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Have you always wanted to be a musician? When did you get the songwriting bug?
My Dad was a school teacher, but before that he played bass in punk bands in the 80s, and it never seemed like a crazy or exotic thing to play music; to me, it was always something in reach for normal people. As a kid, there were instruments around the house and I started on the piano but eventually ended up gravitating more towards the guitar. 
I got some formal singing training – opera singing actually, which is obviously super far away from what I do now but amazing grounding for taking care of my voice – and after that, I started to write my own songs in my early teens.

How would you describe your sound? Why do you think fans resonate with your music?
I’m a singer-songwriter. I love so many different kinds of pop music – modern pop like Taylor Swift and Maggie Rogers, iconic rock artists like Bruce Springsteen and Led Zeppelin, folk and Americana artists like Joni Mitchell and Martin Sexton and modern rock like Gang of Youths and Alex Lahey. 
My sound is a synthesis of all those influences, but I think the centre of it is always emotional intensity, melody and a humanity to the sound. No matter how many programmed drums or synthesizers are on a track, I always want it to feel performed, that human heartbeat that makes you feel like something was handmade, not just whipped up purely on a laptop. I think people connect with that, and I’m always pushing myself to get more vulnerable and transparent in my lyrics, and I think people grab onto that feeling that someone else is going through what they are going through, particularly young women.

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Which artist’s music and/or performance, past or present, inspires you today? 
Sometimes I say I want to be the love child of Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen, which is way simplifying things but I think gets to something at the heart of what I’m trying to do. I saw them both live while we were making my new record and it was so inspiring seeing the commitment and passion they were bringing to the stage, how much their songs were just seared into the hearts of the people in those crowds, who probably didn’t have much else in common in a lot of cases. They make big music about big feelings, and that’s what I’m always aiming at.
Joni Mitchell will be my songwriting idol forever, Missy Higgins was a big influence growing up in Australia and looking to a really sophisticated female songwriter and instrumentalist. From my parents’ record collections, I fell in love with The Jam and Led Zeppelin. 
I’ve been so lucky to get to work with some of the people who I’ve also looked up to and been inspired by in recent years – Max, Jung and Donnie from Gang of Youths, Taylor and Griff from Dawes, Benmont Tench from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, just to name a few.

Your new single ‘If I Want In’ has just been released! Describe its origin and evolution. 
I grew up in Western Sydney, going to Penrith High School by day and grinding it out at night playing cover gigs in sketchy bars, fighting to be heard and sometimes trying to be heard over the fighting. I knew so many people I went to high school with who were trying to settle as quickly and definitely as possible – marry their first boyfriend, have kids before they were twenty-five and probably never leave the suburb they were born in. There’s nothing wrong with this if it makes you happy, but I knew it just wasn’t me. I always dreamed of following a different path, exploring the big world that is out there and working my ass off to try and follow in the steps of my heroes.
I wrote this song in my apartment in Sydney about just that, and it acts as a mission statement for myself to get back into the world after the last few years and fight for my dreams. I wrote it on the piano but I always wanted it to sound massive, to be an anthem that would blow the roof off at my shows. We managed to get a day at Abbey Road, the most iconic recording space in music history, and I asked Jung, Max and Donnie from Gang of Youths to play on it with me. It felt so right because they are a band who have done what I want to do – take their music around the world and connect with audiences from all these different places, and their albums have meant so much to me.
It was one of the greatest days of my life. I decided to start the day by Ubering to Paul McCartney’s house on Cavendish Avenue which he bought in the mid-60s (the other Beatles were buying mansions in the country, but he wanted to be near the studio). So I walked from there to Abbey Road, literally walking the same route that he would’ve done every morning when they were making Revolver and Abbey Road in the same room that we were going to be in that day. It was such a perfectly creative experience – we knew we wanted to just focus on the one song, so we were just bouncing ideas back and forth, trying to get as many elements recorded as possible and then we would sort through them later.
I sent the session back to my friend Michael Carpenter, who I’ve worked with on a lot of my most recent singles, and he helped sort through all our different ideas and approaches and added so many great finishing touches to the track before he mixed and mastered it. 
The last cherry on top was when I ran into Georgia Maq from Camp Cope in LA. We were Instagram friends but hadn’t met in real life, but we ended up at this club at 1am and I had had a few drinks and just asked her if she would sing on this track, and I think her voice really brings this beautiful shading to the song.

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Is there an EP or album on the drawing board?
Yes, a full thirteen-song album will be coming out next year! We just finished it and I am so excited for everyone to hear these songs. I’ve loved putting out my EPs and singles the last few years and it’s really fuelled my creative evolution, but there’s something so special about having a full album to play with, and the breadth and depth you can drive into with that much real estate.

