Interview: Kelly Menhennett (part III)

This is the third and final part of my interview with 2012 Telstra Road to Discovery winner Kelly Menhennett, whose beautiful voice stopped me in my tracks on Tamworth's Peel Street earlier this year. Kelly comes from a musical family and then became a winemaker before giving her own musical dreams a shot - so far it's paying off!

You can read the previous parts of the interview here.

So for you, this must be an interesting time in your life - I think you're still living in the country, in South Australia, or rural areas and possibly this year, everything will change to a great extent but are you thinking that you might be having to move to a city, or Melbourne or Sydney or overseas? That must be quite a big change to contemplate.

Yeah, well, actually in the last twelve or so months I've been spending more time in Adelaide and that's been a bit of a transition and I grew up on 50 acres of land and so to come to Adelaide where you're surrounded by neighbours [laughs] all around has been a bit odd. Yeah, I've got to remember that I can't just walk out to the clothesline in my undies [laughs] and things like that. But it's been great for the opportunity with my music in the sense that I've become a little bit more of a part of a community of musicians here and I have a bit of a support network now, even in Adelaide, but to get things moving even further, there probably is a lot more opportunity in Melbourne or Sydney, I'd imagine. And I'm quite ready to make the move. It'd be a transition but I'd be quite happy to experience it for the sake of making my music go forward, that's for sure.

And you can always go home when you need to.

Yeah, exactly. It doesn't take that long to fly from Adelaide to Melbourne, you can be there in a couple of hours - or Sydney - it's fine.

Well, given that you drove from Tamworth to Adelaide, I would think that any amount of time flying would seem like nothing.

That was ridiculous, that drive! My goodness, that Hay Plain is so boring.

What path did you take? Do you bypass Melbourne?

On the way there I drove from Adelaide through the Mallee - so Lameroo, Pinnaroo, there's those towns - and then up to Hay and they across the West Wyalong, Parkes, had a gig in Mudgee at a lovely brewery there -

Oh, great.

Yeah, it was really nice. And then, Tamworth - that was on the way up, and then on the way home essentially the same but after Hay went to Mildura and then the river land to Barmah, where my family are. Have a few celebratory beverages with my dad and mum.

Speaking of beverages, it would be remiss of me not to ask you about being a winemaker. Do you still do any of that, or that's gone for the time being?

Well, it's funny you ask, because on Monday, so the day before the [Telstra RTD] final, my old workplace offered me a job as a winemaker for the harvest. And I was half contemplating it, but I told them, 'You know, I'd like to see what happens with this competition but there's a fair chance that I won't get through, so it might be a possibility to earn a few dollars and try and help support my music' - becauseit's been quite a challenge trying to balance it all. But now I'm going to just watch my dollars a bit more, maybe pull a few beers and support myself that way and try and really focus on my writing and make the most of this 12 months. But. Yeah. I do miss that.

If you find yourself in Sydney a lot, there are vineyards in the southern highlands which are quite close to Sydney, they're an hour on the freeway.

Actually, I drove through them. When I did a little solo New South Wales tour last year and I drove from - where would I have driven from? - I think from Canberra to Wollongong and I think I passed through the southern highlands. There's some lovely little green places in that area.

There certainly are, and close to Sydney - lots of people commute, that's all I'm saying. [Laughs]

I could well do that, that would probably be a good - yeah, that'd be great. See, in Adelaide there's a few wine regions around, which is also possible for me to do both, but yeah, like we were saying, there's probably a lot more opportunity to be in - to be based in Sydney or Melbourne than, yeah. Seems like the next thing for me to do.

The good thing is, this will be a year of change anyway, so it sounds like you're prepared to go with the flow.

I am, yeah. [Laughs]. I certainly am. I think too, having developed a bit of an audience here in Adelaide I am ready for that next step, so otherwise I'd just become stale, I think - you become a bit stuck in a bit of a vicious cycle, I think, if you don't force yourself out of your comfort zone.

Also, I guess Adelaide's relatively small, there's only a certain number of venues and it would become increasingly difficult to get gigs there if you've played a certain number of times, all that kind of thing.

That's so true. Yeah, it is, definitely.

Whereas Sydney and Melbourne have multiple venues and Sydney's now got quite a few jazz-folk venues - as in, venues where the volume is not turned up to 11, so it's getting quite civilised. But, before I forget to mention it, someone who judged the Road to Discovery was Karl Broadie and I think you should look him up for co-writing. He's a very good songwriter and - you just never know.

Definitely. I met Karl through it all and it was one thing that people who introduced him always said, how he's a beautiful writer.

