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How the music industry went woke, with Hayley Mary
1k Plays6 hours ago
Music used to be about "sticking it to the man." It's now the most conformist industry there is. Hayley Mary has seen the transformation firsthand. Hayley was the lead singer of Australian indie rock band The Jezabels, before launching a successful solo career.
She has recently experienced the wrath of the music establishment, after a controversial Instagram post (complete with a MAGA hat) sparked a cancellation storm (see the post here). In this special conversation with Will, she speaks out about why she took a stand for free speech, subversion, and the counter-cultural instincts that once made music great.
Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.
Read The Spectator Australia here.
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Transcript
Introduction and Hailey's Surprise
00:00:19
Speaker
G'day and welcome to Fire at Will, a safe space for dangerous conversations. I'm Will Kingston. My guest today reached out to me ah about 18 months ago, saying she was a music musician who just so happened to listen too far at will. After some Instagram stalking, I replied saying I just so happened to be a fan of her music. The musician was Hailey Mary, lead singer of indie rock band The Jezebels, the darlings of Triple J and, in my opinion, one of the best Australian bands of the century.
Societal Tribes and Independent Career
00:00:55
Speaker
She couldn't quite believe that a podcaster aligned with the spectator would be into her music, and to be honest, similarly, I was a bit surprised that she listened to the podcast. And here's the lesson. We are now stuck in such predictable tribes that such cross-pollination is rare. Fortunately, since launching her independent career, Hayley has feellessly blazed her own trail. Her new album, Roman XS, has just been released. Hayley, welcome to Fire at Will.
00:01:25
Speaker
Hi Will, thank you.
Childhood and Political Upbringing
00:01:28
Speaker
Was that 18 months ago I reached out to you? How odd. And when you did reach out, that was at a slightly different stage of your life and your career. Tell me about the Jezebels and tell me about everything up until ah about six weeks ago.
00:01:45
Speaker
Okay, right. That's a lot. That's the majority of my life. It's funny. I have a joke with my husband. We talk about post post. So like my life now post post or PC post cancellation. Um, it is a, you're basically a whole new, whole new chapter, but yeah, so you're talking pre-post.
00:02:04
Speaker
Well, yeah, and you know you're not a three hour podcast, so I won't go too deep, but I grew up in Byron Bay. well i would Firstly, the South Coast, but it was a little bit too um square for my family. You know, people still being alive. I can't go into too much detail, but I had a fairly unconventional childhood in which sometimes people who are not always operating above the law were involved.
00:02:31
Speaker
no and not Nothing ah like too damaging on me in that sense, but there were some some instances where we had to we we moved out of the South Coast because there was maybe crush it brushings with biking gang biker gangs, et cetera, that were a little bit too scary down there. So we moved to Byron Bay where people were a bit more open-minded. My dad's quite a hippie, but also where I don't know if you're aware of the term the horseshoe in politics.
00:03:00
Speaker
is in where the right and the left meet. Yep. Somewhat of an anarchist. So on occasion, he'll be so far left that he's right. and And I think free speech is really interesting. Like a lot of people who are quite far left are also very similar to the you know, the libertarian world, it's like, is it left or is it right? You know, these kinds of things. So he's an interesting, eccentric person that always was a bit of a boundary pusher with his thinking and philosophy. And my mum didn't have a very good life growing up when she was a kid. What that transpired to us as the child of her, the first child was that I felt I had to be very
00:03:40
Speaker
I think I thought she was quite weak and we've since healed our relationship but um in recent years, which is great. But growing up, I always felt like I had to be the responsible one. And I was always trying to make her be. We we were on welfare my whole life. So it's funny because while it was the Howard era, which you'll remember growing up in Australia, I grew up mainly with ah what we'd call a conservative prime minister my whole life. Like that was all I knew of politics until Rudd, was it, 07? Was he the one that- Rudd, Rudd booted out Howard in 07. Yeah. and And that was when I was in just going to uni, but my whole childhood it was Howard and I was living in a very left wing.
Music as an Outlet and Band Success
00:04:25
Speaker
um I moved out of home due to obviously the strange tumultuousness of my home life when I was 15. Was music an outlet for you?
00:04:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, actually. and And around this time that I moved out of home, I probably started getting into so seriously writing songs a bit. This is also, I went to school with Heather and this is probably when we started, Heather from the Jezebels and when we started writing. But I was surrounded by left wing sort of i like teachers and all these people. And I didn't know any Howard voters. I didn't know anyone who thought that the right wing was okay or conservatism was okay. They were always, that that said that that was the reason I sort of told you about the that context is that it was all were kind of very socialist, very left-wing, very anyone who votes for how it is evil kind of thing. that Those are the people like I was brought up with, but I always kind of questioned it. But yeah, music did become an outlet, but but it wasn't a career choice. I actually started studying law and then I found I was 17 and I was a bit young for it. And I found I just didn't want to
00:05:28
Speaker
do that and ended up then moving to Sydney going to university meeting Sam the guitarist of the jazz bells and we entered the, um we bonded over music and and we met Nick obviously and then we entered the Sydney uni band comp and that's when the music kind of became a thing. But yeah, there was it was always a hobby. youre You were at Sydney uni.
00:05:50
Speaker
Yeah, I went to Sydney Uni.
Industry Insights and Feminist Aesthetics
00:05:52
Speaker
That's how the band started, was the band comp. We came second, not first. But that's okay. You may be far too modest to to say this, but the Jezebels became one of the great indie Australian bands. Tell me about the progression.
00:06:09
Speaker
Right, yes, I suppose we did. We were indie in the sense that um we actually were independent. We didn't have a record label. We borrowed money off Commonwealth Bank so to start our small business. And again, all this to me is kind of contextually like actually a fairly, yeah it's weird, it's actually quite a Almost a conservative square thing to do in in in the context of my family and the way they were to actually go out and start a business and become. A rock star is actually pretty square for my family. in what way ah Oh, just, you know, it's very engaged with the market. It's very hard work ethic. It's very like.
00:06:50
Speaker
It's a business like all these things that these image the image of ah musicians they will never acknowledge this and a lot of them still don't acknowledge this and i think this is part of the problem with the culture of music is that. The whole industry exists to kind of make musicians think that they're not running a business.
00:07:07
Speaker
And that they're just running some aesthetic political thing where they can often pretend to be leftists. But actually there's people behind that running a business and it it and it runs within the market. And the reason you sell or you don't sell is because there's a demand or not for your music. But people will, musicians will be like, oh, it's because I'm, I'm a woman or I'm this or I'm that, that I'm not getting ahead. And it's like, or maybe it's like women's sports. Maybe people just don't like it as much. Or or like, I don't know. like So we're encouraged to not look at like market forces as a reason for, we're encouraged to be left wing. I don't know really why. But anyway, so yeah, the Jezebels, we went well, we but we were DIY, so I've always been quite interested in the business side. not not ah More so recently in my solo career, I took real charge of the business side of things. but
00:08:02
Speaker
I was always kind of the one that was interested in hearing what our manager had to say and what his plans were and all that stuff, whereas I think the rest of the band were more traditional musicians in the sense that they didn't really like
Feminism and Band Dynamics
00:08:14
Speaker
business. They didn't love the fact that it was a business. A lot of people a lot of musicians hate that about music or the music industry.