You have your Hootenannies coming up – tell us about these. What are you looking forward to, and what can the fans expect?
I started my Holiday Hootenanny show in 2020, when I felt like I wanted to flip the script and find a way to celebrate the little victories of making it through that year instead of focusing on all the despair and what we’d lost from our lives. I asked a bunch of artists I knew to join me and my band to collaborate on their songs, my songs and some covers as a way to ring in the end of the year. Now I am hoping to do it every year.
This year, for the first time ever, we’re going all out and doing two Hootenannies, one in Sydney and one in Melbourne!
In Sydney, we’re at the Vanguard on Thursday 23 November. I’ll be joined by The Buckleys, CLEWS, Lindsay McDougall from Frenzal Rhomb and Timothy James Bowen.
In Melbourne, we’re at the Gasometer on Saturday 9 December. I’ll be joined by Alex Lahey, Darcy Fox, Demi Louise, Eilish Gilligan, Jess Hitchcock and Katie Wighton.
Both of the shows are on sale now and I’m deep in learning and rehearsing and so excited to be back on stage and playing with all these amazing people!

If you could perform with any music artist, alive or dead, who would you choose and why? 
Aside from all the amazing guests at my Hootenannies…
I feel like I could be the fourth HAIM sister. I already wear lots of black pleather, I can get a bralette, I’m Jewish. Call me, girls!

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What are your long-term aspirations as a music artist and how are you progressing towards them?
My dream is to spend most of my year on the road taking my music to people in new countries and cities I’ve never performed in before. Next year, I’m going to be really focusing on doing that now that it’s possible again.
So many of my musical dreams on a songwriting and recording level have been realised in the last couple of years – co-writing with heroes like Colin Hay and Taylor Goldsmith, and recording in places like Abbey Road and East West with the people who played on my all-time favourite records. 

With that in mind, what piece of advice would you give to an artist starting out? 
Keep your side of the street clean (as our Lord and Saviour Taylor Swift says) and it will pay off in the long term. If you treat people honourably, if you always go the extra mile to work hard, be professional, look after the people in your life and see things from their point of view, it will come back to you in a positive way, even if it sometimes costs you something in the short term.
And write a lot of songs. Like, a lot. Way more than you think you need to. It’s the only way you really get better.

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What is the best thing about performing to a live audience? What’s been the career highlight so far?
Nothing makes me feel more comfortable in my own skin, like I have a real purpose in life, than performing live. Seeing people sing a lyric back to me that I wrote on the floor of my bedroom, you just cannot ever beat that feeling.
The first Hootenanny felt like a big turning point for me, especially after how brutal that year had been. I suddenly had hope again in my life. Next to that, Clare Bowen taking me on tour in the U.S. in 2019 was such a big moment for me. Being embraced by her audience, and also her letting me cry on her shoulder before the shows because of what was going on in my personal life at the time, it was such a cathartic, rejuvenating experience.

Finally, a few questions for some quick answers –
FAVOURITE:
Album – Blue by Joni Mitchell
Artist – Taylor Swift
Movie – The Big Lebowski
Place to visit – Nashville
Venue to play – The Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Food – Sushi
Drink – Old Fashioned
Person in History – T.S. Eliot, my favourite poet
Tattoo – (If you don’t have one, what would you get?) I must be one of the only musicians left without any tattoos! But if I got one, it would say “We are ugly, but we have the music”, which is a Leonard Cohen lyric.

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IMOGEN CLARK / Photo – Michelle Grace Hunder

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About IMOGEN CLARK

Imogen Clark is not just an artist; she’s a storyteller, a fighter, and a dreamer. She spent her teen years at Penrith High by day, playing Western Sydney bars at night, learning how to make her voice heard and honing her chops as an electric live performer. Today, she stands as a testament to transcending familiar boundaries, driven by her roots and an unwavering ambition that led her to global stages from the US to Europe.

Her songs, blending pop-rock and indie-pop, are like pages from her diary, capturing moments, memories, and confessions from her journey, battling anxiety and insecurity to fight for who she is and what she believes in, magnifying intimate emotions to arena level anthems.

Inspired by legends like Bruce Springsteen and Sheryl Crow, as well as contemporary artists like Maggie Rogers and HAIM, Imogen’s music is both immediate and timeless.

Nothing showcases her determined spirit more than her achievements of the past three years. Two acclaimed EPs – 2020’s “The Making of Me” and 2021’s AIR-nominated “Bastards”, her ambitious 100 Shows in 100 Days tour and her annual Holiday Hootenanny show, featuring guest artists such as Mo’Ju, Ali Barter, Montaigne, I Know Leopard, and Georgia Mooney.

A sought-after collaborator, Imogen has worked with iconic figures and contemporary indie stars alike, including Alex Lahey, Colin Hay, Jim Keltner and members of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers, Elvis Costello’s Imposters, Gang of Youths, Dawes, My Morning Jacket and more.

‘If I Want In’ is available across all streaming platforms now.

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Sydney Holiday Hootennany
Thursday 23 November
The Vanguard, Newtown

Tickets are on sale here