radionotes podcast episodes

068 Gabbi Bolt

by | May 10, 2020 | episodes | 0 comments

068 Gabbi Bolt

Gabbi Bolt over at TikTok is getting plenty of eyes and engagement for their AUSPol content, but there is more to this performer… an EP of solid originals tunes for a start.

From their home in Bathurst, New South Wales Bolt spoke to radionotes…

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IMAGE CREDIT: Trent Cash

Gabbi uses famous speeches of the past from Australian politicians and gives them a more musical vibe. One of the most famous from them involved PM Morrison and journalists.

As you will hear in the chat they also have offered their music to causes they deeply believe and have health respect for the work of the Chaser lads (one more than the others).

SHOW NOTES: Gabbi Bolt

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Feature Guest: Gabbi Bolt

Next Episode: Number 1 Country Music Star – Casey Barnes

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[Radio Production – notes: ]

CREDITS

Theme/Music: Martin Kennedy and All India Radio   

Web-design/tech: Steve Davis

Voice: Tammy Weller  

You can make direct contact with the podcast – on the Contact Page

TRANSCRIPT

First version provided by REV team member Cheryl W – check to audio before quoting wider

John Murch:
Jeremy Fernandez or JezNews on Twitter says, “What a talent.” Mark Humphries is going to be seen on 7:30. Wonderful is what he’s described our guests today’s work through the AUSPol lens. Gabbi Bolt, welcome to radionotes, you legend yourself.

Gabbi Bolt:
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

John Murch:
How are you as a TikTok star of the AUSPol world taking this?

Gabbi Bolt:
I have had to TikTok for a few months, but I never really intended on using it to broadcast my own stuff at all. It was mostly like the way everybody else has to follow content. Through quarantine, I just decided to make this silly little song. Honest to God, I had no intention of it going remotely viral. I’m still bewildered. I think a lot of people are assuming I’m younger than I am though, too. I’m 23. So I’ve had a few people be like, “Teenagers on TikTok.” I was like, “Oh, I’m one of them now.” So yeah. I’ll take it, though.

John Murch:
It’s a trio, really. It’s a trio of songs. I guess, in a way, it’s kind of finished now. But talk us through the three stages of grief, no, of the TikTok.

Gabbi Bolt:
So the first one is completely verbatim. The only real reason I made it the way that I did was that there’s a real trope in R&B music to sort of say like, “I’m sorry, and I know.” I hear that a lot in a lot of the ’90s stuff that I really love. So I heard it immediately. So I made ScoMo’s obvious, verbatim, word-for-word lyric. Then a lot of people were just like, “Oh, we need a duet. We need a duet.” So I wrote sort of my interpretation of Andrew Probyn’s perspective. Again, completely my interpretation. I have no idea if it reflects the views of these actual people. Then people after that one were like, “Well, now we need Katharine.” Obviously, and I want it to give a voice to Katharine too, because I feel like within this whole meme, that’s going viral, the Andrew Probyn thing, Katharine does get a short stroll then. Not many people talk about Katharine’s accolades as well. So yeah. I just decided to layer them up from what I thought their perspectives would be.

John Murch:
For those playing at home, particularly internationally, ScoMo is a guy called Scott Morrison, who is the prime minister of Australia at the moment. Andrew Probyn is part of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, and Katharine Murphy is of the Guardian, both online, but obviously, used to be in newspapers as well.

Gabbi Bolt:
For me, it was just a big, silly, fun songwriting exercise for me.

John Murch:
We then noticed after that particular press or press conferences known that the prime minister then decided to go from right to left, and Katharine got chosen before Andrew. I get a feeling, I’ve done press conferences in my time, back in the John Howard days, really don’t want to be picked on as the next person. You want to go when you’re ready.

Gabbi Bolt:
Yeah. I mean, my brother’s a journalist, and my partner is also a journalist, I mean, on a much smaller scale, local journalism. But I feel like most journalists, even on a local scale that I’ve met, they just want the information. They just want to do their job. They don’t want to try and bring too much, I guess, personality or ego into it. I mean, and that’s what I’ve noticed. But I’m not a journalist, so-

John Murch:
More about, look, I just want to get these facts and because-

Gabbi Bolt:
Yeah. I mean-

John Murch:
… we’re broadcasting the press conference, we’re getting to see a bit of that.

Gabbi Bolt:
Yeah. I needed a valid information for my job. Yeah. Just to do your work, so-

John Murch:
Probyn’s got back to you. Has Murphy yet?

Gabbi Bolt:
Murphy actually retweeted the first version of the video, so just ScoMo’s version. I loved it. She said, “This one really builds,” and then added a little gold star. So that was the first actual in-person of anybody in that video interaction I had, and I was a bit star-struck by that just because I was like, “I can’t believe people have seen it.” At that point, I didn’t think anybody had really seen it. Andrew Probyn hasn’t written anything to me. But he has chucked me a few sneaky likes on Twitter, and I’ll take that Andrew. That’s fair enough. As for ScoMo, I haven’t heard yet. But I’m open 24/7 to hear from ScoMo. So that’s fine.

John Murch:
Madeleine Morris, I saw, and the ABC News Breakfast team have been pretty much on top of this as well. I just get that general feeling. This little leg done now, isn’t it?

Gabbi Bolt:
Yes. I think that I’ve done everything I can with it, that little song. But I have been making other political influence little song skits just because I’ve always really loved having a laugh at AUSPol. I’m a ’96 and I grew up with The Chaser and beyond ABC Sideshow, good Newsweek, things like that. I love things like that. I love The Daily Show, Jon Stewart Daily Show back in the day. So I don’t know. I like mixing my art form with relevant political content. I just enjoy doing that.

John Murch:
Of The Chaser lads, was Andrew Hansen the one?

Gabbi Bolt:
Yeah. For me, I mean, I loved all of them. But yeah. For me, as a musician, Andrew has, and I used to look up to immensely. I mean, I used to learn the little song skits he’d do. You know what? It’s actually really bad because I’m an Elton John fan, but for ages, I couldn’t sing anything, but oh, he wrote it for the Today Tonight reporter (singing). That’s all I could think. It’s like candle in the wind. I was like Chaser. I also really liked he did prolific songwriter as well, where it was just a song about fitting too many syllables in one line. I just thought that was very funny. I loved when he did The Warehouse guy voice in a song, where you just yelled the whole thing. I just remember all of them. My brother and I used to watch The Chaser all the time. My mom will probably hate me telling you that because we run into them once.