00:08:22
Speaker
but Yeah, we won an ARIA, or I've got one somewhere. But before that, I think it's probably worth saying like we were a uni band and this was right in the middle of, I realized later when I, cause I changed from law to arts because I thought, you know, I was more interested in it. And it was good to get that degree and that it was interesting, but it was right in the middle of the transition of, of the universities towards identity politics. And I basically spent 20 grand on learning what would later become just cancel culture. um and and identity politics. And i was a li I felt a little bit ripped off by that because now everyone just has the opinions that my professors had then. And I'm like, oh I didn't need to do that. That wasn't really special knowledge. I could have just waited and it would have been what everyone was doing. Did you feel that at the time or have you only reflected on that in hindsight, that transition in the education system? Obviously, I didn't
00:09:19
Speaker
call it that. I didn't call it wokeness or identity politics. Those weren't words then. This is 20 years ago now. There's a few things I remember, and i wouldn't have called obviously I wouldn't have called it what I call it now. but i Because I was from a welfare background and and got there by the skin of my teeth, I was the first person from my family to go to uni and that kind of thing.
00:09:42
Speaker
I didn't get the socialism stuff because I was trying to propel out of my lower socioeconomic beginnings with an individualism of like, I must achieve. So I always kind of resented this idea sometimes that would play in the band where we needed to be collectivists. Sometimes they would want to put political stuff out the front of our Shows and I'd be like, oh okay, but like, I don't really want it to be communist because I don't really believe in it and that kind of stuff. So I think one of the things that unified us was I was interested in feminism because, you know, you always get an ism. When you're in your early twenties, you always get hooked on an ism and I wasn't going to be hooked on socialism or communism. So I found feminism and probably had some daddy issues and whatever.
00:10:32
Speaker
so So I was fully into this, you know, gendered way of looking at the world and the screw the patriarchy. I was the, you know, the generations before these ones did this and paved the way for all of this wokeness. I was part of that and I was taken by the gender studies stuff and I was like.
00:10:53
Speaker
Patriarchy needs to come down, chaos needs to occur, and order is the patriarchy. and i lived my life in a kind of It's very appealing to like a rock and roll hedonism, paganism, all these things. like yeah I was brought up by somewhat Catholic Scottish people who lost their religion, but there was that kind of Destroy the father like leave the leave the that kind of thing it was a rebellion so i dig dug deeply into what now has become quite mainstream what culture that anti patriarchal stuff that very feminist anti male blah blah blah and how it
00:11:29
Speaker
all feeds into various other anti t-establishment and it essentially does get into Marxism eventually. And post-war break down the story, right? You know, Virginia Woolf, all these people were being fed to us that were like post-structuralists and all that stuff.
00:11:45
Speaker
But when, and I start, and je Jezebel, you know, it's a the woman who falls from, you know, the tower and is eaten by Alsatians and is now, you know, often the lingerie brand or the harlot. And it was a reclaiming of, it was a feminist reclaiming of the name, like of of someone who'd been, we claimed, like a pagan that had been misrepresented by monotheism and jugeo Christians. I was very much that person. Do you remember when you came up with the name?
00:12:15
Speaker
Oh, well, my dad did many years ago because he used to make me go. My dad's called Andy, like Andrew, and he used to dress himself as a witch and play the harp and take me busking. And he called himself Andy Christ and my name was Hailey Mary.
00:12:33
Speaker
And it was a bit of a pun on, you know, his Catholic upbringing, which he was very cynical, but also weirdly had a love-hate relationship with. And he wanted to call me Jezebel, but my mum wouldn't allow it because it was just an antisocial name. So I called the band the Jezebels, but I changed the spelling as a kind of a way of like trying to make it, you know, I was getting all bell hooks on it. Do you know bell hooks?
00:12:55
Speaker
No, and I don't think many of my listeners will either. So please, please explain. These are the post-structuralist, you know, Bell Hooks was like a ah black feminist that spoke, she didn't use capitals. and of the This breaking down of, basically these people are the people that Jordan Peterson is talking about. A breaking down language purposefully. And I didn't see that as part of like,
00:13:18
Speaker
you know, almost Marxism at the time.
International Experience and Industry Pressures
00:13:21
Speaker
But, but, you know, Sam would have, Sam from Jezebel said, like, you know, a lot of this critical thinking, you're learning here, it comes from Marxism. And he used to try and convince me that the feminism was Marxist and had Marxism to thank for it. And I was like, I don't know, I still like Ayn Rand and weird stuff. So I was kind of more tossing and turning, but In the music side of things, it's ah important to note this. When the Jezebels started and appeared to be a feminist man, though we didn't always talk about feminism. It was just that we had two women and we looked a bit angry and, you know, we were called the Jezebels. We went overseas and we were told not to play the feminist card.
00:14:00
Speaker
Like it was not cool like by record labels by publicists they were like you don't want to do that it comes across as like windy comes over but it doesn't sell well all this stuff and we we're like we're not really playing a card like it's.
00:14:15
Speaker
I didn't, we weren't super political. We just had it a feminist aesthetic, I guess. But it did work and then it became super popular. and And it's now so popular that you almost, there was a period there where I was like, I don't even want the Jezebels to be part of what is feminism in music at the moment, because like it's aggressive, like aggressive feminism and you couldn't not be a feminist in music. But when we started, it was like very much discouraged.
00:14:44
Speaker
um and And back in the day, you know, my dad used to say, because he played in the 70s and all that stuff is that they were socialists in his band and they had record labels saying, you know, we like capitalism, you don't want to be socialists here. You know, this because this is um when communism was the dirty word. So it's actually fairly new that leftism is like allowed to be.
00:15:07
Speaker
the dominant mainstream culture. Like it's what it's happened is it's corporatized. The musicians were often left wing or counter-cultural or punk was quite a left wing thing. A lot of the time it can be right wing, but you know, but the industry was always more conservative than the actual artists. The artists are like a raw They're like a raw commodity that, you know, is entertaining or pushing or doing something cool and interesting on the boundaries. But the industry were always like, yeah, but we got a sell record. So this sells, let's channel it in a way that sells, bla blah, blah, blah. This is a capitalist endeavor. It always has been. If you take the left stuff too far, you know, it's not going to work with our model, but it helped, you know, it's always s sellable.
00:15:54
Speaker
I think the corporatization of leftism. is what what maybe led to the the contradictions of wokeness in that it's quite, it's this weird neoliberal thing. It's a box ticky thing. It's like a protection thing. It's like, we're not capitalists because we have black people. We're not evil because we have trans people. you know It's almost a protection sort of lubricant to allow them to continue. And I don't think they're all conscious of this, but it allows them to continue the
00:16:26
Speaker
the capitalist endeavor while keeping the wolves at bay right as the as the class and wealth divide grows and grows but i actually think that that's why we've got woke isn't instead of.
