’s best friend from kindergarten.

“Most of the people I write songs about I’ve known for years and years and years, so it takes a while for me to know enough about them,” he explains. “I mean, on the album in the first five songs there’s Ken and Max and Peter Brown, and I’ve known these guys for 20 years, so you know, it’s good to put them down into stone.”

Idle clearly features a strong sense of reflection on the past, but Tim is reluctant to call the album ‘nostalgic’. “Nostalgia, they say, is the pain of returning – and I’m not having any pain,” he says. But he also admits there are darker elements to the album: “The sounds are happy, but the lyrics are adult, and they do talk about it all – the journey through life – so it’s not all peaches and apples. But I’m not depressed, I’m just telling a story about some brave people.”

Along with the storytelling gems, Freedman covers three songs on the album: a folk song he fell in love with in a New York bar, a Matraca Berg classic about growing old but staying beautiful, and Billy Fields’ 1979 hit “You Weren’t In Love With Me”. The entire album is soaked in the sounds of the late 1970s and early ’80s: a decade of influence that Freedman is happy to acknowledge. “It’s when I was a teenager, you know? And the music you listen to as a teenager is the stuff that really gets into your bones. And so I thought I’d have fun trying to play music that was influenced by the stuff I loved when I was 14.”

Driving from Brisbane to Toowoomba for his first show as Tim Freedman: solo artist, it is clear that he is happy to be back on the road. With a new band and a new set of material, the artist feels that even after 20 years of playing shows, “it’s all a fresh challenge”. And surely he is relieved to be able to refuse a request to play Blow Up The Pokies for the millionth time? “Yeah, but it’s so topical, I might actually throw it in for once!” Tim laughs.

‘Australian Idle’ is out now through Sony Music Australia. Click on the album art below for a link to the ‘You Weren’t In Love With Me’ video.

Like all the best stories, this one begins in a bar. Small-town sweetheart Felicity Groom gave her music career a kick-start when she accidentally charmed a promoter in a London pub into giving her a gig. For a girl who has grown up in Perth, Felicity has seen a lot of the world since: gracing stages all across Europe before even releasing an album back home. That debut has finally arrived, however, and she’s enlisted some of the best musos from her hometown to help her out. On the eve of the release of her album Gossamer which recently made Triple J’s ‘Album Of The Week’, Felicity talked to Cream about the romance of travel, being mates with Tame Impala, and how sweet it is to be making music in the most isolated (and beautiful) city in the world. Interview by Beth Dalgleish.

First things first: when did you decide to make music your career?

The way this musical career has come about for me was in the most unusual yet serendipitous fashion. It was a kind of ‘one thing led to another’ scenario whereby I had a couple of songs by 2004 and that year I moved to London to travel and possibly get some work in the media industry. Then, within days of me being in Clapham, I was in a bar and this guy asked me what I did. I replied, “I’m a musician”, and he replied, “I’m a promoter; I will give you a gig,” to which I replied, “But you haven’t heard me… what if you don’t like it?” And he said, “I have a good feeling about it. And if you’re shit, I’ll just pull you off early”. And so began the career after that first show at the 12 Bar Club on Denmark Street in London.

You’ve spent a few years overseas – as a new artist on the scene, what struck you as the biggest difference between live music in Europe and in Oz?

Well don’t tell the Brits this, but the music coming out of Perth alone is towering in great variation and talent. The London music scene has some incredible bands, but there are a lot who also feel as if they need to emulate the popular sound to get by. I was around in the electro disco scene and there were heaps of bands doing that. I suppose you get that anywhere… but coming back to Perth I was amazed at how comfortable everyone was doing their own thing, creating their own scene and being supported in that scene. 

Coming from a reasonably small community like Perth, how did you go about tackling the big cities like London and Paris?

I love travel. All the new input I am receiving from just walking around on the streets swirls around my head in a big hurricane of thought. I get deeply inspired by the history, the reality, the romantic conjurings of these cities. London is a tough place to live, but that age-old saying is true that whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger… so for every reason, I had a brilliant time in my two years away from Perth, and London isn’t too big if you start hanging around the same places. So if you want that old familiar feeling of knowing everyone you see that you get in Perth, you find a spot and keep revisiting it… but if you want to be truly a small fish in a big pond, you change your hangout and all of a sudden you are alone again.

Rumour has it that you have a pretty sweet group of friends who often join you onstage (Tame Impala here; Jebediah there). How did you all meet?