Gabbi Bolt:
I’m from Bathurst, New South Wales, but we went to Sydney for a trip, and we run into them filming, I think it was like a Vita Brits skit, just a random skit. Three of them were there, and I was about 11 years old, and I ran out to Andrew Hansen. I ran. Nothing could stop me. I just ran. I went up to him, and I was like, “Are you from The Chaser?” He was like, “Oh, yeah.” I said, “Yeah. You guys are amazing. I love you so much.” My mum literally walked the other direction because she was so scared that they were then going to do a segment on bad parents.

John Murch:
His Doctor Who parody…

Gabbi Bolt:
So good. Yes. The Doctor Who theme song paradoy the guy wrote that. I also love Tim Minchin too. I think ABC at the time was exposing me to all of these comedians and all of sort of people mixing music and comedy, Truckload as well. Love them. Tim Minchin’s an absolute. I would die if I ever met him. I’ve heard as well from a lot of people who have met him just in passing, but he’s a lovely guy. He was my first concert at the Sydney opera house, and I cried my eyes out. I thought it was amazing.

John Murch:
What was your Doug Anthony experience being a 23-year-old? It might’ve been a little bit different to those on a bit.

Gabbi Bolt:
Yeah. I have my brother sort of to thank for a lot of these influences. He’s about three years older than me, and he’s very, very smart, given all these DVDs, because back in the day of DVDs, I guess, now it’s not a thing. My mum would always go to the ABC bookshop that we have here in Bathurst and get comedy DVDs. So that’s how we had The Chaser because we watched that on ABC, and then mom would buy the DVD, and we’d watch all The Chasers, rewind, rewind, rewind. So she thought, “Well, if Sam likes The Chaser, I might buy the Doug Anthony stuff.”

Gabbi Bolt:
So my mum is a ’60s baby. So she was in her 20s when the Doug Anthony stars. We’re doing all of that political content on TV, on the big gig. So I would just end up watching them with Sam, and Sam had to explain all of the jokes to me because there was things like Krishna writing Shotgun on the Stage Coach of My Life, which I think is a great song, but that’s fine. I was on the, again, 12 or 11. I didn’t know what was going on at the time. But my brother is a history buff. So he just loved finding out and then telling me. But yeah.

Gabbi Bolt:
I still remember Kylie and Jason. That was the first one I did understand because I was like, “Oh yes, Neighbours I get that.” I still remember they did the Girl is Mine, but they took off that audience member’s shoe and then stuffed in. Oh my God. They’re incredible. Then yeah. They did a tour, and they actually did a regional tour, and they came to Bathurst as Flacco, Paul, and Tim, and I went and sold that in 2015. Then Tim also did a solo show just recently, and I went and sold that too with my brother. Great show. Amazing comedian. Awesome dude.

John Murch:
We will move on, but Tim’s book is called Cheeky Monkey for those that are-

Gabbi Bolt:
Yes, I have it. Yeah. I own it. Yeah. I love it. It’s a great book. It’s a really good read, actually.

John Murch:
Gabbi Bolt is our special guest here on radionotes. She’s a bit of a TikTok sensation. Before we do continue, what is that TikTok handle where people need to get on down with it.

Gabbi Bolt:
It’s at fettuccine, like the pasta, and then fettu as in, you’re starting to write fettuccine again, queen. So you go fettuccinefettuqueen, and you should find me. Otherwise, my handle is Gabbi. I think my name above that, like a title you can change. It’s just my first name, Gabbi. Yeah. Sorry about the long name.

John Murch:
That’s right. Before the internet, there was a thing called books, and we were talking about Cheeky Monkey. What did you enjoy or get from reading Tim Ferguson’s Cheeky Monkey.

Gabbi Bolt:
I think I find it really hard to know what’s good content coming from my own when I’m running songs. I find it really, really hard to give myself a set of examples or exercises to help me write better, and I know that I don’t like my actual career. I don’t really write many comedy songs. But just having a book outlining devices you can use, very, very simple devices in some ways on how to create original content or funny content is I just thought it was a really interesting read, and it was really interesting to see something as subjective as comedy be analyzed in such a way. I think it was really great. It took me back to when, in his show that he just did, he made us do one of the exercises which was adding or taking away a word from any kind of movie title and changing it, and my brother screamed. He loved it. He came out with Game of Porcelain Thrones. It’s just a nice book to make you feel less weird about trying new things like comedy devices.

John Murch:
On reading it, did you get a better sense of that early Doug Anthony All Stars, because obviously, it was three of them. Did you get a better sense of what the Doug Anthony were about?

Gabbi Bolt:
Well, Tim definitely started to make a lot of sense to me because Tim to me in Doug Anthony was always the goofy one. I feel like he was very goofy. But he’s incredibly intelligent. I think the book finally made sense to his physical humor. I think like using word device and physical humor and like intonation and how to use your voice to change things. Yeah. The goofiness started to make a lot of logical sense. I mean, not that I never loved it before, but it was quite interesting to see the inner workings of how I’m sure they wrote a lot of their songs. Paul was very much the overt, the sort of aggravator, the kind of rude boy, the bad boy, which I loved as a kid. All right. Okay, Rude boy, Paul McDermott.

Gabbi Bolt:
Tim to me was like a puppy. I feel like Tim to me was like the opposite of that. So a lot wholesome, I guess. He was also a bit rude, but just goofy, happy, positive. Then Richard played that so well that like, I’m just here. Richard was always just, “I guess I’m here now. I’m doing this.” Then they’d take the piss out of Richard. It worked really, really well. I’m sure that the three of them had such a great connection to be able to pull that off so genuinely every night, I think, real testament.

John Murch:
Yeah. Now in a wheelchair, Tim is still very much a physical presence on stage.

Gabbi Bolt:
So funny. My God. Because you do. You go in with a preassumption of being like, “Oh my God. I feel so sorry. I feel so sorry for him.” The first thing he does is just absolutely shreds that, all the pieces. He’s just like, “No, I’m still the exact same…” He really, really is. He’s such an amazing guy and comedian. He’s from this area he’s from Blayney. So that’s about 20 minutes out from where I live. So it was really quite special to see him and to see him also because I always say I was only born in ’96. I didn’t know that he had so many shows and writing credits with Channel Nine. He’s dad’s a journalist as well…

John Murch:
I was about to say his father was a war correspondent.

