39th Annual Festival Has A Last Minute Addition!

Weerama

Sitting cosy in Melbourne’s outer south-western suburbs is a city called Wyndham. Having a population of over 230,000 and growing yearly, it’s a buyer’s haven for new property and development. Set on the grounds of where one of Australia’s most iconic films Mad Max was shot, the town has grown to thrive not only for its location but its natural heritage and resources.

Marking its annual event, Werribee is closing down their main street for this years event ‘Weerama Festival’. Weerama meaning “TO PLAY” has developed from a very colourful past. This year marking the events 39th year running, the festival is going to be one to remember featuring some brilliant local talent from all genres.
One of the bands to feature in this year’s festival is a last minute addition, Fatty Boomba. The band has been given the green light from the Weerama Festival director to close out this year’s festival and the punters no doubt will be in for a treat.

I am here with Brendan the guitarist from Fatty Boomba: 

Hi Brendan, you must be chuffed about this last minute gig, 

1. How did you manage to get added to the local festival so late? 

Hard work and a little luck goes a long way in getting gigs – probably true for most things. Pete our singer is very active in pursuing promotors/organisers. Most of the time it won’t get us the gig but it doesn’t have to. It will get us on people’s radars so when there is a change or cancellation (as was the case here), the organiser knew he could contact us and we would be more than willing to play.

2. You must be excited to close the event? 

Yeh it’s very exciting. It’s a fantastic opportunity and we’re going to make the most of it. Hopefully everyone enjoys the music!

3. I noticed you guys are an original band (obviously) but you also have a cover side to the band as well, tell us more?

Originals are certainly where the passion is but it doesn’t pay the bills (yet!). We’ve got a pretty solid repertoire of covers as sometimes that’s all people want to hear, and we’re just happy to entertain! You can learn a lot from playing and performing covers – what works, what people enjoy, what doesn’t work – and if you can understand the good elements and take that away into your originals then hopefully you write something people really enjoy! Having a few cover sets can also get you paid gigs you might not otherwise get as an original band (functions/weddings etc). It’s all practise at the end of the day and that’s what we appreciate the most. Ultimately, if it means playing a few cover gigs to get the money together to record some originals then we’ll do it!

4. Do you plan to play any covers on Sunday or just originals?

Both. We’ll play, I think, 2 originals so that people can see what we’re about. Our single “It’s the Life” has taken off . We were lucky enough to play it on the Morning Show in Sydney several weeks ago. Given we’re playing the last slot of the Weerama festival though I think people will want to hear something familiar – put them in a good mood before heading home – so we’ll play several covers that will hopefully get people singing/dancing along.

5. I notice you have been getting considerable media attention with your latest single, what’s next for Fatty Boomba?

We’ve got 2 key focuses at the moment: firstly we’ve just finished some demo recordings which we hope will get us some more cover gigs – they were a lot of fun as we tried to make a medley of songs that really don’t go well together but at least demonstrate a wide range of songs we can do. Secondly, we’re going back into the studio in 3 months to get another 4 original tracks down so between now and then we’ll be fine-tuning those. Who knows where those take us, but if they get as much attention as “It’s the life” then we’ll be very pleased with it.

AMNPLIFY – DB