One Friday night in April, Melbourne's youth radio station SYN 90.7 interviewed me for the radio release of Funky T-Shirt. While at home in Brisbane, I spoke to the lovely Harry and Amy from the New and Approved program in their Melbourne studio, live-to-air via phone. It was much better than the last interview I did, live-to-air via tin cans joined by string. Who knew you were meant to take the peaches out of the cans first?
Anyway, Harry and Amy were so...youthful and enthusiastic. They asked great questions, said really sweet things, and henceforth, I want them to be my friends.
I've been slow to upload the interview because I've scared to listen back. See, 15 minutes before we were to speak live on air, Harry rang me to check that I was good to go, and also to warn me that they were going to talk about my cactus song. In one of the biographies they'd read, I'd mentioned the first song I'd ever written. It was called What Kind of Dirt Does My Cactus Need?, which I wrote when I was about 13. Back then I called it a 'song'. It was really just a chorus*.
Before the interview, Harry asked if I remembered any of it. I did. (See above paragraph about it being just a chorus). But I'd never sung it to anyone before in my life. It had always been a secret between me, the piano, and my cactus**.
Thankfully, I had a few minutes to practice before going on air. They were pretty eager to get into it, and suddenly there I was, on live radio, singing about a cactus. I have to admit, when I finally did listen back with butterflies in my belly, I wasn't too embarrassed. It's a pretty catchy cactus chorus. They thought it was cute.
I'm pretty happy with the rest of the interview, but I must make amends for a mistake I made later on. I mentioned my musical friend Sarah Calderwood who provided some backing vocals on the track. And I said that she was fundraising for her album on Kickstarter. In fact, it was Pozible. (Elders of the Internet, please forgive me). Nevertheless, in the time since the interview aired, Sarah not only reached her goal but kicked the ball right past it. See?!
Big thanks to SYN 90.7 for taking a chance on me. And please do let me know what you think of my skills as an interviewee. I've interviewed other people on radio before, and been interviewed as part of a band... but this was the first time I'd been interviewed for my own creation. It was just like Sting stepping out from The Police. Or Justin Timberlake going solo from NSYNC. Or a cactus being planted into its own pot.
*A chorus about a cactus with an insufficient supply of dirt.
**Cactus is not a euphemism. I really did have a cactus.