Gabbi Bolt:
Yeah. Incredible stuff.

John Murch:
What I wanted to talk to you about was that you actually do have, apart from being the TikTok, you have some music out, which came out in 2018, a full EP called Grey into Blue, a standalone single called Girl’s Eyes I’d like to get to a little lighter. But you also did some drought relief late 2019 through Lifeline, which if we can start there, what is it like at the moment in Bathurst and in regional Australia?

Gabbi Bolt:
In Bathurst, I mean, during the drought time, it was really apparent that people were struggling. I mean, Bathurst is actually quite a populated town. It’s not quite a city. But it’s 47,000 people. It’s quite a center of Central West. It’s a bit of a hub here. But you only have to drive, max 25 minutes, 30 minutes into those farmland areas just to see how hard they were getting it. They were struggling to afford to feed their livestock and because of people not buying locally. The farming industry took a real turn.

Gabbi Bolt:
Also, even when it would rain here in those very occasional moments where it would, it wouldn’t rain in those dry areas like Hardcore. A lot of those smaller inland areas wouldn’t get the rain that we were getting. It was devastating to watch. So Lifeline Central West and a man called Kris Schubert, who is one of the members of a band, The Safety of Life at Sea and a really good friend of mine decided to put this album together, this Christmas album because he… I mean, the thing about Bathurst and the music scene out this way is that everyone’s mates. We all know each other. It’s kind of hard. You can’t really have many enemies in a small town like Bathurst, and also you wouldn’t want to. Everyone’s very accommodating, and we all work together.

Gabbi Bolt:
I mean, Smith and Jones is another really powerful gold jeweler that has practically helped me get to even just where I am here in Bathurst with the music scene. They’re incredible songwriters. They got two albums out as well. Safety of Life at Sea, I think they’re working on their third now. They ‘re about to release their new hit. Other members of that album, Cindy Fox. There was also a local bishop saying a very beautiful sort of musical theater song called It Starts With a Star. Just really great to see so many different musos, and sometimes not even musos. Just different people who wanted to get in on this. Chris that’s the network. Chris just put the feelers out, and we all went, “Yeah, no worries.” That’s just what it’s like.

John Murch:
That bishop one sounds very much like a great story idea as well from where they’re coming from.

Gabbi Bolt:
Yeah. Because I mean, I’m an atheist, and my song is all about like, I really shouldn’t have any traditions considering that fact. But it was lovely to talk to her. Her song was obviously based on the story of Jesus, and I felt really privileged to be able to be a part of an album that shares so many different ideas. I know somebody else’s song was about, this time of year, I think of my mom who’s passed away, and this time of year, I don’t always find it very happy. Another one’s like, I can’t get back home for Christmas. So the album is just super varied in the types of ways that you can think about Christmas because not everyone thinks about it as this beautiful, joyous occasion.

John Murch:
I know we’re referencing back to a name we’ve already mentioned, but I think it’s important, particularly what you’re able to do with the album you were on was successfully put those different factors in, an atheist and a bishop on the same album, is that Tim Minchin, White Wine in the Sun, where the Salvation Army had an issue with it.

Gabbi Bolt:
Yes. Yep. We all love that song too. Every single person I know loves that song. Every single Australian I know loves White Wine in the Sun. I mean, I think that’s where Chris sort of, he knew that a lot of us… I mean, I’d written that my song about a year before we recorded it. So we knew I had one. He knew Smith and Jones had one. He knew a few other people, Andy Nelson, he knew Andy had one. Then he asked all the other musicians if they wanted to write one, they could. Yeah, it’s very reminiscent of that. I don’t think anyone really got mad at our album. But then again, I mean, I’d love for it to get bigger. So I mean, there’s always Christmas this year, but for free.

John Murch:
Isn’t it such a dampner society that people need to get mad and angry to actually react to things.

Gabbi Bolt:
Yeah. I think I’ve learnt through having a bit of a political voice that you can’t focus on the what if is. I think you can only do the best you can with the resources you have because if you focus on, I have to get it perfect for absolutely every single perspective, then you’re just going to find yourself not creating anything because you’re going to get so wound up in everybody else being happy when you could just be creating content or art that you really believe in. Obviously, don’t go out of your way to be malicious. But mine is very much. It’s very, very clear. I don’t believe in anything. I don’t have any money. I don’t really do much at Christmas time. But I never really saw anybody getting mad at that fact. I think because if you’re upfront and honest about it, the worst they can say is, “Well, I don’t agree with that.” Then the best I can say to that is when I apologise.

Gabbi Bolt:
I mean, “I’m sorry, you don’t believe in that. Feel free to ignore this content.” You know what I mean? Because I think if I found myself getting caught up in making every single perspective happy, I probably wouldn’t make anything.

John Murch:
Normally, as a rule-

Gabbi Bolt:
I’d get too fixed and involved.

John Murch:
Normally, as a rule, people shouldn’t talk about religion or politics, but let’s ask, “Where does that kernel of your political belief come from?”

Gabbi Bolt:
I mean, I don’t really know. My parents have both always raised me on info, just go for policy, not for the person. Vote for policy, not for personality. I’m a very emotional person. I actually really struggled with that. I’m really glad that I’ve got a little journalists around me who could help me verify what’s real and what’s not. But I guess because I’m an artist, because I am quite an emotional thinker, and I’m quite a socialist, I mean, my mum works in disability has for my whole life. Yeah. My brother’s a journalist, and my boyfriend’s a journalist. I just believe that everyone should be treated with empathy. I really think that empathy is key to understanding all walks of life. So I guess at the moment, that’s sort of why I fall a little bit more left than I do right.

Gabbi Bolt:
I’m also from a regional town, though. So to seed communities out this way, public schools don’t get nearly the funding that these huge private schools get. So that’s another reason I ended up just leaning that way. I don’t really go out of my way to try and aggravate the liberal party either. I’m not saying that… I don’t really go out of my way to make it my constant thought to be political every single day. But I do like highlighting the funny side of politics because that’s all we can really do in times like this when we grouped up houses, and it still falls in with what I believe in as well.

John Murch:
Grey into Blue, as I mentioned, was the peek. Can we talk about Girl’s Eyes, though, which looks at consent and that of being a woman in the world?

Gabbi Bolt:
Yeah. I mean, that song was written out of… Well, yeah, I know. I mean, it was written out of frustration for the fact that… I’d actually written it just before Eurydice Dixon, about Eurydice Dixon who was really violently murdered, and it made national news. She was a comedian, like early 20s comedian walking home from work.