Well, if you find you can run into the same people in a city like London, it is easy to understand that in a city like Perth, just about everyone knows everyone. I think it’s probably been various house parties dating back far where I have met most of the lovely people I work with… but I suppose our friendships were brought closer with the link of manager Jodie Regan who was first a friend. 

With that local community surrounding you, do you feel the Perth music scene has begun to develop its own sound?

I do believe environment impacts the sound that people create, just like it impacts the person. We all make generalisations about people from a certain place… how they might all have a common way of behaving…. So it shapes the music too. For this reason there is probably a strong Australian thread that runs through most music coming out of this big island, but I am still blown away by the variance of styles in this city.

Any chance of a best-of-the-West, ‘Tame & Groom’ super-group in the future?

Well that’d mean Kevin (Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker) would have to move back from Paris… and though we’d all enjoy that, he seems pretty content there for the meantime. But anything’s possible. I did do some recording with Pond at one stage, played some saw. I think as long as we’re all making music – which will be for a long time yet –there are possibilities for all sorts of musical endeavors. Kevin did write some songs for me. We were going to do a project together, but he was on tour so much we didn’t really get to work on it together before he moved counties. Maybe that project will happen again one day.

Having travelled around Australia and overseas, who has been your favourite artist to play with so far?

It was really nice going on tour with Katy Steel. Years ago we were quite good friends and hung out together. We even tried starting a band where I was playing bass and she was playing guitar. Then I moved to Sydney and stopped music and she started Little Birdy. So when we got to tour together it was a rekindling of a good friendship. Plus, Oh Mercy were on that tour, and those guys are great.

Names like PJ Harvey and Nick Cave pop up often in your reviews – who are the biggest influences on your songwriting?

I love both of those artists. They are both such strong songwriters… but there are so many areas and genres that I draw inspiration from. Every time I see something that I love, it propels me into songwriting. Many times I have walked away from a concert or an exhibition… or a conversation… trying desperately to keep the silence around me until I reach an instrument or recording implement to capture an idea. It’s moments like these that I must look like I am some kind of zombie, but it’s like running home with a goldfish in your hands that has to get to a place for it to swim.

The video for Siren Song shows off a darker, sultrier side to you compared with last year’s Finders And Keepers. Is that an indication of what we will find on Gossamer?

There are a few colours other than black that appear on the record. I often equate that darker sound with living in London, as it was pretty tough for me in those long winters, and Siren Song was written about the London bombings, which offered no colour at all. Finders And Keepers was written in Perth about my lovely friends, so it is a fluorescent song. Maybe the next album, having all been written in Perth, will be more on the whiter side of the colour spectrum, but then again, I have always loved a melancholic optimistic song. So maybe the darkness is just innate.  Beth Dalgleish

‘Gossamer’ is out now on Spinning Top through Inertia.

Photography by L. Businovski.

Sam de Brito has been a journalist for the Murdoch press, and with the recent ‘News Of The World’ scandals, admits he’s seen a few dirty tricks take place up in them ivory towers. His recent novel ‘Hello Darkness’ follows the crusades of a 39-year-old writer, Ned Jelli, who is facing depression, insecurity, failed relationships, and a rocky career. Antonino Tati aims to discover is much of it autobiographical.

Right from the beginning of your latest novel ‘Hello Darkness’, I’m thinking you’re like Australia’s answer to Bret Easton Ellis. Do you get that a lot?

No one’s ever said that to me, but I’d be quite humbled if I could sell just one-tenth of the amount of books he sells!

There’s plenty of cursing, drug abuse and sexism in the book. Did you set out to be controversial?

Not at all. Basically I just wanted to reflect the world as I see it around me. I could have written something called ‘Hello Sunlight’ but I have a pretty black nature, and I’m attracted to dark characters and dysfunctional scenes. That’s what I enjoy reading, and it’s what I enjoy writing. Maybe it’s because I’ve had my fair share of dysfunction in my life… Really, I just write about whatever is consuming me or concerning me.

Do your friends and associates influence the characters in your stories, and how do you avoid these similarities coming back and biting you?

I’ve had the experience with this book of three people contacting me and telling me what an arsehole I am for ripping off their life. If a character is identifiable to a large group of people, and can be proven to be the inspiration behind a character, then you’re open to defamation. A lot of my characters do rather unpleasant things, so I’m wary of libel situations. So I tend to take one trait from one person, and another trait from another person, and mix the two. Or more.

Well it worked for Jackie Collins, who merely just changed characters names but kept their sinister personalities intact… Are Australia’s defamation laws more stringent to America’s?