00:16:40
Speaker
actual leftism, and you you know, there's an argument to say that leftism has and has some flaws at its core, and maybe it did lead to this stuff, and essentially it's a it's an ah sort of envy culture in ways, but there's also the Christian kind of charitability of leftism that at at its best, like i like I said, I grew up on welfare.
Critique of Wokeism and Personal Struggles
00:17:03
Speaker
And I remember, you've got you like your Clive Palmer type figures that say, you know, I had my welfare moment and everyone kind of, there's there's always an argument for saying like, you know at times having a safety blanket can keep the functioning, like other society when people fall through the cracks is like when things get pretty bad and i've seen you know a lot of my family have fallen through the cracks like have been in prison have been institutionalized very, ah but but i'm sort of glad that there are some mechanisms that the state provides to kind of.
00:17:39
Speaker
try and help them out. The problem is on the other side of that, you can become institutionalized on welfare. like you know A lot of them just will never get off it. and yeah but there's There's a good and bad side of it, but yeah, I think I i share with you that I miss at least that being the conversation because I don't i think wokeism has taken over and a lot of left and wing people would say wokeism is almost right wing in so so many ways because it's about individual sort of neoliberal, I identify as this, like this subjectivism is, is quite individualistic. It's not really like and you using your class, like like these tribal groups, but it's like, it's all up to me. And that kind of comes from feminism in a lot of ways that kind of the personals, political, everything I
00:18:31
Speaker
C is relevant, my lived experience, you know because you had these objective, what they consider to be masculine, empirical truths in the gender studies realm and all that stuff. And the the patriarchal, you know godly truths, the one truth that comes from the father, and then you've kind of got this idea of the feminine and taking down of that and subjectivism.
00:18:56
Speaker
But it's an individualistic based thing is like i can say anything i want and you have to believe me and that's kind of what self ideas and. And so other people's empirical kind of sensory perception of you is irrelevant because you you said it is.
00:19:13
Speaker
You've just mentioned self-ID there, so let's pull this forward. Jezebel's been going well. What happened there? To be fair, we had a health scare. We were overseas recording our second album, and I think Prisoner was ah our first album, which is the one you probably know the best. It's a cracker.
00:19:33
Speaker
yeah and it's We are recording our second album in the UK and Heather, the keyboardist, actually was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, which was very rare for her. It was a very rare type and for her age. But we kept it somewhat under wraps for a couple more years because she wanted to keep going and she didn't want to tell people about it, but it really did start.
00:19:55
Speaker
You know, it's very difficult to treat cancer and have a musician's lifestyle. It's very erratic. You don't know when your money is coming. It can be quite stressful if you're balancing it with like a potentially deadly disease, the music life. So that sort of started slowing things down. And eventually we actually, we still did put out two more records, but eventually we kind of had this somewhat democratic vote. I'm sure the rest of the band would.
00:20:22
Speaker
will remember things in their own way but my remember memory of it is that we actually had a sort of democratic vote in a pub in. Ashfield about whether we would continue trying to feed the music cycle.
00:20:38
Speaker
And, you know, how I would articulate this is have a career in music, be a musician, you know, by just doing it when you want to and all that stuff. But to continue the career musician thing, and and we sort of vote three, they voted against because Heather was, you know, it just kind of kept coming back and I voted to keep going, but we're a democracy.
00:21:04
Speaker
Which I actually don't think I ever signed up to being a democracy as the lead singer, but there it was. Oh, we're a democracy. Okay. I thought it was going to be like, you know, maybe. But yeah, we were a democracy. So we kind of didn't continue with our manager's plan of continuing these because he had adapted a plan that he thought work around Heather's stuff.
00:21:26
Speaker
So anyway we slowed down dramatically basically stop never called it a hiatus but basically only got together when.
Solo Career and Personal Growth
00:21:35
Speaker
Like there was a good festival or something we didn't keep pushing ourselves as a business and as an aside and within the cycle and didn't keep creating new stuff we always. talk about how we might, but the problem is, yeah, if you don't do it as a career, then people have to get other careers and then they have to go back to study. And so that's what they all did. And obviously life gets in the way. I moved to Victoria, I moved overseas, and eventually we just kind of only really get together occasionally for if there's a gig that seems worthwhile. But yeah, it's so it kind of fizzled out, so to speak. So you start doing solo stuff? Yeah.
00:22:13
Speaker
And that's when I started doing solo stuff. So there was a period there, a very long period where I was very lost and where I get to basically the end of my tether with the pre-woke movement, I would call it because I don't want to call it leftism.
00:22:30
Speaker
But it is all that I learned in uni, the hatred of the farmer, the hatred of the patriarchy, the hatred of the institutions. butba And I find myself living. I lived it like because when you're a musician, you can sort of live your life as an experiment. What do you mean by that?
00:22:47
Speaker
Well, I didn't have a job that structured me in a way that people could call me into account if I was doing wild things. You're also kind of encouraged as an artist to like push the boundaries of normality, right? So sometimes you, you use your life as a bit of an experiment. Like there was like, a I was probably, I would say in a pretty dark place when, when the, like what happened was the last thing that happened with Heather's cancer that kind of that really affected the band was that we were about to tour Cynthia, the other third album, and I was in the UK and my ticket back was the
00:23:25
Speaker
the tour. But Heather then got another, like, her cancer had come back and we had to pull the world to her and that's when she actually had to tell people that, you know, she had this cancer and that's why it was happening because it was just too weird to not tell people at that stage. But at that point, I was, I'd moved out of my apartment in London and I was stuck in London because I didn't have a ticket back anymore.
00:23:48
Speaker
And it was the day David Bowie died. And so there was this kind of David Bowie's obviously like a hero to most musicians. and And it was just like this horrible, you know, my whole life's been pulled out from under me, my income, you know, my friend, maybe. I didn't think she was dying, but, you know, she has this thing that keeps coming back and trying to kill her.
00:24:10
Speaker
Don't know what I'm gonna do with my life stuck in London don't have a house David Bowie's died everyone's kind of. In the street I was in Brixton at the time which is where they both from. Like these murals always like people crying and screaming everywhere like not riots I got parades celebrating him and I ended up having to.
00:24:28
Speaker
live in a hostel with all these backpackers because of nowhere to go. And I just had like this shitty acoustic guitar and I was just like, who am I? And I literally lived like a life that I'm not really very proud of at the moment. Like I was kind of just like, I now see it as very self-destructive, but like I would make decisions by flipping a coin.
00:24:50
Speaker
Like on, on things like who to sleep with, like, like bad, like really like the nth degree of like self-destruction of what, I guess, what anti-institutional, anti-Christianity, anti-society attitudes can take you to. it's It's, it's almost like the Joker, you know, I'll just go here. I'll just do this drinking, drugs, everything, smoking like a chimney.
00:25:17
Speaker
The legal stuff and the not so legal stuff, like I was just kind of letting myself float. I used to call myself a free radical. Like I was just floating around in the earth, like in the atmosphere. Just like, but problem also, if if you you're a musician and a creative, did you almost kind of feel you had license to do that because that's what creatives do. Yes. You know, so it's kind of.