John Murch:
This was written before that.

Gabbi Bolt:
Yeah. It was really spooky. It was written about three days before that happened. Not in full. I had just the bridge. I just had that colon response bridge, and I just was like, “It’s not done yet.” Then that happened, and I was just so upset at yet another statistic in this country that we just, I don’t know why. It makes headlines for about a week, and then we just, as a country, collectively ignore it, ignore the problem that we have in this country with domestic violence behind closed doors. Or even just on the streets. Eurydice was, and I was sick and tired like… I was always one of those people that when something awful happens, I’ve voiced my opinion on social media. But I’d reached the point at that point after so many people had been murdered, after so many women had been murdered at the hands of gender violence that I was like, I’m sick of just saying stuff like. I’m sick of just saying like, “What am I doing? What am I actually doing to help? What can I do to help? What can I do to help this situation?”

Gabbi Bolt:
Because I’m in a really supportive community, I put the fillers out on Facebook, and I said, “I’ve written this song. I want to get the local women in my community involved. You don’t have to be a singer. You don’t even have to sing if you don’t want to. You just have to be able to put your face to something or even just support it in a way of buying it. I’m wanting to do this album. At the time, I was actually recording my EP ages ago. I had booked my recording of the EP here in Bathurst. So the band and I were all going to be here, and I told them that they are, but I went, “We’re going to record this song. I hope that’s cool.” They went, “Yep. No worries.”

Gabbi Bolt:
My recording engineer, Tim Roebuck was lovely. He actually recorded that song on the house. The guys from Rusty Shutter Films who filmed the film clip, filmed it and edited it also for free because people in this community were just like me, incredibly outraged and trying to put their voice to something that would actually help. So what ended up happening was I took the women who turned up. I said, “Turn up to the theatre at this time on this day. I do not mind what you want to wear. You can wear whatever you like. You can put on makeup if you want. Literally, just come as you are, as you feel comfortable coming.”

Gabbi Bolt:
I had a great turnout of women of all ages. I had women inboxing me saying that they had been a part of abusive relationships and that they’d come and put their face to something so public, I just thought it was so amazing, and that’s the only reason why I haven’t put all the names of the women in the film clip because some of them didn’t want their name attached to it, and that’s totally understandable. But yeah. I’m forever thankful to the women of this community that decides to come forward and do that with me. That is really them singing. I didn’t have a choir or anything pre-recorded. That was a live record. So what you see in that film clip is actually them, a bunch of really, really awesome, amazing strong women.

Gabbi Bolt:
The song ended up raising about $600, which was incredible, and I split between the local refuge here, Bathurst Orange Area, Central West, and also nationally, the Full Stop Foundation, which I believe have actually changed their name now.

John Murch:
To the show notes, the full video is there, which sounds like was done for free by those all involved. So if, for no other reason, to get the eyeballs across that. Issues within that very song.

Gabbi Bolt:
Started sort of writing it before the news of Eurydice, and that was based on my own experience and also friends of mine. I mean, everyone knows somebody who has been touched by violence or gender discrimination. It started with little things for me, just things like, I mean, I used to play duo with my really good friend who is still in my band, TJ. He’s this massive Samoan dude, big, tall Samoan block of a guy. I’d be bringing out gear in, and then the people running the gig would be like, “Okay, mate. Where do you want this?” He was great. He used to be like, “It’s not my gear. Ask Gabbi.” Just little things like that. Little things like, “I don’t know how to plug in a keyboard, apparently.” Or like, “I’ve had people try and give me a kiss on the cheek while playing at a pub who don’t know me.”

Gabbi Bolt:
I’m just like, “It’s so obvious. If I don’t say you can do it, don’t do it.” So it started as that. That’s not even touching the surface of what some women have experienced. Then I started talking to my peers and my friends and older women and younger women, and then that song came about. I just wanted to make things very, very clear of where I stood on the issue and where the country should stand. Women are equal in every way to men, and they deserve the right for autonomy over their own body.

John Murch:
You’re still pretty young in years. I say that respectfully in terms of early 20s. Some people think you’re a teenager. Maybe they’d be more disrespectful than me.

Gabbi Bolt:
Yes, I’ll take it. Yeah.

John Murch:
But I still think you have an idea of where those next few generations will be encountering these issues. What’s your heart or what’s your gut. Let’s start with the gut. What’s your gut saying about the future for them in terms of that issue?

Gabbi Bolt:
I mean, the way to deal with it, it’s not just dealing with women. A lot of people like to make this issue women versus men. How do we teach men not to do this to women? How do we teach women to protect themselves? What it really should be is defending the idea that everyone can have equal parts, femininity and masculinity. It’s defending femininity, because not only are men from a very young age… I remember, when I was growing up, like, it’s like a boy woiuld pull your pigtails and that meant he liked you. That’s a really common example used when we’re talking about this issue. That’s what you just sort of say to yourself when you were a kid. I think now we are trying to… I mean, we teach kids, don’t hug anybody unless you ask first. A lot of schools I think perpetuating that idea always to all boys and girls, ask anybody before you touch them. Ask them before you shake their hand, say, “Can I please do this?”

Gabbi Bolt:
But it’s also combating the idea that men are allowed to be emotional as well. Femininity as a construct is not a bad thing. I think that’s where the lines really get skewed. Because a lot of people… I was really, really scared when I released that song that a lot of people would be like, “Oh, well. Men can be feminists too.” I’m like, “Yeah. No, I know.” I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that women deserve to put their face to something like this because statistically, it is nine women getting killed to every one man. That is a statistic. I’m all for combating all aspects of that. I know that there are very, very supportive men in the community as well. I think it starts with deconstructing this gender role idea, not necessarily physical genders of men versus women, but I think expressing that femininity can be celebrated as well as masculinity in all genders.

John Murch:
In your heart, how do you feel about up and coming teenage generations?

Gabbi Bolt:
I feel quite hopeful. I mean, I work as a teacher. I’m a music tutor. The kids that I see every day, and I mean, I don’t really talk to them about this stuff very often. My job is to teach them music. But all the young boys I teach are very respectful. All the girls are very respectful. Everyone’s quite strong. They’re always looking out for each other. I mean, I’m obviously talking about my micro world. I haven’t really observed the next generation that much because if I do, I’m worried what I will find. But of what I’ve seen and what I’ve experienced, I’m quite hurtful. I think the next generation are actually quite on it about what’s considered okay and what’s not okay anymore because they don’t have the history there behind them. There’s not this history of women. Back in the 50s, we didn’t have work. We went back to not having jobs because the war ended, things like that, that influenced somebody’s opinion about masculinity and femininity.