I don’t really know the history of our defamation laws. But they tend to be a good thing. You look at what people can write and say about other people in the US, and it’s out of control. When I write, I always wonder, ‘How is this going to impact the person who I’ve taken inspiration from?’ and I did that with pretty much all the characters in ‘Hello Darkness’. I used to write for television, and we’d often base a character in a soap opera on somebody we knew, but to play it safe a good thing to do is to simply change the sex of the character. If you change enough identifiable features – religion, hair colour, weight – you don’t tend to lose much of the character’s essence, and you don’t tend to get caught out.

Well if the book is partly autobiographical, it reads as though you lead quite a rollercoaster rock’n’roll lifestyle.

I’ve obviously taken a lot of liberties. I tend to express of a lot different experiences into one time-frame. Things that happened over a period of 10 years, I crowd into a month. I’m a single father now; I’ve got a little girl; and the last thing on my mind are fuckin’ drugs. I go and probably drink too much at times, but I find it counterproductive to my creativity. I don’t know how people like Hemingway – these famous heavyweight drinkers – managed to produce their work with all that boozing. I mean, did they start writing as they started drinking? Certainly not towards the end of their careers when they were alcoholics…

But William Burroughs managed to continue writing til 83, and he was on heroin!

Yeah but I can’t fuckin’ read William Burroughs! The only Burroughs I could read was ‘Cities Of The Red Night’. I’m not sure if it was before or after the impact of HIV but it was really interesting. It’s basically a satire of this disease that was killing homosexuals. Not that he was laughing at that. Being gay himself, he was writing from a sympathetic perspective. But it was a very clever book, I thought. But again, I’m not a massive Burroughs fan.

Ultimately, even with all the corruption and cursing, your book ‘Hello Darkness’ could read as a lesson in morals.

Basically it’s about a character coming to terms with himself. It’s a book about depression, and there’s no getting away from that. That’s disastrous for him, but it’s also disastrous for the people he invites into his life. There’s probably a lot of people in Ned’s position who aren’t feeling that great about themselves and they go into this vicious cycle of self-medicating. With Ned it’s all cigarettes and booze, cocaine and one-night-stands. But he’s got to come to terms with that. It’s one thing knowing what your nature is, but another thing to realise your nature is not that pleasant.

If you find your protagonist is self-referential to a certain degree, is that like expunging your demons when you’re putting it down on paper.

Kind of. But Ned is not me. Ned is the worst of me. He’s my ugly thoughts. And that’s why he’s fun to write.

You worked at News Limited. Did you find you were encouraged to use tactics like Ned does to obtain information for controversial stories?

I was never encouraged to but the powers that be know how certain information is guarded. It’s a nudge-nudge, wink-wink culture. And it’s no different than at any other big company. People don’t go to work one day saying, ‘I want to lose my integrity’. Nobody says they want to serve six-day-old chicken to customers but you know that if you say something to the chef or your boss, you’re gonna get the arse or you’ll be the next out the door. I think in every profession, you’re not so much forced to do things but there’s this culture of omission where if you’re not doing what everyone else is doing, you’re not going to be able to get in front of them. There are clean tricks and there are dirty tricks, and a lot of people don’t see the difference between them.

Some dirty tricks ultimately get found out; just look at the News Of The World saga…

We’ve all seen people doing ethically questionable things in newsrooms. I’ve been a little embarrassed for some journalists with the way they’ve gone about [obtaining information]. You’re crossing the line as soon as you do it. As soon as you start listening in to someone’s voicemails, that’s breach of privacy. That to me is a very clear-cut case. When it was public figures, people seemed to be ambivalent about it. It was only when it became clear that journalists had tapped into the phones of private citizens that the condemnation and the revulsion really started.

What do you think of the state of journalism at the moment, how a lot of writing is now in the hands of bloggers?

The nature of journalism is changing rapidly and you can’t hold the ocean back with a broom. Journalism bemoaning the state of journalism, well, what are you going to do about it? The only thing you can do about it is respond with your own work. Many people would look at my writing style as a symptom of the dumbing-down of journalism, but at the same time, on matters of principle, they say, stand like a stone; on matters of fashion, go with the flow. Ultimately, though, readers still reward great writing. You return to blogs and websites where the writing is great. Where you are informed and entertained. The internet is the revenge of the writer. You used to write an article for a newspaper and you didn’t know actually how many eyes were reading that story. Now you write something for a website or for a blog and you can actually quantify your work. In the end, if you’ve got something to say and you can engage and audience, you’re going to find a readership. If anything, I think the new era is probably scaring people who are really fuckin’ boring.