00:25:37
Speaker
history of those people doing that and and pushing boundaries. And when you're young and you're attractive, it's fine, you know? But it's also slightly dangerous, but you kind of like that because it's like a bit rock and roll or whatever. I'm trying to pushing and, you know, there's an element of this that is a valid thing to do. You know, everyone when they're young wants to push themselves to explore.
00:25:59
Speaker
be a bit dangerous, but mine got deep and dark and like, because I was in denial about my situation, I'd gone from earning quite a lot of money to earning no money. And I was living like I was earning a lot of money, right? And so I got into like credit card debt, buth blah, blah, blah. I was just like not facing the fact that this was happening and I was drinking and partying and the hedonism of rock and roll was there, but I wasn't actually acknowledging the situation. So I got it to a point where I actually I think $60,000 in personal debt, like not good debt, like bad, and alone and just sleeping with lots of guys, which you know I don't like talking about because my husband will probably watch this and he knows about it, but like he didn't love.
00:26:48
Speaker
hearing about it, but like it's the depths of the depravity that like that extreme wokeness can take you to. Right. I got there and I kind of hit rock bottom. And then when I met my now husband, I had to finally admit to someone that I had this debt and I was very sad. And like, I wasn't this fun party chick. I was like, had all these problems that this ideology had led me to have it. Like a lack of responsibility, a lack of honesty with myself.
00:27:18
Speaker
All these kind of lies of being, being this rock star or whatever. And it was like, I needed to kind of, I had, I had to become responsible when I met, brought someone else into my life. Right. And so that started my journey into, and I'd done this before as a kid, I'd, I remember like Googling, are there any smart conservatives? Because my whole life I was obviously brought up with.
00:27:44
Speaker
People who said conservatives were idiots, but you couldn't Google it. there was like It was like, i I couldn't even meet a liberal voter. So I just thought they were all idiots. And I was like, there must be another way, you know? And eventually my Googles did lead to Jordan Peterson.
00:27:59
Speaker
And finally there was like, so and he went viral and finally there was like someone who kind of articulated a few things that kind of shut down some of the feminism that had, I was pretty aware had led me to ruin my relationship with my father.
00:28:17
Speaker
you know, ruin my finances, like ah I kind of saw myself as a victim, like every failure that was happening was because of the patriarchy, you know, because of the oppression of language on me because of all these vague things. And, so you know, there may be some truth to it, but what I found was that,
00:28:37
Speaker
Yes, I could be a victim of this. I could be a victim of that. My mom was a victim of that. My dad was a victim of that. These were all true things. But obsessing over that victimization was not getting me anywhere. And I looked back on some of the times when I'd gone well in life and I'd realized I hadn't really been focusing. I'd beening i'd been working hard. i'd been like I had success, so I had a memory of how you get it. And it was like, yeah, I was creating art, but I was I was delivering it i would get up i would do what my manager said i would be there i would turn up on time to the performance i was responsible. I had a work ethic and so i remembered that and i started trying to.
00:29:18
Speaker
kind of I started seeing that those were actually fairly conservative values. All these things that you might pretend you don't do as a musician who's successful. you know Every six successful musician you know, every successful artist, if they've sold a significant amount of records, they've worked.
00:29:36
Speaker
They've turned up to the market. They don't like to frame it that way, but that's what it is. And so I guess that was kind of my eye opening thing. It's like how far, how, how dark life can get when you, and I was at like, I was going to like meeting, like so I was hanging out with squatters who smoked ice. I was going to meetings where they were like break down the borders, you know, all these, all this anti-border stuff. It was very fringe.
00:30:05
Speaker
in London like I thought I was living on the fringe but now it's mainstream thought like people don't believe that nations should have borders. I just thought I was being a crazy punk anarchist right and that's the place for that stuff like it's it's interesting to talk about you know with a bunch of junkies.
00:30:25
Speaker
When you're an artist, but should the government have that policy? No, probably not. And and this is this is the realization I've had over recent years. And this is the interesting thing for me in that you're going through a period of chain. Chaos. Chaos and then change. Yeah.
00:30:50
Speaker
but You're still a rock chick. Most of the people who listen to you, not withstanding spectator podcasters in linen shirts, most of them probably embracing the image of you as the chaotic rock chick doing coke in bricks and bathrooms. ah That's yeah and that cool. And so I guess the interesting thing for me is your public image, which is also the image which I guess is putting food on the table for you, is increasingly disconnected with who you feel you are. And I imagine that probably eventually hits a tipping point where you go, fuck it. I'm over basically pretending to be something I'm not. And without leading the witness too far, what did you do?
00:31:45
Speaker
Well, yeah, so obviously it was more gradual than people see. People just, I think people were very shocked by my post, which is obviously what you're
Reconciling Beliefs and Public Honesty
00:31:55
Speaker
referring to. Because I i didn't speak but through through my solo career, which started after this whole chaos period. And when I started going, okay, I need to write for myself. I need to take control. I need to learn an instrument. I need to get back into, you know,
00:32:09
Speaker
responsibility working, i I decided not to be political at all and not to try and push the feminism thing. And I actually wanted to be appealing to men as well as women. And like I did, I did want to vilify men and I wanted to make something that was like, you know, more approachable to people.
00:32:29
Speaker
And yeah, so gradually I just started taking more responsibility for my life. I got in a relationship. I, you know, started looking after, like I got into property and looking after things like that I had, like I'd already had an apartment, but it was falling down and I was like, hadn't taken care of it. I was a terrible landlord. These things, I started just like slowly taking stock of what I already had instead of being like,
00:32:53
Speaker
Ah, the patriarchy, why am I not more successful? And um it started making me happier gradually, really gradually. But I was still operating in this world where all the ideas that were starting to make me happier were considered evil, like marriage and the page ah you know and and capitalism and all these kind of right-wingness And so I had this very long-term cognitive dissonance with the industry I was in and then like what I was doing and starting to believe and what was leading me to happiness. It took a long time of frustration. Firstly, you know I wouldn't talk to anyone about that stuff and I would just go, you know what what most conservatives do is they just shut shut up and do it. you know They just shut up and get on with it.
00:33:46
Speaker
Yeah, so start getting more family orientated. After my marriage, I start healing relationships with my dad, my mom, like my ha husband's a big part of that because he comes from a strong family. All these things that start ah working on my own foundations rather than like reaching for the tower of Abel. I'm actually working on what I've got and who's around me and trying to, it's not perfect any, like like by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a lot better than it was.
00:34:13
Speaker
And then you're dealing with basically it just got. I start saying things privately to friends and you know the backlash in the in the room is crazy you know for example and I started testing the waters and it's like I can't speak to you people would walk out on me and I was like okay and and I'd be testing the waters with pretty basic stuff like.
00:34:33
Speaker
I don't think there's 76 sexes or genders like I can understand that there's maybe ah the concept of a spectrum but 76 is a bit high for me.