Gabbi Bolt:
I think kids these days, they’re growing up in a more equal society. We’re not quite there yet, but they definitely are growing up in a far more equal society than, say my mum grew up in.

John Murch:
The reason why I ask that is because you are in those early 20 years. You’re in that place where you can navigate where you want to go, but you also can put a hand back to the up and coming generations as well. As you said, as a music tutor, you’re actually at that coalface.

Gabbi Bolt:
Yeah. It’s hard. I’m sort of the very, very end of the millennial cusping there. I’m technically Gen Z, but I’m not really… I mean, as I said, I didn’t even really use TikTok until a week ago. I know about the history of what’s happened in the past, and now I’m trying to… I’m also trying to teach my students as well to treat everyone with respect as I’m sure most teachers in the world are trying to teach kids to respect each other and be kind to each other and be okay with being vulnerable. Because I think for so long, that wasn’t taught. It was taught to be strong and don’t cry and deal with it, get on with it. Whereas now, I think it’s a lot more empathetic.

John Murch:
I want to get to your musical style because it has been a couple of years since there’s been a release from Gabbi Bolt. Now, with a bit of fame may come a bit of excitement to get some new music out there.

Gabbi Bolt:
Yeah. Actually, I’m almost in an album’s worth of new songs. My bands who haven’t really made an appearance on my TikTok yet, but I’m sure they would love to, incredible players made up of Kelly Miller, my drummer, Karl Serna on my bass, TJ Tanuvasa, my rhythm guitarist and vocalist. We were starting to rehearse a lot more often. They live in Sydney. So they’re about three hours away from me here. So we did a lot of distance rehearsals. We’ve done a few gigs together. But yeah. We’ve just made a plan right before all this COVID stuff happened to see each other every fortnight. I’d go up there once a month. They’d come down here once a month. But now, we’ve started distancing. We’ve had to sort of go back to online, sending them my demos, and they play back.

Gabbi Bolt:
But yeah. We’ve got a few songs in the works. The problem is just funding it because the first EP was almost self-funded. So I’m just sort of trying to save up the bank.

John Murch:
Is that going to change nature of the album? Do you think, is it going to change the musical genre?

Gabbi Bolt:
I mean, yeah. It very well might become a lot more produced because I have now a lot more time to myself to sort of experiment, I guess, with different sounds. A lot of my sound on the first EP is very. I mean, that was all live records, so not much tracking at all. So that was all organic instruments. There’s no real electronic sounds at all. I would love to try and delve into some electronic sounds.

John Murch:
That first EP has some very clean records then, and as you mentioned, TJ is an amazing artist coming through that.

Gabbi Bolt:
He’s an incredible vocalist. They’re all. So I’m constantly blown away by the talent of that band. My drummer Kelly too, she’s an incredible woman. I actually met her once before she decided to come down and record the EP. I met her… she dates my bass player Karl, and she filled in for a drummer that couldn’t make it one day for a gig. Then I went, “I love you so much. You’re my drummer now.” She was like, “Oh, okay.” So yeah. But yeah. TJ is incredible. I’ve know TJ many years. I’ve known Karl for a few years as well. Yeah. I’m always blown away by it. I love playing with other people. That’s what I actually have found really quite hard about socialization is I love playing with others, including the people in this community. I love playing gigs with other people. We all support each other’s gigs as well. So it’s been really hard trying to think of ways to emulate that same sound with a solo setup.

John Murch:
This is an album of originals as well. So what is that material for which this album that… Well, this is probably the first time you’re talking about.

Gabbi Bolt:
Yes, it is.

John Murch:
What it’s about? Where’s it coming from?

Gabbi Bolt:
Oh, that’s a really great question. I’ve never really been asked that before. A lot of the songs come from a perspective… I mean, I wrote majority of them apart from the title track Grey into Blue, and I wrote the other four when I was about 19. So a while before, I actually got around to recording it. And-

John Murch:
So this is the EP we’re talking about?

Gabbi Bolt:
Yeah. The EP. Yeah. Holding on, the first track on it was actually written in collaboration with a few other writers because I was a part of a band with one of my lecturers when I went to uni very briefly in Sydney. Now, Gavin Ahearn is an incredible piano player, really, really amazing. He loved throwing me curveballs. He would write some music, or he’d write a phrase. He’d write a chord progression or something. The whole band had learned it very quickly. Then he’d go, “Okay. Go get some lyrics.” I’d be like, “Oh, oh.” So he just sort of made it like a time-based exercise and holding on was written in about seven minutes, all of those words, just because I was loving the groove of it, and I could hear where the melody would see it.

Gabbi Bolt:
Then after I started, I decided to record the EP. I asked him and he said, “Oh no, I haven’t played it.” So yeah, I haven’t. So yeah, I have to give him credit for a lot of the chords in that song, his invention. But yeah. They all come from a place of uncertainty. I feel like the running theme throughout all five of those tracks is just when you get to that per school, early 20s idea of life, and you learn that nothing is like what you were told it was going to be like.

Gabbi Bolt:
You have to work to live. You find yourself working multiple jobs, just to be able to pay your rent. The world doesn’t revolve around you. Sometimes you have to cut people out of your life. I feel like a lot of it deals with that same reality. With the exception of Making You Mine, that was an absolute p*ss-take. Same sort of idea. Gavin had written this beautiful love song, and he’d actually written some words, but he gave it to TJ and I as a duet. By the way, we are completely platonic, TJ and I. So it was very funny to write. We went away and changed it all up and made it more of a duet than it was a solo song.

John Murch:
A lot of those great duet songs are platonic. It’s because you get these two different relationships, just putting them next to each other, not touching, just putting them next to each other.

Gabbi Bolt:
Yeah, a hundred percent. He wrote his verse as well. I should give him credit there. His lyrics are what he. So we sort of were both going through a bit of imaginary stories in our heads separately. And then we sort of put them together, and it just created this nice narrative. Then the title track actually was born out of not having a title for this AP that we were recording in like two weeks. I was freaking out. So I had, I don’t know, half a cask of goon, because that’s all I could afford at the time. I listened to Joni Mitchell, Billy Joel, and Stevie Wonder. I was just listening to a lot of older stuff at the time. I ended up just writing that song in a night because I was like, “I just don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.”