‘Hello Darkness’ is published through Picador / Pan Macmillan Australia.

Sneaky Sound System are back with a third album and new lease on life. Now down to two members, ‘Black’ Angus McDonald and Miss Connie make the coolest duo on the Australian dance music circuit. Interview with Angus by Antonino Tati.

Congratulations on an excellent new album: clean, fun and instantly infectious. What would you say is the main point of difference between ‘From Here To Anywhere’ and your first two LPs?

Well thank you very much. It was a totally different approach on this record, we wrote and recorded on the fly – just the two of us… in hotel rooms, planes and studios in Sydney, London, Paris, Moscow, and Ibiza – it’s almost like a postcard from various dance floors around the globe. The original plan was to collaborate with lots of people but the ideas were flowing so freely we ended up writing it all in a few months. I tried to keep the production as simple as possible and let Connie’s vocals shine. And while it’s a record for the dance floor, the lyrical content is quite emotional at times. We spent a lot longer living with the songs and letting them take their natural course. It’s a proper collaboration and we really enjoyed making it. It’s the start of a new chapter for us.

Could you enlighten Cream readers on why it was that Daimon left the group? Some of our contributing journos have assumed it was because he partied too hard? Is this true?

Hahaha… not quite, no. We returned from a long patch overseas and he told us he wanted out, that he wanted to pursue his art career, that he was sick of living out of a suitcase. It was a testing time for all of us, but I was still surprised he quit. We’re still mates and life goes on. I mean some people get freaked out if they can’t keep the status quo, but change can lead to all sorts of new opportunities – and that’s how we dealt with it: as a great opportunity to freshen things up.

Is the dynamic rather different with Daimon gone?
Absolutely, like chalk and cheese as my mother would say. We took six months off to clear our heads and when Connie and I got together again we found ourselves full of ideas and [feeling] reinvigorated. Our friendship has grown a lot deeper, as you would expect when you’re living in each other’s pockets, and Connie’s confidence has grown enormously. It’s a very clear relationship now… Connie is the voice, ‘the star’ and I am the music, ‘the machine’. There is no confusion whatsoever and we have total trust in each other.

Your videos are always a little risqué. We love the innuendo in ‘We Love’. I don’t think Freudian symbolism has ever gone that far in music video. How important is the selling of sex in the music business?

I think you’ll find we’ve done just the one risque video. The so-called raunchy bits were shot after we left the shoot in London, so it was a bit of a surprise when we got the first edit. However, if commercial television can give it a G rating then it’s pretty safe to say it ain’t exactly scandalous. It’s very hard to get noticed these days so every little bit counts, and that video got tongues wagging so… mission accomplished!
 
 

The new album, in title alone, connotes a sonic adventure / getaway. Do you consider your music a primary source of escapism for listeners?
That’s what music is all about, isn’t it? When I’m absorbed in music I don’t have a care in the world and I hope when people put on this new record it does take them somewhere else; that would be a good result.

Where did the ‘Black’ in Black Angus come from?

Bill Hunter played Angus McDonald, the dodgy police commissioner in ‘Blue Murder’, and his nickname was Black Angus. Well my name is Angus McDonald so you can follow the bouncing ball here. That was 10 years ago before McDonalds burgers were using my name… Bastards.

Any interesting gigs / tours / festivals coming up that Cream readers should know about?
The record is just out in Australia and out October 17 around the world, so the plan is to spread the word far and wide around the globe over the next two years. There are going to be gigs galore so best to head to www.sneakysoundsystem.com to get the lowdown.

‘From Here To Anywhere’ is out through Modular / Universal Music.

When viewing artist Scott Petrie’s work here, it probably rings a familiar bell. You know you love it as well as recognising its unique and abstruse style. Perhaps in one of your hip lifestyle magazines on your very hip coffee table, right? Well, Australian design bible ‘Belle’ and other interior publications, both in Australia and abroad, are perfect reference points if you think you’ve seen the man’s work in print. Petrie’s artwork has not only been vastly for a number of years but also adorns the walls of some prime real estate, from Australia to Abu Dhabi, Singapore to NYC.

Adam Scougall chats to Petrie about his artistic journey over the last fewyears. From an early career start in fashion design to working with children with disabilities, to producing and creating cutting-edge paintings, his is an effervescent artistic blueprint.

You’ve  been a staple in a number of design publications. Tell us more about your journey into fine art and design.

