Budjerah (pronounced bood-jer-uh) is a name you should know, with a voice you should hear.
The Australian singer-songwriter has been making waves down under with his celestial vocals. He received five nominations at the 2021 ARIA Awards and took home the award for Best Breakthrough Artist. Fast forward to this year, 2022 has proven to be a busy one for Budjerah with the release of a new EP, a world tour, and a verse addition for a remix of Ed Sheeran’s “2Step”. His latest EP, Conversations, was written with his producer and close collaborator Matt Corby and was inspired by conversations and reflections from Budjerah’s own experiences.
Budjerah is currently touring with Vance Joy across North America, and we had the opportunity to chat with him before he played his first-ever show in Vancouver.
asapmusicblog ca: So to start off, welcome to Vancouver! It’s your first time touring North America and you have some opening dates with Vance Joy, and you’re also headlining some of your own shows. What are you most excited about in exploring and playing these new cities?
Budjerah: I was really excited to come here to Vancouver to experience the cultures – I’m First Nations, Indigenous Australian and I’ve met a lot of First Nations people that come from here. I’m very excited to learn about the culture here and in North America, because it’s very beautiful. I’ve never been over here, so a lot of the stuff I’ve seen has just been on the internet – seeing it in real life is really cool. I’ve been wandering around the city just looking at all the different shops and stuff and really taking it in, the beauty of what it looks like.
A: What was the first song in your memory that inspired you to pursue music professionally?
B: I’ve always really liked singing but when I was 15, for music class in high school, the task was we had to write a song and perform it in front of the class. I left it until the night before and I ran out and was like, ‘Dad, I need to write a song!’ – my dad helped me write a song. That song, I still play it in my shows today, because it was actually a pretty good song. I got up and I performed it in class and got a B, passed! My mom put it on Facebook – she recorded me singing it and put it on Facebook, and it got quite popular. I was like, yeah, I’ll just be a singer, I sing every day anyway so might as well get paid to do it!
A: I also feel like sometimes the best inspiration comes when you’re in a time crunch.
B: Yeah! Under pressure, like a diamond.
A: One of the things that you’ve talked about being on your bucket list was playing The Jazz Cafe in London, which you got to do a couple of weeks ago. What was that experience like for you?
B: It was quite crazy because, you know, all my [influences like] Amy Winehouse and D’Angelo – D’Angelo made a live album there, which is one of my top 10 albums that I just love. So we’re walking outside, it’s The Jazz Cafe, and I’m like, ‘It’s here! This is real life’. Seeing clips of Jill Scott performing there and I’m on that same stage – I was buzzing, it was so exciting. It was a dream come true really, it was just fun. There were a lot more people there than I thought there was going to be – it just made it even more special.
A: I think next on your list is Tokyo Dome, which is another one that you’ve mentioned!
B: Yeah! Because Mariah Carey performed there.
A: On the topic of previous interviews that you’ve done, for your latest EP Conversations, you’ve talked about experimenting a bit more with synthetic sounds. Has that experimentation in the production influenced your live performance in any way?
B: I grew up in church so all my family play [music], so I was very much into the technical aspects of playing the instruments and having them in front of me. It was fun in the studio playing with all these sounds, but when I did my tour at home in Australia and I had my band – I really just wanted it to be the band, I don’t know why. I just felt like if I felt like adding an extra chorus, we can do that. If we had a track alongside to play to, I feel a bit stuck on stage if I had a backing track, because then I can’t just keep going if I want to keep going – if the crowd’s into it or whatever.
So live, I just have nothing more than the actual instruments that’s actually playing, but I think making the tracks in the studio has pushed me and my band to think a bit more out of the box when we’re playing live. In one of the songs there’s a big orchestral section in “Wash My Sorrows Away” and we don’t have a string section, so we had to figure out how can we sort of have these nice larghetto notes – we had the guitar doing like a wheeww and the piano sort of filled it out.
A: When I was preparing for this interview and conversation with you, I obviously did a deep dive on YouTube and found this beautiful cover that you did with a few other artists for The Temper Trap’s “Sweet Disposition” and it was just stunning. Your voice is your strongest instrument, so what are things that you do to take care of it, especially now that you’re on this world tour?
B: Well, a lot of warm ups and vocal exercise. I sing every day, I drink a lot of tea and really pay attention to what I eat as well. I think one thing about the voice is that it is a reflection of your body, your health, and your mind. I really try to keep my health in check and make sure I’m relaxed and that my mind is in check as well. If you want to sing good every night, your body needs to be up to scratch as well – that’s what I’ve been doing!
A: While you’ve been traveling and commuting, are there any songs that you’re currently listening to on repeat?
B: I love Supersonic, so I’ve been listening to their album a lot. There’s a band from home called King Stingray and I really think they’re one of the greatest bands right now at home. Who else have I been listening to… Mariah Carey, D’Angelo – just the regulars. Beyoncé! I love Beyoncé.
A: If there was a message you’d want the listener to take away when they’re listening to your songs, what would that message be?
B: I think it’s more up to them what they take away from it. It’s hard and everyone has their own things going on in their lives and if it can be a guide if they need something to afflict them, I hope the song does that for them when they need it. It’s for the listener and what they need and can take away from it – I hope that can be there for them.
Conversations is out now and available on your favourite streaming service here. Learn more about Budjerah and his upcoming tour dates over at https://www.budjerah.com.
A big thank you to Charlotte at Warner Music for setting this interview up!