Gabbi Bolt:
I just had a profound moment of like, “I don’t know what I want out of my life whatsoever.” I don’t know what’s feasible. I don’t know what I can actually do with my life at this point. Are my dreams too big, or are they too small? Do I not believe in myself enough? Should I believe in myself more? Do I actually have the capability to do more? So that song was written very, very quickly, and it was written the way that it sounds, just solo on a piano at like 1:00 in the morning. The next day I went, “That’s it. It’s the title of my EP.” So we recorded it, and it was great.”

John Murch:
Brand new album is slightly delayed because of the social isolation, as we mentioned. It may be more produced because of that. But what is the heart and soul of this new album?

Gabbi Bolt:
At the moment, I mean, it’s a little more positive, I think, than the last one. I think I’m a little bit more grounded in what I want from my relationships with people and friendships with people. It has a fair few more intricacies, and I think I felt a lot more comfortable putting my real… it’s not that I didn’t put my real opinions on the last one. But I felt a lot more comfortable just letting the words happen with this one and not editing as much. There’s a few songs there that do get a little bit political, and they do get a little bit emotional. I’m really happy that I finally have a few that are actually just really nice, positive, good listening songs. I’ve written one for a friend that was going through a tough time recently, and that was really nice to write because I love sending my demos off to people for their opinion. I love particularly my close friends and family.

Gabbi Bolt:
So when I sent her that song, I sent her first, and I said, “I just want you to know. I hope you’re okay with me writing this song about you.” Then she wrote back, “I’ve said it to my mum. I love it so much.” So I really love writing songs in that way to help somebody else. It’s one of my favorite songs. So I hope I get to record it soon.

John Murch:
Now you’re saying the album itself might have a bit of politics in it as well. So what kind of politics within the album?

Gabbi Bolt:
I guess nothing’s really that on the nose. Nothing is as nearly as on the nose as my TikTok content is at the moment. I mean, there’s a song I’ve written called Nice Guy, which is about experiences with people where you hear their reputation is that they’re really lovely, and they’re a really nice guy. Then they perpetuate the problems within the way that the power struggle in workplaces, working with some men. So I wrote that song. But it’s like a disc or a number, though. So one of my favorite things to do is to write lyrically about some quite heavy topics and then put really fun dance music to it or upbeat music. There’s another song called February, which is about cutting a friend out of your life. But it sounds like something out of Sesame Street, very jazzy, upbeat Maroon 5 early Sunday morning vibes, that kind of thing.

Gabbi Bolt:
I think I really liked disguising my opinion within the construct of what a song normally sounds like to people. I mean, I’ve actually played songs in the past where people were like, “Oh my God. He broke up with you.” I’m like, “Oh, it’s literally not even about that.” I didn’t even realize that’s what you got from this. So really, I mean, it doesn’t really worry me if people don’t like every song I write. I mean, that’s reality, but not everyone’s going to love everything. I love when people take a meaning out of something that I didn’t even have in my mind when I wrote it.

Gabbi Bolt:
Then it was just some really nice songs I wrote for friends and the songs I’ve written about other people’s love lives because my love life is all right. I haven’t really got anything juicy going on at the moment. So I’m pretty stable, actually.

John Murch:
Stylistically, a bit more of the funk and the groove in there.

Gabbi Bolt:
The last EP was written purely out of just I needed something. I needed something with my original songs in it. I’ve been trying to do an EP for ages, and I finally have chance. But we were very time strapped. So we just sort of did what we could, and we did the best we could, and I’m really proud of it. I think it’s a great EP. But this one, because we started rehearsing a lot more regularly now, well, I started going in, and I really want to focus on the instrumentation a lot more. So giving my band a lot more influence over some solos. I’ve got the most amazing bassist. I realised on the last album, I didn’t give him a single bass solo, and he needs one. So I’ve started writing songs with others in mind, which is really great because it means we can tighten up the leaks in the solos and the chords and make it seem a lot more coherent.

John Murch:
Are you feeling like you’re not limited by because of the way music’s released these days and that it’s going to be full length down. Are you not feeling restricted by how long the songs are, and that you can jazz out a little.

Gabbi Bolt:
I mean, at first, I was. Yeah. At first, it was very much like, “I have to have at least one that’s good that’s under three minutes for radio play.” But at the same time, one of my favorite artists of all time is Allen Stone. Most of his songs, all that exact vibe. He is the most amazing soul musician, and I barely hear him on the radio, which is such a travesty. He’s so underrated. But most of his songs have that exact same… Most of them are about five minutes, if not longer. They fill me with such joy, and it’s just real music, and you can tell it’s real music being played. It’s not to say that electronic music isn’t real music. I really appreciate some electronic stuff I’ve heard recently as well.

Gabbi Bolt:
But I just love hearing they’re having fun. My favorite thing to hear on an album, particularly with soul music and jazz music is you can just hear the joy coming out of the speakers of the people playing their instruments. I think I want to really get down into that. I really want people to hear that we’re really tight and coherent with our staff. I don’t really feel constricted at all. I just want it to be fun, and I want it to be something I’m proud of. If I’m proud of it, then I’m for other people to be good with it.

John Murch:
Gabbi, apart from Cheeky Monkey, what are you writing?

Gabbi Bolt:
You know what? This is going to sound basic as hell because it’s quarantine season. I’ve actually been rereading the Harry Potter books.

John Murch:
Hang on. It’s a season now. Is it?

Gabbi Bolt:
I’ve been calling it quarantine season. Well, I mean, technically it’s 90 days, as far as the government’s concerned, this lockdown. I’d call that a season. But yeah. I’ve been rereading Harry Potter. I’m at the fifth book now. I’m so of sorry it’s not more academic than that.

John Murch:
That’s fine. But are you a person who doesn’t watch the movies, or do you do all of it?

Gabbi Bolt:
I do all of that. I really do. I prefer the books. That’s actually a very specific to my generation thing, but a comfort medium is Harry Potter. I find a lot of people on Twitter at the moment have been like, “Has anyone else been rereading all the Potter books?” I’m like, “That’s such a phenomenon.” It’s so interesting for people within, I don’t know, seven years of my age before and after. They’re just like, “Yeah. Harry Potter is what I’ll do now if I’ve got nothing else to do.”