Immediately after high school, I studied Fashion Design at the School of Visual Arts before working briefly for fashion design Stuart Membry. Leaving behind the fashion world [working with Membry would be enough to put us off], I sunk my teeth into a whole new arena, working intermittently for the next 15 years with kids with disabilities, including behavioural, physical and mental issues. Then I had a rather sideways career move  in property development. For almost a decade, I oversaw many residential developments in Sydney and was involved in the interior design of many. At 27, I began attending art classes in my spare time, focusing on life drawing and abstraction, and finally I found my true calling and moved to New York to paint seriously.

Have you travelled elsewhere much?

I enjoyed two years in Switzerland, time in LA, and then nine months in Morocco, all the while finetuning my painting style. Inspired by the natural environment, my art is infused by bold blazes of colour and reflects my travels.

Where is your business based now, and what areas are you currently working in?

I have the pleasure of being a full-time artist working mainly out of my Singapore studio. My new show ‘Fresh’ opens in Sydney on 19 November at my longtime agent’s house in Randwick. It is a really exciting exhibition of 15 works in rich greens, teals and jades and inspired by my time in Asia. I also have a range of rugs made by Nying Zemo (www.nyingzemo.com) which was great to see the works on a completely new ‘canvas’, so to speak.

What would you say were your career highlights to date?

I will never forget doing my first ever commission project through architectsBurley Katon Halliday. It was for three large paintings for a penthouse they were designing in Elizabeth Bay, Sydney, with the interiors ended up being featured in Vogue Living. It was a huge buzz seeing my artworks adorn the walls of such a beautiful home. Also, having my first exhibition in Soho, New York City, about a decade ago really was an amazing feat. And I enjoyed creating two large works that were hung up in the residential lobby for another important Sydney-based architect, Renzo Piano.

Do you have any advice for artists seeking to make a living out of fine art?

Number one would be to start entering art prizes… start exhibiting and looking at government art grants. My motto is to have a strategy. Be clear about what you want. Focus on that and stay strong. I email or call galleries and designers, and research what is ‘in’ all over the world: Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, Australia, New York…

You’re back in Sydney to launch your new collection, ‘Fresh’. Tell us a little more about the exhibition.

It marks a departure from my previous collections and has been inspired by living and working in Singapore. I really want to shake things up in my creative practice. The past year in Asia has opened my eyes to a new wave of ideas which have been about exploring fresh colours, mixing up hues and harnessing a fresh focus. I love painting in-situ and that is what this exhibition is all about.

‘Fresh’ is on view at Scott’s  longtime art agent Eugenie Pepper’s eastern suburbs home from Saturday 19 November until Friday 23 December 2011. Viewings are strictly by appointment and can be made to Eugenie Pepper on astroartdesign@me.com.

Next up, Scott Petrie will prepare for a group exhibition organised by the Australian High Commission in Singapore which opens in April 2012.

It took flipping through cute coffee table book ‘The Little Veggie Patch Co’ to learn that every eggplant contains a bit of nicotine, that a worm’s poo is 10 times as fertile as the garden waste it eats, and that the olive was the first tree to be cultivated. Gardeners-turned-authors, Fabian Capomolla and Mat Pember, present these tidbits and a host of handy tips on growing gardens in the smallest of spaces – from the best soil to plant particular veggies in to how to make a scarecrow – in a gorgeously presented book that’ll help readers turn even the smallest patch of land into a glorious garden, or create growing spaces even when earth is lacking like, say, in apartment living. Mat Pember suggests five rather great things about ‘edible gardening’ to Cream.

01.  Growing food is certainly helping bridge the generation gap. The traditional ‘roses, petunias, daisies and pot-o-colour’ gardeners are now talking the same language as the new wave ‘all the produce used at my café is grown within a 50 mile radius’ hipsters. At family gatherings you now have something to say to your grandparents other than “thank you” for the new socks and underpants.

02.  Playing loud music can now be justified as growing aid to your vegetables! Some believe that the bass and frequency of music can affect the migratory patterns of pollinators such as bees and birds; much like it can affect the door-to-door migratory pattern of your next door neighbour. Now when they come to complain of the racket, smokescreen them with talk of bass, frequency, pollination and vegetables all in the one well-thought out and well-rehearsed sentence.

03.  “Growing vegetables” in a community plot is apparently all the rage these days and many hint that there’s more to the euphemism to the new age gardener. In fact, it could well be code for growing things other than vegetables. And if that’s the case, who wouldn’t want to “grow vegetables”?

04.  Cooking for your beloved, or for someone that your are intently trying to impress, has always been a fool proof way of portraying yourself as thoughtful, cultured and generous in bed. Incorporating food that you have grown yourself raises the level of your game ten-fold. You now got game. 