00:34:44
Speaker
And I'm not entirely sure that sex is a spectrum. I'm not sure, but 76 is way too many. like and And I had a friend walk out on me on that and I realized that you probably shouldn't talk about these things while drunk. So that became my rule now is that I don't really talk about it while drunk. But then again, you break your own rules when you're drunk. And and I had a few instances of like that where I would offend people or upset people, but it was always kind of private or at a pub or whatever.
00:35:14
Speaker
ah but i and And what ended up leading me to make the post, which is what you want to know, is that obviously after putting out my new album, it had been a couple of years since I'd put anything out and things had gotten more work and more intense inescapably. I put out my new album.
00:35:31
Speaker
and i was managing myself because i've slowly started basically i'd started preparing to do something like this ah the ground us where what year are we in now we're in twenty twenty are we in this year are you in twenty twenty four Yeah, but prior to this, I had been slowly preparing my life so that I might be able to say something honest on these matters and it not completely blow everything up. So, you know, I i i don't want to talk, talking about this like almost puts me out there for being vilified by my community, but we bought an investment property.
00:36:09
Speaker
We also bought a house in the country and now live in it. I've been like trying to look into our finances and make sure they're okay. You know, like shedding crew and staff and members who, cause the other thing you got to remember about musicians, anyone who might, might want to say something like this is there's like a whole team of people around them who will stop them. Like you can't say that. Oh, okay. Right. Cool. And so I no longer have management for various reasons, but one of them being this.
00:36:37
Speaker
There's more people who will lose out from your fallout of what you say. So I've been just like slowly getting rid of like I stripped back the band. I still, obviously there's economic reasons for doing this stuff as well, but it's more about, it was just taking control of things so that there was less people who might become collateral damage or get in the way of some kind of but truth telling that I wanted to say.
00:37:01
Speaker
I didn't have a plan but i mean it's part of what is why i reached out to you as i go this guy actually kinda comes from my culture. And is talking about some of the stuff you know a lot of the people can conservative commentators are american or british. And and i was like you know i reached out to you is for advice i was like should i do this and you basically said no. I say no, yeah. Yeah. But I think, I think, I think you're more ballsy than I am is the bottom line. Like, I don't know why you would do like, why you would voluntarily out yourself. Like most people who get canceled do it accidentally. Why you would kind of engage, cause most of your audience, and I come from an audience who are very you know queer friendly, very feminist, very alternative. So I think it's like more of a shock to some of my listeners than it would be for other.
00:37:52
Speaker
other musicians, probably. That was my point. Compared to a cold chisel audience or something, yeah you know your audience is Newtown. Your audience is Hawthorne. Your audience is Fremantle. I think you're maybe underplaying how brave you needed to be to get to a point where you publicly said, I'm not going to do any more.
00:38:16
Speaker
The bravery is, it's kind of bravery, but it's also like my character, like I'm, my mum and dad are both very, they're very truthful. And I really struggle lying, like I, and pretending. And so it's been, it's been grating on my soul for a very long time to play along with things that I believe are.
00:38:38
Speaker
Not only not true, but also damaging. And they just became like a so like too much of a collection of evidences to suggest that some woke.
00:38:50
Speaker
ideology is leading to, like, actual bad harm to, like, vulnerable groups.
COVID Impact and Industry Conflicts
00:38:58
Speaker
and where so hot Also, like, that the arts should be a place where there's truth and and honesty and openness. So a few things happened. There was COVID. I lived in Victoria during during COVID, right? So my whole life was shut down for almost three years. you cut Like, the impact on that?
00:39:17
Speaker
from ah from a left-wing government. The impact on people about that is still really playing out. I knew a guy who worked who worked in the symphony, I think it was Melbourne Symphony. He had six friends who were musicians commit suicide during that time. And that was never talked about. and And the whole arts played this kind of like ministry of propaganda thing for the government during that, where they were like,
00:39:42
Speaker
Get facts, do this, do that. Obviously coming from Byron, I know the anti-vax history and all those people and I have a lot of anti-vax friends. I was not particularly anti-vax and am not and got three, three jabs. But this whole, the left wing and music and arts jumping on the big farm bandwagon and all these things. And I was like, what's going on? Like it it, that happened. And it was kind of crazy. And then, and then when releasing my album, there was.
00:40:10
Speaker
Things that I had to do that I didn't really like that my manager would have done before, like applying for, what do they call it? Conferences. They have music conferences, like big festivals where you showcase your music. And I'm applying for one in Australia. And the form is like literally all of the questions at the start are like, do you identify as indigenous? Do you identify as black? Do you identify as this? do Are any of your members in your band indigenous from another country? Like all these kind of quota things that I realized were happening in the industry, but artists maybe don't see. And I couldn't even fill it out. It got to the point where I got to the bottom where they asked for my music finally. And I was like, I cannot enter this. This is, what right do you have to ask who my drummer sleeps with? Like how is that anything to do with the quality of my music?
00:40:59
Speaker
I did happen to have two queer members and one of them was an indigenous, but I don't want to use their identities to get me on a festival. like It was just like this kind of tokenism. And then I would be selling my record and there'd be things that my publishers would say, you can't say that, and tweaking it. It was just like this kind of war of attrition on the desire to tell the truth that I think a lot of artists have, where it'd be like,
00:41:23
Speaker
Don't use that word. That's a bit offensive. I wouldn't do this. And it's just started chipping away. I eventually got kicked off a charity gig that was part of the proceeds were going to help Palestinian refugees. And the reason I got kicked off, not not just that, but various, they were going to various things. The reason I got kicked off it was because someone overheard me in a pub saying that I didn't want the destruction of Israel.
00:41:49
Speaker
Like I could still see the validity in helping Palestinian refugees, like they're refugees. I think all refugees need aid. It's quite a simple concept, but that doesn't then mean that I also want to bomb the shit out of Israel.
00:42:06
Speaker
Like and and destroy it from the river to the sea I've had two things can be true at once and I was considered not anti Israeli enough from this here say in the pub. In the music industry to play this charity and I was just like this is starting to get crazy and then obviously the the biggest.
00:42:26
Speaker
tipping point but the I was waiting to get my record out. I was hoping that I could just get my record out, do my tour, and I was in the middle of that tour. I had one more show left when Trump got in. So, you know, I'm sick of it. Like, it's up to here, but I'm like, I just need to get my record out and then I might even quit music. you know Or maybe I'll say something and then quit music, but I'll do it in this neat, tidy way where it's all organised and I'll look great or something. But ah unfortunately, when when the um when the Trump election happened, Australian government had been debating the misinformation bill for a little bit. And I was aware of it and I think
00:43:09
Speaker
I thought I'd like to say something about that. This is quite scary because my friends who are like pro-Palestine also were concerned about it because it was like potentially could target phrases like from the river to the sea. And then, and then you've got all these things in it, like speech that was considered to be serious harm could be deemed misinformation. And I was like, well, that means, you know,
00:43:35
Speaker
When you play out cancel culture, basically, you get if you say that something like men can't get pregnant, that causes serious harm to trans people. like I just started seeing this kind of scary or whaling language in it. I mean, it's called the misinformation bill for Christ's sake. and so i um Someone has to decide what serious harm is, and that's the problem.