He really is, and he's done a bit of co-writing, he co-wrote a song with Felicity Urquhart for her last album. So there's all sorts of interesting people you're going to meet.

There are, there are. And I think the whole co-writing thing will bring out parts of you that you didn't know. Like, you'd be probably writing in a different style and all of that experience might bring out different things in your songs. I'm really looking forward to it.

It sounds like it! I'm going to ask you one more question, because I've had you talking for a while and there's a softball match on. Did you ever sing to the grapes?

The grapes? Oh. I probably did, you know. [Laughs]. I used to sit in the - oh, when we were kids and we were - it was all hand picking, and we were supposed to be picking grapes, we used to pick under these hessian bags and once you'd picked the bag, you'd drag it out into the middle of the row and then the tractor would come along with a bin on the front of it and two people would pick up each end of the bag and toss the grapes in. That’s how we'd do it with the hand picking and, well, my whole time pretty much was just spent underneath the row sitting on the hessian mats with our big German Shepherd - Caesar, his name was - and we used to eat grapes and probably I'd talk to him and maybe sing to him and the grapes then, so yeah, it probably did happen.

I just think if you're making wine and you're singing to the grapes, they probably like it. It's like talking to plants.

Well, that's right. I know when I would be working, I did a couple of vintages in Spain and I did some busking and everything, and while I was over there I worked in a couple of beautiful wineries, and yeah, we would sing in the cellar to pass the time, that would help with the wine. Surely.

If you think about the vibrations of the voice and if singing is so good for humans to do, for human health, it's got to be good for plants. [Laughs].

I think so too. I reckon it'd create a happy ferment, all the yeast in the wine would be thinking, 'Oh, that's lovely'. [Laughs].

Oh, so when you've decided that you've had enough of life on the road and in a few years time when you're thinking, 'What will I do next?' you could do a PhD on whether singing makes better wine.

I should do that. I could definitely do that one. [Laughs]. That was hilarious. That's a good idea, actually.

I wouldn't mind betting that if someone's paying loving attention to the grapes while they're fermenting or being picked, it's going to make a difference.

And then do a blind tasting of it with some good wine tasters and see if they can taste the delicious sung-to wine.

Absolutely. [Laughs]. So, I'm going to leave you with that idea, Kelly, so you can put it in your brain for 20 years' time.

I'm going to be assessing every bottle now, thinking, 'I wonder if they sang to these grapes?' [Laughs].

Well, thank you so much for giving me so much of your time and I hope the softball goes well.

Thanks, Sophie, and thanks for your call too, that's great. A lovely chat.

To find out what Telstra RTD winners get up to in the weeks after the ceremony, read the second part of Kelly's interview. Hint: she's going to Nashville!

www.kellymenhennett.com

Interview: Kelly Menhennett (part II)

Kelly Menhennett won the Songwriter prize at this year's Telstra Road to Discovery. Hailing from South Australia, where she has been working as a winemaker, Kelly's beautiful voice and great songs are sure to win her fans.

This is the second part of my interview with her. Part I can be read here.

Is it Nashville you go to as a prize for Telstra RTD?

Yeah, so at the end of, I think it's in September, mid-September, the Americana Festival is on and as a winner I get to showcase at this festival - I think we have that opportunity and a performance at Sounds Australia, which is like a showcasing type thing of Australian talent as well. So there'sa minimum of two performances over there, but we also have the opportunity to, sort of, create our own performance opportunities as well while we're over there .

So you're having some quiet time in South Australia now before all this hits.

Yes. In the next week or two I head to Sydney and we [Kelly and Performance category winner Andrew Redfort] sit down with the team that are helping us and kind of work out a bit of a plan for our year. And for me, I would really love to do some co-writing with other Australian writers. I've never done any co-writing before and I don't know whether I'll like it or not, becausesome people say it's not for them, they like to write by themselves. But I'd like to give it a crack, 'cause I'm a really indecisive person and sometimes writing a song can go on for months, if not years for me. So if I've got someone who's with me and can just say, 'No, that idea that you thought of is actually fine', that would work really good, otherwise I just stew over ideas.

Well, who is on your top five list of ideal co-writers? If you've got one.

Oh, I said to Bill [Page, RTD judge] yesterday in an email, a lot of my influences and people that I look up to are either overseas or they're deceased. [Laughs]

Oh, well. Can't do much about the latter.