05.  Don’t get me wrong; growing food isn’t all about meeting and interacting with members of your interested sex – it’s a meaningful hobby, rewarding and educating; it gets us back in tune with the seasonality of food and a more natural and sustainable style of living; and more than anything it elevates the sensory experience of food again, something that the homogeneity of supermarket produce has deprived. It’s just that I know how you people think, and these things scuttle under the radar sometimes.  

‘The Little Veggie Patch Co’ is published through Macmillan.

Indie rock band Hard-Fi hit mainstream success when their critically acclaimed debut ‘Stars Of CCTV’ went to number one in the UK charts and sold well globally. It launched a series of singles that lead to a must-have mix compilation and a second album where frontman Richard Archer dropped his macho swagger and bulletproof bravado for sensitive and vulnerable lyrics. The third studio album ‘Killer Sounds’ features an eclectic mix of sounds as Archer again redefines the Hard-Fi soundtrack. Interview by Patrick Lewis.

What was the inspiration for ‘Killer Sounds’? It explodes in so many different directions, there’s trumpet, piano, sitar, a spectacular array of never seen before electronic effects (on Hard-Fi albums at least). What instrument don’t you have on the album?

We spent a lot of time touring in America and picked up new influences. There’s certainly a blues tinge to it. We went to Mississippi and did our last show at New Orleans. We traveled to Gracelands and Stack Studios and it all soaked in. We’re an indie rock band but who says we can’t do dance, soul, reggae, hip-hop? Many bands did very different things to get different sounds. Mick Jones and The Clash when they did ‘The Magnificent 7’, or the Rolling Stones when they did ‘Undercover Of The Night’. And look at Primal Scream. We used a lot of different instruments and we were having fun with it. Damon Albarn helped us out and we have Algerian/French musician Mehdi Haddab playing the lute.

Speaking of Daman Alban, you grew up in the 1990s when Britpop was in full swing. So you who did you side with… Oasis or Blur?

Oasis! I got my haircut like Liam Gallagher. I bought all the albums of Oasis and Blur but I would say I prefer Oasis because they were a little bit more punk. Oasis made fantastic records but they didn’t evolve. That said, Damon and Blur make interesting records. Out of the splinter spinoff groups Gorillaz and Beady Eye, I prefer Gorillaz but Beady Eye are really good. My Dad’s listening to them because they have this real John Lennon thing going on.

Favourite song on your new album?

‘Fire In The House’. It typifies what the entire album is about. It’s bursting with energy and really exciting.

The name Hard-Fi seems to be confused so easily with Hi-5 or Hi-Fi. Any regrets choosing it as the name of your band?

We’ve heard every variation you can think of. Even Hi-Fly. In hindsight, we probably would have picked a different name if we were a marketing team. Thankfully no-one on TV or radio has gotten it wrong but it happens all the time. It’s like your Nan trying to remember your name.

You’ve always had great album covers. ‘Stars Of CCTV’ won awards for graphic design and you’re ‘No cover art’ cleverly stamped on the second album fooled a lot of people. What inspired the cover for ‘Killer Sounds’ which features four white skulls and colourful floral designs?

The skulls are quite threatening but the beautiful colours make them not so. We traveled to a lot of places in America and countries in South America where the skull has special significance and we liked that. For the cover we tried laying them out in a row but we didn’t want to be accused of trying to be like the Beatles which is why they’re in a stack.

What’s the best thing about being in a band and what’s your best moment in Hard-Fi?

You don’t have to get up early. I like sleeping in! Although even though you’re very busy you’re making music – doing something you love. Sometimes it gets you down like when you read a bad review. The best moment? There’s been a lot and playing and I think the best has to be playing five shows at the Brixton Academy. [Hard-Fi, along with Massive Attack, The Prodigy, The Clash and Bob Dylan are only five acts to ever play five consecutive nights at the prestigious London venue].  

What’s next for the band?

We’re touring the UK, then further afield by the end of the year. We’re doing a Japanese tour and we’re hoping to get to Australia soon, too.

‘Killer Sounds’ is out through Warner Music.

Azari & III get their name from frontmen Dinamo Azari and the oddly monikered Alixander III. That there are four members in total would make new listeners think it’s Azari’s show with the three others in the background. But this is one tight act where every component is as important as the others. Interview by Antonino Tati

How did the four of you come together?

Alixander III : I was producing artists in my studios and doing some film scoring. I knew Fritz and Ceddy before Azari & III which started when Dinamo and I met DJ’ing.