00:43:58
Speaker
active things coming in and I was like, I really don't like talking about politics. I'd like to leave it out of everything, but this is pretty bad. And I'd also kind of heard about some of this stuff happening overseas in the UK. And I was like, it doesn't, it just really sits badly with me and I don't think I can say nothing, but I just expected it to be a bit later that it would be kind of, yeah.
00:44:21
Speaker
being passed, but then they, ah under the Trump hysteria, the Australian government put it the second and then I think final reading and passed the bill on the day of his election. I think hoping that no one would really notice, because there was a lot of controversy about this, like people, lots of people really didn't like the bill. And I just thought those sneaky buggers and I looked on Instagram and I looked on Twitter and everyone I know, all the entertainment industry were literally like in hysterics about Trump.
00:44:49
Speaker
and how their abortion rights, like Australians worried about their abortion rights. And I was like, there are other rights you should be way more concerned about right now.
Generational Shift and Conservative Values
00:45:00
Speaker
And I don't understand, one, how you can think Trump getting in is going to affect your abortion rights in Australia. Two, how you don't care about freedom of speech. Like it just hadn't been talked about at all in the artistic activist class. As far as I could hear, none of them cared about it. and And in fact, if I'd ever brought up freedom of speech among musician friends backstage or whatever, they would be like, oh, you sound a bit right wing. And I was like, it's not right wing like anything.
00:45:32
Speaker
the The tragedy is in our parents' generation in the 60s, in the 70s, it was the left that was fighting vigorously for free speech, was fighting for civil liberties. And something has happened in the subsequent generation where now it is the right that is fighting for individual freedoms. And become the tyrants, that's what's happened. Yeah, become the tyrants. i Anyone can become a tyrant.
00:45:57
Speaker
One of the, I think the great comments on this whole transition was from Nick Cave, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, one of the great Australian musicians. And he was asked in an interview with Unheard, I don't know, a couple of years ago, and it stayed with me, how can you be counter-cultural in 2023 at the time?
00:46:18
Speaker
He said, you bear conservative. okay yeah yeah You go to church, you raise a family, you bear conservative. for me to pull out my little christian cross here and this is the thing ah you know I'm personally not not religious, but you can't deny now that to pull out a Christian cross, as you just have to say a lot of the things that you're saying,
00:46:44
Speaker
is ironically much more counter-cultural than a lot of the people that you may have started your career with who are now doing things which mainstream but may have been kind of punk, you know, 20 years ago. It's a fascinating, fascinating inversion.
00:47:03
Speaker
it's the um Again, to bring up one of these post-structuralists, she's probably not technically that, but Bell Hooks, I think it was her that talked about eating the other in ah in a framework of of rap and how white people like to eat blackness. They like to consume the edginess of blackness. She was talking from a 90s rap perspective. but There is a validity to her argument in like, we like to buy authenticity. We like to buy danger. We like to, from our safe place, right? And I think that's what corporate, the corporate West has done with the arts and, and, and leftism and, and wokeism and stuff. It's like, if Virgin Australia, Qantas, ComBank, you know, even I think there was
00:47:50
Speaker
wasn't it like even on the stock market, they were doing a lot of this work stuff, like having quotas and stuff. It's like, if those people are doing it, like the NASDAQ is doing it, are you sure that it's something that you should also be promoting as an artist who's meant to be like the truth telling, look at the edges of society, look at the boundaries, push them. You know, like David Bowie wore dresses was in many ways a trans icon, but like,
00:48:19
Speaker
I don't think that means that he would be like, yeah, you should sterilize the children. And and when it's like when these ideas in the arts happen, they are interesting, but when they turn into corporate or medical or institutionalized or top down movements, you have to be wary of them.
00:48:40
Speaker
And so it just it seems very strange to me as like a lot of artists now who still consider themselves punk and stuff. It's like you ever looked at your worldview and considered that it's exactly the same as like what bankers use to sell their image on ads?
00:48:57
Speaker
I don't know, like, but yeah, so ah I have gone a bit more conservative, but at the same time, the misinformation bill, which is why I picked it because I felt it was actually pretty neutrally like bipartisan bad, was that there was things in that that was like, you could read, and I think the Australian Human Rights Commission brought this up. They said like, because if it causes serious harm, like if speech that causes cause a serious harm to an individual or a business,
00:49:27
Speaker
or an institution, that could be considered misinformation. And under that reading, it was like, If, if a environmental group brought up, say the bad environmental history of a company and that affected them financially, ah that's called serious harm. And so you could argue that them causing that serious harm, that's misinformation and could be speech that should be
Misinformation Bill Concerns
00:49:53
Speaker
suppressed. It's like, it was just really bad for everyone potentially. And ah it did get thrown out, but in the meantime,
00:50:01
Speaker
the The nature of my post was, I didn't feel like the misinformation bill, a post about the misinformation bill, which I knew I was going to do, was going to get the attention that it deserved. One, because it was under Trump hysteria, and Trump just is clickbait. But two- Well, let let me let let me frame it before you before you get to number two. If you put forward that very cogent argument against the misinformation bill,
00:50:27
Speaker
You do it in a caption on Instagram, but then you accompany it with a photo in ah in a Trump cap. Which again, you know, in a MAGA hat. Which again, I love, I'm all for. But I think it is the Trump hat which sets off a lot of people who who would have, you know, followed you. Why did you decide to accompany the argument for the misinformation bill with the MAGA hat?
00:50:55
Speaker
Yeah. Cause I think that's the key thing I did. Well, one, like I said, I really don't think, I think Australian politics is boring. 100%. Yeah, Australian politics is boring to even Australians, right? And also misinformation, like a freedom of speech is considered to be like a little bit right wing. So it's like most people would just be like, all right, leftists would be like, no, I'm not getting in on that. Or she sounds a bit right wing, but they wouldn't be angry enough to really comment. And then like,
00:51:26
Speaker
Right when people don't follow me. And so they wouldn't be like, yeah, yeah. Or as far as I thought they didn't follow me, they do now. And and I just didn't think it would cut through. That was a big factor. But also what I was seeing ah from the responses of, you know, my peers and just in general Australians was that like, you know, Trump's going to be an authoritarian.
00:51:51
Speaker
Trump's gonna ruin everyone's rides this is the most horrible thing about whereas i'm on the side of the algorithm where the trump when was actually a win for freedom of speech because he said. A lot of things that have been culturally outlawed.
00:52:07
Speaker
for for most, for for a lot of working class people, but they think them, but they weren't allowed to say them. And he said them. And I really do believe that that's why big factor on why he got in. Also some of his more, I wouldn't say conservative, but right wing leaning staff, like his, you know, economy stuff and all that stuff. But it was more that I.
00:52:29
Speaker
I believe that what was in the misinformation bill was also targeting some of that kind of anti-woke stuff and people like Joe Rogan. It actually had all these exemptions for like mainstream mainstream media.
00:52:45
Speaker
like That was the main problem with it, is that it wasn't targeting misinformation everywhere it was. It was targeting misinformation only basically on podcasts. And I was like, why don't you just say you want to ban Joe Rogan? Seriously, like he's won, he's basically won Trump the election. It felt very tied in with the desire to want to curtail Trump-esque movements.