Yes, I can't do much about that, but in Australia I love the likes of Paul Kelly and Tim and Neil Finn, but of course they'd be on the top of the wish list but possibly not able to help out. But I'm really open to suggestions, because I really don't know anyone. there's so many people in the industry that I'm oblivious to and what they've done and how talented they are, so I'd really be quite open to suggestions from people like Bill who have lots of experience and know lots of people in the industry. And, I guess, even if I just do a little bit of - like, I started to do some yesterday, but just to do research on various groups that I love and who have inspired them and perhaps even who they've worked with in the past. There was a group called The Audreys from Adelaide that came out a little while ago and The Waifs, I really love their sort of - it's probably more folk music that they do, but as a youngster, I mean, the music that inspired me is quite diverse but I listen to a lot of soul music, sort of old '50s, '60s, soul and country and whatever was popular at that time. To kind of pick someone to co-write with, it's like comparing oranges and apples 'cause it just depends what sort of song you want to write really, I guess.

I guess also you've got to be mindful of your voice and the fact that you wouldn't want to write a song with someone who's going to try to make you sing in a way that doesn't suit you, because I know with singers everyone's voices have their characteristics. You wouldn't want to put someone in front of a rock band if they're actually a really soft, melodic singer, because they're just not going to cut through. There are different voices for country and there are different voices within country. When you said soul music, I can hear that in your voice, but it's also a very jazz voice, but I could also hear that if you wanted to turn your hand to country, that's there too.

Definitely, definitely. I've always struggled to classify my music because I kind of move a bit with what the content of the writing is about. My guitar teacher was a jazz guitarist, and so that jazz influence probably came from him and then I think the soul influence is always going to be in my voice, I don't think I'll escape that ever, I think it's always going to pop out. But I like exploring, I like pushing boundaries and experimenting with different styles. Just recently a friend of mine who's a rock musician wanted some backing vocals and I did push myself and get some grit out of my voice, but it doesn't feel terribly natural to me, and whilst I try these different things, I think I've got a rough understanding of what direction I'll be moving in the future. But, yeah, it's still pretty loosely defined.

Which is exciting in a lot of ways, and it's actually a really good balance for you to have had an album out by the time you actually win a competition like this [Kelly has a CD called World of Mine] because you're not completely malleable. It's not like you're an unformed lump of clay that anyone can take and say, 'Well, we're going to make you what we want.' You already have some ideas and some experience which actually means you'll probably get more out of all of this.

Definitely. And, I think with what I've already done, too, I can sort of critique it and go, 'Right, this is good, I like this part of it, but I think in the next album I might not have so much of this', to kind of move forward and evolve. I listen to my album every now and again and think, 'Oh my goodness, how am I going to -' Like, I don't mean to blow my own trumpet, but how am I going to top this song, or I think, 'How did I do that?' I don't know where some of these things have come from. I think, 'Wow, I don't know how I did that. How am I going to do something better?'

I think that's actually when it's really working. It's like you pluck things from the ether and that's actually when it's really working 'cause that's that sense of, I think, whether you're singing or you're writing or painting, it's that sense that it's bigger than you, you're actually, you're offering something to - I mean, I don't want to say the universe, but you're offering something to everyone else and it also acknowledges that you don't own it, so you've also got a responsibility to pass it on.

I agree, and some of the songs that I've written that I think are my best are quite - like, other people have a really quite profound response to them. Sometimes I've known [where it's come from] - I've played the song and it's brought tears to people’s eyes and it came from emotion that I was experiencing and it's so amazing when you can have that sort of an effect on someone.

And it's good that you don't shy away from it, because I think some people might instinctively think, 'Well, I don't want to deal with that', but it's reassuring for the person who's having that experience that you're willing to take responsibility for it in a way.

Definitely. That's right.

The third and final part of this interview will be published soon. In the meantime, you can visit Kelly's website at www.kellymenhennet.com.

Interview: Kelly Menhennett (part I)

During this year's Tamworth Country Music Festival I was lurking around the 2TM trailer on Peel Street, waiting to meet someone and not really paying attention to who was performing on the stage attached to the trailer. Then I heard a voice - a really beautiful voice that made me stop what I was doing and pay attention. The voice belonged to Kelly Menhennett, who had been one of the winners of the Telstra Road to Discovery just the night before.

After Tamworth was over I found Kelly's website and sent an email asking to interview her. She said 'yes', and I interviewed by phone her one Saturday afternoon while she was watching a softball match. She told me that she takes her guitar along because sometimes she'll take a break from the match and go off somewhere and play for a while. So that led me to my first question ...