John Murch:
Obviously, you can’t go out to the cinema, but what celluliod type things or long form movies have been taking your fancy?

Gabbi Bolt:
Recently, I re-watched actually, I really love this one. There’s a French film called The Intouchables, which is I think what, it might not be the right movie. There was an English adaptation of this movie that’s nowhere near as good. But The Intouchables is a French film about I disabled man who hires this rough as guts dude from the streets as a carer. It’s so good. It’s one of my favorite movies. Yes, it’s in subtitles. I’m not one of those people that watches exclusively subtitle, artsy films, but that one, really, really enjoy.

Gabbi Bolt:
I also really liked recently Whiplash again, the movie about the jazz drummer and J. K. Simmons is in it. Really great film. One of my favorites. To anybody who hasn’t seen it, they think, “Oh, it’s probably like a music film. It’s a music film.” It’s not really a thriller, but it’s definitely like a psychological. It’s one of the most tense films I’ve sort of ever seen.

Gabbi Bolt:
It leaves you, particularly as a musician though. It does leave you in a really tense spot. It’s about this dynamic between this band leader. I think it’s not Julliard, but he goes to a school of that caliber, a high-level music school, and he’s this student drummer. It’s about this power struggle between this kid wanting this teacher’s validation, and the teacher is just one of the most psychologically damaging people. But J. K. Simmons does it so well. Definitely one of the best actors ever in that film. Yeah. It’s sort of all about the lengths that this student will go to, to I guess be the best at what he can be in that band, and he goes to some crazy lengths.

John Murch:
Has Kelly, your drummer seen it, or would you recommend her seeing it?

Gabbi Bolt:
I actually have no idea. I’ll have to ask her this after this. I’m sure she would’ve. But if she hasn’t, I would definitely tell her to watch it. Because it not only does it obviously have that whole psychological element, but the music used in it is credible stuff, old school, concert jazz band stuff, but like caravan and really, really great soundtrack as well.

John Murch:
We’ve been dancing around jazz a little. Favorite jazz musician or jazz period.

Gabbi Bolt:
Oh my God. I cannot go past Ella Fitzgerald. I know that’s the most obvious response, but Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone are the most incredible vocalists and writers. I like to think I’m a lot more influenced by that time, just after that, the soul time. So Stevie Wonder, obviously Stevie Nicks as well, although I love Fleetwood Mac. Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin. [singing: ‘got try a lot of tenderness’] that whole soul movement that came after classic jazz. But Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone, queens.

John Murch:
Well, in terms of Ella and Nina, do you see them as being at the forefront of what was coming next that the next stage needed them?

Gabbi Bolt:
Absolutely.

John Murch:
Is that what it is about them?

Gabbi Bolt:
Yeah. I also think it’s really interesting too because you find itself in that document as well. Sorry, trialing from your question a tiny bit, like people saying, “Oh, music never used to be this political.” I see a little arguments sometimes in the comment sections of articles about other musicians writing political songs. You look at Nina and Ele’s stuff. If you really listen to particularly Nina Simone stuff, she talks about racism within America. At the time, she was one of the most bestselling artists in jazz America. That’s brave. That’s proper brave as a black woman in America to be singing about racism in that time. Of course, music was political. I always love to direct people back to. They are a hundred percent some of the absolute trendsetters of what was to come in music and some of the best music as well.

John Murch:
Is protest music dead?

Gabbi Bolt:
No. No. I think it’s honest deal with frustration through the art. That’s been the way it’s been forever. Art is born out of either adversity or empathy or just the world around you influences what you do. Protest songs will always be needed, always be relevant. In fact, actually, Kris Schubert, the men I mentioned before, he put together the Christmas album. Actually, we just started writing a protest song just because he’s also very influenced by those old school soul riders and Ray Charles and stuff, and he feels the same way. It’s always relevant to write about what you believe in, whether that be politics or love songs or breakup songs. As long as you firmly believe in it and have a grounding in that, always write protest songs. They will always be relevant.

John Murch:
What is the collaboration process like for you?

Gabbi Bolt:
We started running this together back when we could still see each other. So when I’m normally writing in collaboration with other people, when we can be in a room together, I try and take the idea of just take everything and run with it. So the moment somebody comes up with an idea, I try it. I try everything. I like to try everything I get suggested to me. I do that with everything. If somebody tried asked me to do something, I’ll try it up. I then I’ll decide if I don’t like it. So working with other people is really quite fun and really easy because others almost a hundred percent of the time come up with something that I would never come up with in a million years.

Gabbi Bolt:
Kris is really interesting like that because he’s a very, very good, not only a great singer and writer, but he’s also a much better piano player than I am. I’m very much more rhythmically influenced. So seeing Kris come up with these piano licks that I would never think of in a million years is great because it makes me a better player and a better writer as well. You can only get better by doing and doing with other people. Writing with other people is such a great way to learn to write.

John Murch:
Because we were talking about earlier about the TJ and yourself bringing two different experiences together. It is that, isn’t it? It’s giving a sense of firmness in your lyrical abilities or songwriting with another, and may that be musically or lyrically.

Gabbi Bolt:
I’m quite extroverted anyway, too. So I’ve always really enjoyed making friends. One of the easiest ways I’ve ever done it is just by playing with people who can tune in with what I’m doing. My biggest task as a songwriter and as a collaborator is to tune in with what the other person is doing and not make it about me, make it about the tune. Quite interesting, the way that the sort of jigsaw puzzles come together when you’ve got your own perspective and then somebody else brings their own perspective, and then it makes this interesting collaboration that you never saw coming. I think that’s one of my favorite parts about songwriting.

John Murch:
What’s the song that’s doing it for you right now?

Gabbi Bolt:
At the moment, it’s Walt Grace by John Mayer. For me, I just can’t stop listening to it. It just one of my favorite songs. It’s actually what I mean is really underground sort of songs. But I love the story. I just love it. That’s just one of my favorite songs by him. The story is about this guy, Walt Grace. No one believed in, and he builds a submarine, and he sails away, I think to Tokyo. I can’t remember where he’s from originally, but he leaves his family. He often leaves his life and the whole town that he’s from, a small town tell him that he will never make it, and he’ll never do it.

Gabbi Bolt:
The way that the song lyrically ends, it’s quite open-ended. So some people who are more optimistic would hear the ending and go, “Oh, he made it.” He phoned his wife and told them, and the whole town celebrated him. Because the line is (singing). So people have been for ages trying to figure out what the new she never expected was that he died on the way or that he made it. So I just think it’s just very clever, and it’s just so underrated, and that’s a beautiful story.