00:53:09
Speaker
putting that hat on was like, you know, getting your boobs out in the 1970s or, you know, offending Jesus Christ in the, you know, 1960s. Were you just trying to, is that the way that you try and be rock and roll in 2024 is putting Margot hat on? Like, is is that the rock and roll of today? It was for me because it was about how to offend and and how to offend the most people because, you know, ah I felt like the right to offend was being threatened. And I'm not, I know a lot of people go, Oh, but why is it so important to you to be offensive or use bad speech? And it's like, well, no, I don't think it's that important to me to be offensive and use bad speech. But when you take away the rights of people to do that, you get bad results. So it's like, yeah, I do think that it was a kind of,
00:54:01
Speaker
It was meant to be a little bit punk, I suppose. less I tried to make that that post less about what my politics are or whether I am a bit more conservative or whether I agree with Trump or not, and more about the misinformation bill and just the fact that I am wearing this hat to, as a shock jock kind of anti-music industry establishment thing.
Backlash and Career Fallout
00:54:27
Speaker
And it was. Like we had, I have- Which is what cool musicians over the course of human history from Beethoven onwards have always done. I think that's what, was for me, that was what was cool about it is that it was counter-cultural and it's just weird that in this day and age, that is the way that you be counter-cultural.
00:54:46
Speaker
Yeah, well, a lot of people said that, like, this is pretty rock and roll. And a lot of people who said, oh yeah, I hate Trump, but I kind of back this, you know, and a lot of people got it, but a lot of people didn't. Yeah. So let's, let's, let's talk, talk to me about the response and how you feel about where you sit both in your career and your life today.
00:55:10
Speaker
So I wanted to draw a line in the sand and and force myself to somewhat quit music by basically turning the entire industry against me.
00:55:21
Speaker
So I knew what was going to happen and I'd seen cancellations. I have friends that have been canceled. I've seen strangers being, had we've we've seen the kind of cruelty you had, how it plays out online. And obviously I was kind of psychologically prepared for the negative side of it. That was like, people are going to turn on me.
00:55:42
Speaker
like really really badly and they did and you know anyone who wants to see the details. The post is still there because i i kept them up because i'm not apologizing or removing them and. Yeah it just kind of created the the natural you know trolling and then counter trolling and i haven't really looked.
00:56:02
Speaker
in depth on the responses because it's just like, it's a world of its own now. It's kind of almost nothing to do with what I'm saying. Like it kind of turned into chaos, but what I wasn't really prepared for was like, I was i was a little bit prepared for like how my friends, how my people I worked with.
00:56:22
Speaker
would react. And obviously I had, you know, everyone who did still technically work with me, which was only actually like three people. ah ah Four people. I had a publicist, a drummer, a guitarist, and a sound person. And they all quit, so which meant that I did have one, my Melbourne show.
00:56:42
Speaker
album launch was canceled. The venue sort of also decided they didn't think it was a good idea to have me. And it was just a number of reasons where I was just like, you know what, I think I'd be just better off just canceling it. And also I think probably it feeds into more of a productive narrative about my post because it was kind of like saying.
00:57:04
Speaker
I haven't said anything particularly bad here. I've just kind of stood up for freedom of speech and won the hat of the president-elect. And now my show has been canceled, which it probably technically shouldn't have been the case, but it was. course but yeah and so But the thing that was a surprise to me was all the positive feedback. Like I wasn't expecting any.
00:57:29
Speaker
And I got inundated with messages, all private, hundreds of them, like hundreds. this like i so I tried replying at first and then I had i had to stop to to everyone who reached out to me direct. Quite a few of whom were in the music industry, but not not heaps. But I was shocked to get any from the music industry.
00:57:52
Speaker
um and just Yeah. Lots of people that had been canceled or lots of people that are just like, yeah, you're right. Thank you for talking about this. I can't publicly yet, or, you know, everyone hears about this, these cliches, but, um, that was actually, that did kind of inspire me more than you would think. Like you'd think you'd be like, screw you, you should come out and support me, but you're not. You don't even just knowing that one thing I've realized since my post is like the difference between reputation and character and that like.
Reputation vs Character and New Beginnings
00:58:24
Speaker
Reputation is what a lot of people are trying to protect when they go along with whatever the party line is. You know, maybe ah you're in Soviet Russia, it's different, but now it's wokeism. But, but character is like when you say what you think is true. And I might be wrong. Like I'm not saying 100% sure I'm correct on everything, but like you have to kind of follow what you actually think is true at least. Like that's going to get you closer to the truth than like,
00:58:53
Speaker
going along with what you know is a lie. And so the the lightness that I felt as soon as I put it, it was like ah a bit of a thrill because it was like, shit, I've just ruined my life. I've just ruined my life. I've blown up my entire life. But I felt light. Like for the first time it was just like something left me like a succubus or an incubus or whatever it was. It was just off my shoulders and I was like, I don't care. Like I don't care.
00:59:20
Speaker
I did have friends you know who were in the music industry who had, say, for example, just liked the post. They had like their labels calling up and saying, you need to unlike it, or you need to say a statement.
00:59:37
Speaker
distancing yourself from her or whatever, and my band, the Jezebels, and ah you know my my solo band members obviously distanced themselves from me, but also then my band, the Jezebels, made a statement that was Interesting. They didn't name me, but they said they've always, they named up some, I don't know, some post-structuralist queer theorist or something that they loved and then said, you know, we abhor the far right and they're moralizing over freedom of speech. And I just thought for a bunch of people who got a uni degree, you should know that the far right don't really do well with freedom of speech and they don't moralize over it.
01:00:21
Speaker
Like, that you picked the wrong term there. You could have said the right, even, and I would have gone, okay. But the far right, come on. Like, that's a bit extreme. I think that's just become a pejorative for anything that the left doesn't like now is that's far right, unfortunately. Well, that's cool, but the Nazis were far right, and they were very bad with freedom of speech. So, like, come on. Get it right. You said you felt you'd you'd blown up your life. Have you blown up your life?
01:00:50
Speaker
Well, in the sense of like a wildfire or a, yeah, like there's, yes, I have, but there's new growth and somewhat of a phoenix growing from the ashes in that like, I think I was essentially pretty unhappy in the way it was going in feeling like it wasn't what ah it had promised in terms of like,
01:01:14
Speaker
It's very difficult to be an artist in the world where there isn't really proper freedom of expression. Sorry, but like, what's the point? So yeah, I feel like I've kind of, I've blown up one life, but I've started a new one. And obviously there's a pain in that and like a bit of a grief process that I'm kind of going through. And friendships that were lost, which is a big factor, but also I'm a bit of a loner anyway, so whatever.
01:01:43
Speaker
Good, like my really old friends and all my, you know, surprisingly some friends reached out who I didn't expect to saying like, I kind of get it and or I, or I totally agree. Or so, you know, it's just a re, it's a re adjustment, but I also think it's just a new chapter, like a exciting new chapter that I'm really keen for. I don't know what I'm going to do professionally.