What really intrigued me about you and the Telstra Road to Discovery was that you won the Songwriter Award and not the Performance Award, because the way I discovered you on Peel Street was that I was walking off to something else and I heard this voice singing and thought, Whoever that is, I really have to stop and listen to her, because your voice is just amazing and when I listen to your record, it’s like this extraordinary instrument, it’s quite unusual and I can’t think of another Australian singer like it. So I’ve got to start off by asking you about singing. How long you’ve been singing and if your voice has always been like that or if you’ve changed it over time?

My mum used to be a singer. She was a singer in the Sydney cabaret scene, but prior to that she was a resident singer in the country at a hotel. When she was, I think, fifteen she became the resident singer so she’s been a massive inspiration and consequently, as kids, my sister and I and Mum would always be singing around the house. I just loved singing, but I never thought anything of it and it wasn’t until later in life when I was ... I’m a winemaker by trade and I was in the countryside working, doing that - I pursued that. Mum and Dad having lived the Sydney cabaret scene in the early '70s and knowing how tough it was, they discouraged me from a career in music.

[Laughs] Well, fair enough.

And, yeah, they were just being, I guess, trying to look after me and not wanting me to have a tough road, so they discouraged me so I pursued wine, which kind of was quite natural too because I grew up on a vineyard. And then I was back living in the country, making wine and there was just – it was all work, I really had no outlet socially, so I started to perform as a bit of a social outlet, and people started commenting on my vocal ability and performance and things like that, and I really hadn’t thought too much of my talents, but it was just that gratification and people really enjoying what I was doing that kept me driven and, I guess, vocally, I don’t know, I think I’ve always had that vocal ability but never really recognised it until later in life.

Not that you’re that old!

No, no, no. Well, I was probably, I don’t know, maybe in my early twenties when I starting performing again and now I’m thirty.

So you didn’t really do singing at school, or you did but you didn’t realise that it was anything special?

Yeah, yeah, I did, I did. I did music right up until Year Twelve. I did guitar as my instrument, though. I started off with violin as a four year old. But, vocally, in our music classes we would just make up silly songs and you’d sing along to them, but there was never ... I guess at that age, everyone’s sort of singing along and, I don’t know, it’s easy to get drowned out amongst the noise of a music class. [laughs] I never recognised any vocal talent then, I just thought that I could hold a tune, but nothing really more than that.

Well, clearly your teachers didn’t say anything. I can’t believe they didn’t. But on the Telstra Road to Discovery- when you’re actually being judged that night, that finalist night, I suppose you just to do what you do and it’s not like you enter into either the songwriter strand or the performance strand, is that right?

Well, I didn’t know what the difference was, to be honest, because I just thought, Well, I’m a performer and I’m a songwriter, and I didn’t know which one to go for, so I put an entry into both, and funnily enough I actually did have an entry in the performer and got through the – went in for the heats, but I never got any further than the Adelaide heat in the performer section, and -

[Laughs] Sorry, I find that so hard to believe.

Well, Bill Page - who’s the head judge, apparently - really wanted me to get through and he copped a lot of flak for not pushing me through in the performer section. And, yeah, if I – I think at that particular heat I did one of my originals and not knowing what I was in for, I did a cover of 'Me and Bobby McGee', thinking it’s a ... It used to be a country competition traditionally and I thought that might sort of fit the mould of the competition and perhaps sort of appeal to the audience - a lot of it was based on audience response, apparently with the judging. But, according to Bill, he said to me, 'Kel, I loved your original but' - this is, this is like only the other day after winning - and he was like, 'Bloody hell, "Me and Bobby McGee". I’ve heard it a thousand times.' So, for me, that particular song was a poor choice, but in hindsight I got through, and I think particularly in the semi-finalists, there is hardly any difference between the performer and songwriter categories. All of the people that were in the songwriter category performed, and performed really strongly, so I guess they put the songwriter category in there if you're a really snazzy writer but can't perform.

[Laughs] Or maybe they're just trying to take two bites of the cherry, they figure, oh well, maybe we'll get two great performers out of it instead of one.

Yeah, that's true, that's true. That's possibly it as well [laughs].

The Tamworth Country Music Festival has given rise to - well, around the festival there's these two competitions, there's Star Maker and Road to Discovery, and I think they seem to more than carry their weight in terms of finding new talent, and before there was Australian Idol or anything like that, these competitions were unearthing people, and there seems to be a very good follow-through in terms of people having careers after they've been through these competitions.

Definitely. I agree. If you make the most of this opportunity you can really, kind of, build a foundation so that you're moving into the future in a really - you're all sorted essentially, like you can make some amazing contacts through this experience. We've all - like even the finalists or semi-finalists, we all have met some amazing people who can help out down the track.

Part II of this interview will be published very soon.

www.kellymenhennett.com