Dinamo Azari: I had been working on various unique projects, developing avant garde modern vibrational medicine: Pan-Tiki who creates Caribbean techno), Fritz & Hanz Helder who make electro-pop, and Una Aventura with Sal Principato [a new wave organic kind of punk-funk].  All the stars aligned and Azari & III was born in Toronto in 2008. A local karmic connection was created.  

Fritz Helder: We all met each other through mutual friends years before Azari & III was formed. We all were active players in the Toronto music and art scenes.

How healthy would you say the Canadian music scene is currently?

Alixander III: The scene in Toronto is great and active. With friends like Broken Social Scene, Feist, K-os, Dragonette all blown up, there are still so many great underground and up-and-comers doing amazing stuff: Don Cash, Young Empires, The Weekend and Isis Salam to mention a few.

Dinamo Azari: Toronto has a unique scene, the conservative nature of the city manifests an underground dance community that thrives off of late night warehouse parties. Everyone comes together for these after-hour rebel raves that could get busted at any time, but no one cares.  

Fritz Helder:  The music culture in Toronto is rich and diverse. It’s constantly changing and evolving. You can find bands and solo artists from hip-hop to indie-rock,  folk, country and electronic music all thriving and doing well abroad. It breeds a confidence when you see your peers doing well. It’s a small ‘big’ city, overflowing with talented people. 

I’d like to describe what I’ve heard so far from Azari & III as clean electro-disco. Is there something in particular you’d like to call it?

Fritz Helder: I call it future neutral , but that’s just me!

Dinamo Azari: Drums that chop, moonbase-escape synths, fine crystalline mist, chambers of darkened warehouses chopped into a surreal construction of totemic mazes, the dry ice staccato beats awaken all kinds of beasts of vice.

Alixander III: Clean electro-disco? Ummm… Sure, it’s got roots in house and techno and R&B and such, but we’d like to avoid micro-genrifications as much as possible. We play many instruments and between the four of us we have a huge range of influences, most of which falls outside of the electronic or dance varieties. This record is what it is, and the next might be a lot different. That said, we’re exploratory artists, not club-for-lifers. 

Who were the artists you grew up listening to and are you still listening to them today?

Fritz Helder:  We love and respect all musical genres. It’s really difficult to say since there are so many.  At home, I play Morris Day and the Time, a lot of Prince, and Grace Jones. My ears are open to all sounds. 

Alixander III: For myself from back then I like Cocteau Twins, dance industrial and pop like Depeche Mode, JAMC, MBV, and Peter Gabriel. The now is Crystal Stilts, Yacht, Panda Bear, Tame Impala, Beyoncé, and my new crush, Rihanna.

Dinamo Azari: Lying in bed in Grade 2 listening to extended versions of Joy Division, falling in love with The Cure as my soundtrack, Pink Floyd live, Santana, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Jesus & Mary Chain… so many.

Do you believe Azari & III will remain a four-piece or will you be inclined to introduce guest vocalists and session players now and again?

Dinamo Azari: We might add a few ‘voguing androids’, who knows…

Fritz Helder: We featured guest vocalists and musicians on this first album. So it’s quite possible that we will continue the tradition on the next.

AIixander III: We have guests on this first record and have had so since we began doing this project: vocalists, musicians, visual artists. Some join us on stage here and there when the timing is right, Mathilde Mallen [singer of Manhooker] has been doing some shows with us lately. Generally we have no set structure and are open-minded to most any possibility, though for this record and tour the main focus is the four-piece. 

Do you feel music in its digital form is less sacred than in its hardcopy form (aka: CD or vinyl)?

Dinamo Azari: I personally enjoy the full 12″ LP. Sitting down with a drink and a jazzy cigarette, slapping that vinyl on my vintage 1968 Fleetwood pedestal record player, et voila! Sit back and relax with full control.

Fritz Helder: Less sacred? Yes, without the tangible element to music it’s easier to forget or be neglectful of the process of music. I’m not worried though, human beings will always crave tangible physical objects. It’s part of who we are. 

Alixander III: Vinyl has emotional depth that digital seems to lack. Digital has a modern sound the can be cocky and of the moment in the right hands. Personally I only listen to vinyl LPs at home, and I don’t buy singles or dance records unless they transcend the genre. 

How can artists make the most of the digital music experience? 

Alixander III: Run the shit through a good stereo, preferably tube-based to soften the harsh edges. Get rid of those awful earbuds and get some decent phones. Play music through them for four days straight at moderate levels before you put them to your ears, that will soften the high end and cause less  ear fatigue. Ideally I still use 2″ tape, so call me a dinosaur.  