01:02:10
Speaker
but You still have a pretty awesome album out. So it's not exactly as if you're, you know, off into the wilderness. but i I put that out before the post and there's not going to be any opportunities in this. The Australian music industry is really small. That's the other thing. So like to get cancelled or self-cancel as I did in America or the UK, UK even to an extent, such a different thing to doing it here. Like it's a tiny little.
01:02:41
Speaker
In Shilla industry where everyone just kind of, and there's a tall poppy syndrome. So like, I mean, like I don't think I have much of a chance of like, overcoming the kind of bitchery. Is that a word? Bitchiness?
01:02:58
Speaker
Yeah, I'll allow yeah whichitchery that that it, All it would take is like one person trying to put me on a festival and then it would just take one person to go, I'm not playing that if she's on it, because she's a bigot. That's the other thing, i've I've come to terms with the fact that I am apparently a bigot according to Newspeak. That's going to be my news. i'm i'm I'm a Newspeak bigot, which means that if I disagree with an activist on anything, I'm just a bigot.
01:03:28
Speaker
It doesn't really matter what what we're talking about, as long as as long as they're an activist and I disagree with them, I'm a bigot.
Advice for Young Creatives and Courage Culture
01:03:36
Speaker
ah as as someone who has been called a right-wing bigot many times i can emphasisphase Ailey, two questions. First, what advice would you give to a young creative in Australia who, you know, maybe right wing, maybe left wing, whatever, but may just feel constrained into not being able to express what they believe by a culture that is saying you have to think and act in a certain way, basically a young person feeling the way that you felt? What would you say to them?
01:04:11
Speaker
Well, the irony is if it's a leftist, I'd say look at your mode of production and start taking control of it. Like as in yeah you're living in a a world now where you can pretty much go direct to fan more than ever because we have technologies and infrastructure that means that.
01:04:34
Speaker
If you, you don't need the industry as much as as you use, you used to. So if you want to say something that you think maybe, or you want to express yourself in a way that you think is whether you want to call it counter-cultural or just like not popular or whatever. Whether it's for political reasons or aesthetic, maybe it's just not on trend and you're not going to get signed and you're not going to get a label and you're not going to get management and all that stuff.
01:04:59
Speaker
It's a better time time than ever to there's less gatekeepers so you if you take control about how you record how you put things out. What the business side of things so if you're right wing i'd say take control of your business if you're left wing i'd say take control of your mode of production but like either way it's like.
01:05:19
Speaker
Know how your business works. Be the one who understands the structure of your business. Don't need a manager to do this. Read your contracts. Like if they have clauses in them that stop you being able to do stuff, read it. Like, or at least get a very good lawyer that explains most things to you. Scan it and then get a lawyer. so Don't just sign them and then call yourself a victim of the system later.
01:05:45
Speaker
like so many musicians do. And it's like, no, you're an adult. You signed a contract. You're not a victim. Just don't sign it if you don't like what's in there. Just take more responsibility, but also then go direct to fan like you can. I think you need a distributor, but most distributors are pretty apolitical. They will take most things that like they seem that are like actually of a certain quality. And it's a pretty basic quality. It's not a taste thing. It's just like if it doesn't sound sonically fucked up or something.
01:06:14
Speaker
So you're going to, I think, I think that people are in a better position to just, I would say get good at digital marketing and social media. That's one thing that I will probably like suffer from a little bit being of an older generation is that I never, I came up before social media and before streaming and a lot of the revolutionary technologies that made this democratization and direct to fan stuff.
01:06:40
Speaker
possible, but be tech savvy about like how you can market yourself direct to your fans and not need an industry that makes you say stuff or think stuff or box ticks. so the The truth is the free market has still got like you know people from every group and every quote every identity group are making money. It's just it's just these like industries that are trying to control who does what and do box ticking. but like the rest of the world there's like a hub another world going on where people know what's going on.
01:07:15
Speaker
You know what I mean? And they're aware that this is a corporate movement and it's, and it's alienating and lots of things. but I don't know. Does that answer your question? Like there's lots of things you can do, but I just, I wouldn't, if you want to go down the industry route and it's always been like this to an extent where you like get the big label deal and you play the game and you go main mainstream.
01:07:41
Speaker
You will have to play the game and you will have to have that kind of sell yourself political correctness. You can break out of it in like an M&M way.
01:07:52
Speaker
Like, I mean, pre, before he joined the Kostrati party. I mean, like old school M&M who actually made the money. Some shady M&M. Yeah. You could, you could be that as well, but like, you just got to be aware of, I think maybe i would and not one thing I would also say is thicken your skin.
01:08:12
Speaker
Like whether you get political or not, the internet is a horrible place. And I remember when it started breaking through and troll culture happened and it was like suddenly everyone can tell you what they think of you. If you can withstand like people hating you on mass, then you can say anything you want. It's like what people say, it's consequence culture.
01:08:34
Speaker
It's not cancel culture. And people said this on my post, they were like, you can have freedom of speech. It's just that you have to deal with the consequences. And we hate you and we're canceling you. And I was like, dude, that's not my point. I was literally talking about a law where I can't have it. So you're wrong. But if you want to talk about cancel culture, like if you have a thick enough skin, you can, it is what you make of it. Like you only get canceled if you let yourself get canceled.
01:09:02
Speaker
Well, one one of my favourite lines on this podcast was from former Australian deputy prime minister, John Anderson, who said that the only cure for cancel culture is courage culture. And you have certainly shown an immense amount of courage. highly Where can people hear your music and hear from you?
01:09:21
Speaker
Ah, I guess you can go on Hailey Mary music. That's my current handle, though I've got a few impersonators at the moment, so I'm thinking about changing it. Hailey Mary music on socials, and then just look up Hailey Mary on Spotify or YouTube, H-A-Y-L-E-Y, and then Mary, like the mother of Jesus. And yeah, I just, yeah, feel free to share your hate as well as you love, cause I've developed a thick skin.
01:09:50
Speaker
A link is in the show notes to this podcast. This is a cracking album. I particularly like, i sorry, The Rapture and George. I've been listening to them nonstop. They made my Spotify wrapped for 2024. But that is less important in many ways than than what you have done for basically being incredibly brave, courageous, intelligent. And I just think your story is wonderful. You've done so, so well.
01:10:17
Speaker
Thank you for everything you've done, but, and also thank you for coming on Fire at Will. I appreciate that. I think there's a lot of people who think the opposite that I've been, you know, stupid and ignorant and all that stuff, but you you just have to go with your own gut on these things, I suppose.
Promotion and Conclusion
01:10:33
Speaker
I appreciate, I appreciate having someone to talk to about it. So thank you for having me.
01:10:40
Speaker
Thanks for listening to this episode of Far at Will. If you enjoyed the show, why not consider a subscription to The Spectator Australia. The magazine is home to wonderful writing, insightful analysis, and unrivalled books and arts reviews. A subscription gets you all of the content from the British edition of the magazine, as well as the best Australian political commentary Subscribe today for just $2 a week for a year. No I'm not joking, $2 a week for an entire year. A link is in the show notes.