Project Description

Interview With

CARA ROBINSON of HAT FITZ & CARA

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Interviewer: Kelsey Hentschel

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Hat Fitz & Cara can in no way be mistaken for a dainty duo. They are festival favourites throughout Canada, America, Australia, Europe, and the UK and it has been said they pack more energy into one song than most have in an entire career. Kelsey has a chat to the duo’s Cara Robinson about new music, touring etc.

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You guys are headlining the Gympie Music Muster Festival in August, along with so many great acts. Is there anyone you’re really keen to see?

We’re gonna be looking out for Ian Moss, Fiona Boyes, Blue Eyes Cry. I think we’re gonna check out The Wolfe Brothers as well. I haven’t checked them out yet. We met Blue Eyes Cry at another blues festival & they were great so it’ll be cool to see them again. There’s a few there we’re looking forward to seeing.

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The Muster is a leader in showcasing females on their line-up. Last year, 46 out of the Muster’s 100 acts were female fronted, which is a great representation of equality in the music industry. How do you find being a woman in the industry today?  

Its definitely becoming more balanced. Just more equal in the female – male ratio. There have been a lot of female fronting bands or female backing singers over the years, and i’m definitely seeing more female guitarists and drummers etc . But now I’m starting to notice, especially in Australia, that the festival directors are very conscious of having that more balanced ratio of the sexes. It is just so good because there can be too much testosterone onstage. We’ve worked with so many women, but I recall this one day on stage and it was myself, Sweet Felicia, Fiona Boyes, and a few other women. The whole band was female with myself on drums, & Fitzy actually commented on it, he said how the vibe on stage was just so much more respectful! Whereas when its a lot of guys onstage sometimes it gets really competitive. One person does a solo, the other person wants to solo better, and it has to be taken up a notch until it’s just frantic. But when the woman are playing,  it was like “Hey that was a really nice solo. Lovely!” And everyone was supportive. Its so great and Australia has really embraced this change that is happening. Its so enlightening and encouraging for women the music industry.

 

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Growing up in Ireland, How do you find their Industry relates in terms of equality?

In Ireland they’re starting to have a movement, called Fair Plé, so it’s an organisation to inspire women to go forward in music & its just brilliant. There are more female musicians becoming guitar players and drummers. It’s really starting to strengthen over there as well.

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The blending of Fitz’s old school blues & your soul and gospel influences has produced a truly unique sound, how would you describe your style?

Umm the style is I was to put it into four words would be: Roots, Blues, Folk, Gospel. Those are the elements. Because we write our own material it has out stamp of what we are and it has that Hat Fitz & Cara sound, which we’ve kept quite raw. The setup is drums and guitar & vocals.

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What one song would you recommend someone listen to if it was their first time listening to Hat Fitz & Cara.

Oh gosh, that’s a tough one. I’d have to say Shakedown would be a good example of what we do.

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You’re currently touring across Australia, playing a lot of festivals, Is their any shows you’re particularly excited for?

Oh yeah, I mean The Gum Ball Music & Arts Festival we’ve never played before. Also the Gympie Music Muster Festival is huge and we’re really looking forward to that. And now they’ve got the blues stage it’s going to be so great. It’s a great festival because you can get a bit of country, get a bit of roots, some storytelling. Plus we’re looking to perform with a local gospel choir at the festival so that’s something really exciting.

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So you have four albums worth of material behind you now. Does this make it difficult to decide what makes the setlist and what doesn’t?

We kind of have a live set that works really well that we’ve been working with now. I mean after we release a new album we will play most of the stuff from that new album of course, but depending on the show and the audience, we’ll pick the songs that appeal to that crowd. We really like to get the crowd involved so our songs like Power, Try, Do Tell, where the crowd can sing back with us and they have a bit of a climax that get the adrenaline going. So yeah we’ve established a little setlist that really works for us.

 

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What are the themes explored on your latest album ‘After the Rain’?

The album is really about our real life experiences & our stories, and stories that we have encountered. One of the songs Rosie Hackett was about a girl I’d met on this bridge and her life story was so interesting and devastating and it really stuck with me.

 

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This record was worked on with Graham Durham and Govinda Doyle, who have collectively worked with the likes of Grace Jones, Groove Armada, and Angus & Julia Stone. What was it like working these guys?

Govinda was really hands on and we got to know him. He was so amazing to work with in the studio, and he always gave us the space to be creative and to produce something amazing. He really honoured that space for us. We really enjoyed the whole experience of it. And surprisingly enough we actually haven’t met Graham because he’s over in London.

 

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Can we expect a new album soon?

We’ve just organised with Graham Durham to go and record our single with him in the UK whilst we are there in July. That’s going to be something new for us. Yeah so we are going to release a single. We’re looking at August possibly September for that release, and then hopefully we will have finished album written by October ready to record. We seem to be going more into the vibe of gospel influenced 1940’s music, which we’ve both been really drawn to.

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Thanks again for having a chat with me.

No, no, thank you. All the best. It was lovely to chat with you.

 

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Connect with HAT FITZ & CARA

Website          Facebook          Twitter          Instagram

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AMNPLIFY – KH