What do you feel you could give the music fan today with resources of the internet and mobile technology, compared to the ol’ days?

Fritz Helder: Well the music fan wants their music in digital form because of its convenience, but it shouldn’t stop the artist from creating beautiful artwork or packaging. I’ve been seeing such brilliant uses of the USB ( in the form if sculpture / free standing art) to deliver special edition music. That way you get the best of both worlds!

Alixander III: An insatiable appetite for quick turnover. 

What is an Azari live set like, for those who haven’t yet seen it?

Starving Yet Full: It’s very much a lot of fun; it’s got a structure but improvisation as well. We like to mix the two on stage.

Fritz Helder: Excitement and pure energy.

Alixander III: It’s a lot harder, punkier, more psychedelic than you might expect.

Dinamo Azari: Come out and see for yourself.

Azari & III’s debut self-titled album is out now through Universal Music.

The band is aiming to make it to Australia to perform live in early 2012.

Tim Finn has an enduring musical legacy that spans nearly four decades. From Split Enz and Crowded House to collaborations with his brother Neil and 10 solo albums under his belt, you could say the lad from New Zealand has done his country proud. Here he speaks with Patrick Lewis about his latest LP ‘The View Is Worth The Climb’.

Great new album ‘The View Is Worth The Climb’. Did it take long to write?

Twelve months. The songs came out naturally, though. I wrote it as a father, brother, and a friend, and the songs all have a lot of fertility behind them.

Where did you get the inspiration for the title of the album?

I woke up singing that song in the morning. That’s not something I normally do. I ran down stairs to the piano. I was feeling happy for no particular reason. I have made it through 38 years of the music business so the song could be about that, or you could see it where you just have a moment that puts you at ease.

New Zealand is full of rugged, natural beauty so your fans would be forgiven for taking the album and title track literally. Have you ever climbed anything significant and been inspired?

I was just interviewed on radio and the announcer was using lots of technical climbing terms and said we could merchandise and tie it in. It would be quite funny to bus a load of journalists up to a mountain, get them to climb it, and give them a copy of the album when they got to the top! I have climbed Te Aroha (It means ‘love’ in Maori) near the middle of the north island where I grew up. There are weather patterns that are very different. It can go from perfect to rain in an instant.  Te Aroha is vertical in some parts; very steep. We went up there with our son and our daughter when she was she was very little. It’s an epic landscape.

What’s your favourite song on the album?

It changes every day. Though I wrote it in 12 months, we recorded the album in 12 days. Today it’s ‘Everybody’s Wrong’. I like the tune, the melody. The lines in the lyrics “If you’re the only one that’s right, then everybody’s wrong”. The band played it with so much tenderness.

How would you describe the record as a whole?

It’s the sound of people playing in a room. Some records get made layer by layer. This one was made with five people in the room just playing. There’s a lot of intimacy. There’s a lot of life in the writing and emotion. It’s a rich album. My pervious album ‘Imaginary Kingdom’ started with me playing guitar and then we built around that. This was very different.  It’s a return to my roots. I’m also really proud that Joey Waronker is the drummer. He’s just been playing with Norah Jones and he’s also been out with one of the guys from Radiohead and Flea from the Chili Peppers.

It’s been rumoured you like to play the drums yourself?

I love playing drums! It’s completely demanding. I find drummers are fast, insane people but as soon as they’re drumming they become relaxed. Perhaps it’s when you get older you get a perspective. Internally you develop a bit of space that you carry through. My drums are Ludwig. My wife found them for me on TradeMe. It was this beautiful white jazz kit with a lot of cymbals. These two intense rock guys came over from the suburbs to drop it off. I didn’t want them to know it was for me so I was hiding; they dropped it off and then I sneaked out and started drumming.

Looking back over your long and distinguished musical career what are you most proud of?

Twelve years of Split Enz – as a whole that was a great achievement. It’s a band that people remember. And ‘Woodface’, the Crowded House album I made with my brother. There are the Finn Brothers shows. Plus WaveAid, it was a big, big show with 80,000 people all singing at once. The whole experience was amazing.

What have you learnt from the music industry? What advice would give future artists?

Our rehearsals – especially from the Split Enz days – were the most inspiring thing we did. My advice is to play a lot. Enjoy playing live. Whether you write a hit song or develop a following it’s not something you can predict. You have to be ready to adapt.

‘The View Is Worth The Climb’ is out through ABC Music/Universal Music.