John Murch:
It also goes to that of Mayer’s ability of actually constructing that story in a visual element, through his lyrical ability.

Gabbi Bolt:
Yeah. I love listening to it for that reason because I can just close my eyes and see it all play out in front of me.

John Murch:
Without being a bastard, it sounds like you haven’t had the opportunity of seeing John Mayer in a 300 local pub venue as some of us have.

Gabbi Bolt:
I haven’t. Did see him for the first time live last year in a stadium, and it was brilliant. I had the best time. But I would love to stay here in a small crowd. My God. That would be the dream.

John Murch:
What is your favorite live performance?

Gabbi Bolt:
I was actually going back to a name I mentioned earlier. I saw Allen Stone live at the Metro.

John Murch:
This is an artist, thanks to you, I’ll be discovering.

Gabbi Bolt:
Oh my God. I’m so excited for you because the first time I listened to him was truly magic. Yeah. He played quite a small crowd, and we ended up buying… Me and my friend TJ ended up buying VIP tickets because they were so cheap. His general admission tickets were like 60 bucks. Then for an extra, I think 70 or 80, you could get a VIP. So you’d meet him. You saw his sound-check. He’d give you merch thing. You could get his new album. So we just went, “Yeah. Why not?” I mean, may as well, we both love him. He was not only the most amazing musician to see live. That show was so incredible. We were front row. He got the whole crowd singing in three parts. I found that a lot of that crowd were also music because he is quite an unknown artist.

Gabbi Bolt:
So the people who know him are obviously music to that same sort of genre. It was just such a joyful show and a beautifully well done set. The way the set moved was incredible. All of the players of his band were also amazing. To top it all off, I just think it’s always the best when you finally meet somebody you’ve really, really idolized for a while, and they’re also just such a lovely person. That guy is the nicest. He met every single one of us, individually had a conversation with us each. It was such a nice experience. I 10 out of 10 live it again.

John Murch:
Thinking about three part-harmonies, you are the queen there of those women at the moment.

Gabbi Bolt:
I wouldn’t say as much as that. But yeah, no. I do love harmonies. I love doing harmonies. I guess I get that from my dad because my dad is also a singer and a guitarist. He plays guitar, not professionally, but he was in a punk rock band as they all are back out this way, from a very, very young age was sort of taken along to little punk rock rehearsals. Some of the first songs I ever learned were amongst (singing) all that stuff. Culture’s little, the divine, all that. So yeah. My dad, because he could naturally hear harmony, he did a lot of singing to us, and so did mom. Mom will say she can’t sing, but she can. Dad’s got quite a good ear. So I think I naturally sort of inherited that. Then because I did classical piano for so long and you learn about interval theory and all of that, I could apply it a lot quicker. I love doing harmonies.

John Murch:
As a music tutor, do you really get the sense that harmonies are that, that they can bring harmony?

Gabbi Bolt:
Yeah, I do. I mean, a lot of people shut themselves down to see how many because they think it’s something you have to inherit. Look. I will say it is easier if you have a really good natural ear. But if you understand the theory of just… Even if you think of intervals as steps, and you think, “Okay. Well, if no one is here on this bottom step, and I need the third, I will step up too.” You can naturally start to teach yourself. You can always yourself to have an ear. I think it takes a little bit more work if you don’t naturally have one, but you can teach yourself to do that. I tell all my kids that they are capable of harmony.

John Murch:
Are there any up and coming singer, songwriters in your kids, so to speak?

Gabbi Bolt:
Absolutely. Well, they’re not all my kids. Because a lot of my music friends out this way make their living as teachers as well. So we all kind of compare kids, not in a competitive way, but we all talk about each other’s students and what they’re up to. So the community here actually has a program called the Local Emerging Artists Program. Every single year, they get kids in, and we do workshops. Well, not me. Smith and Jones actually help out with this a lot more, the girl duet.

John Murch:
Does the program have an acronym of LEAP?

Gabbi Bolt:
Yeah. So Local Emerging Artists Program. It runs in conjunction with the festival that runs here ever year called the Inland Sea of Sound Festival. It’s a fairly new festival. We just had Missy Higgins here.

John Murch:
So you got to perform on the same bill as Missy Higgins recently.

Gabbi Bolt:
Yeah. Absolutely crazy. I mean, we were on different stages, but because I had the past, I always love to go and see if I can have a quick word. In late 2018, it happened, and it was The Cat Empire, and I loved that too. Her band and her were lovely, and my brother also covered it. So I didn’t go the night before. I couldn’t. I was sick. But my brother also met the other headliner, Killing Heidi, who he was absolutely amazed by it because he always loved them too.

Gabbi Bolt:
So yeah. It’s really awesome that this little country town gets some great names down here now. Yeah. So the Local Emerging Artists Program supports kids trying to start digging, and it gives them a gig at the Inland Sea of Sound Festival earlier in the day as well so they can work on a professional stage and try out their stuff and try out their songwriting and play in a band, and it’s so good to see. So yes. There will absolutely be people coming from my job in about two or three years.

John Murch:
When did you first get into the Missy Higgins?

Gabbi Bolt:
I have the advantage of having started playing an instrument very, very young. I started classical piano at five, which is I’m still to this day because I have such a short attention span. I’m amazed I haven’t stayed with it. So I learnt quite early how to do chords and stuff because I started so early on anyway. So yeah. The first time I ever played in my life was at a school talent quest, which was Scar because it was 2005. I was in year three. I had listened to the sound of that album maybe 50 times that year. I loved it. I still love it. It’s still such a good album. I went through a real phase of Aussie music, particularly Aussie females, definitely Killing Heidi, Missy Higgins, Kate Miller-Heidke, Seeker Lover Keeper at the same time.

Gabbi Bolt:
Around 12, couple of years later, I started looking at comedy as I was talking about earlier, and that’s why Tim Minchin came into effect. So to see Tim Minchin and Missy Higgins release a single together, I was so happy. I think it’s great. I think Australia as well has that kind of communal effect with musicians. I think, particularly, it’s something very interesting about the fact that our country is so small. We’re always so willing to work with one another, and it’s nice to see constantly collaborations between different types of artists, even in the national sense.

John Murch:
Gabbi Bolt, thanks for joining radionotes.

Gabbi Bolt:
Thank you so much for having me. I had a great time.

 

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