Eventually Shark took up a job as a
video editor for the Gold Coast Titans
(with whom her husband works), a posi-
tion she was able to leave recently after the
Platinum success of “Adore”. (The song also
reached Number 2 on the Hottest 100, has
had more than 12 million Spotify streams,
and was shortlisted for the APR A Song of
the Year.) The 30-year-old is the very defi-
nition of an artist whose overnight success
took more than 10 years to achieve.
Shark formed her first band, Hansel
Kissed Gretel, toward the end of school,
and describes it as “quite thrashy”, though
it fell apart when its members splintered.
“I kept going, kept writing songs on my
acoustic guitar,” she offers.
A break of sorts came at the age of 21,
when Shane enrolled her in a Jack Daniel’s
band competition at Seagulls football club
without telling her beforehand. She shud-
ders at the thought. “I didn’t even wanna
put my stuff on MySpace, so I was like, ‘I’m
not playing in front of people, no way.’” A
stream of covers gigs followed, which were
“soul destroying”, but brought in some
cash. “I feel like I’ve been through a big
bootcamp of training, like dealing with the
drunk banter and that,” she says. “Nothing
really scares me live.”
By her late-twenties, Shark had con-
signed herself to a future pursuing music
as a passion more than a profession. Deter-
mined to have Grammy-winning producer
M-Phazes work on one of her new songs,
however, she approached his management.
Phazes agreed to a collaboration, but she
failed to secure the Regional Arts Devel-
opment Fund grant necessary to help pay
for his services. Rather than give up, she
waited another year and applied again, this
time successfully. Then she sent him two
songs, before settling on “Adore”.
Fast forward a year, and Shark is releas-
ing her debut six-track EP, Night Thinker,
through Wonderlick/Sony, having recently
signed a management deal with UNFD.
The success of “Adore” afforded her the op-
portunity to work with producers such as
Dann Hume (Evermore), and to completely
re-work and re-record the version of the EP
she’d made (but not released) with a friend.
“Now this EP is on steroids,” she laughs.
Shark’s started to think about her debut
album, and has been having conversations
with Lorde’s producer Joel Little. She has a
fair arsenal of songs from which to choose- at one point she leans forward from the
couch and opens up the voice memos on
her phone, revealing more than 250 song
ideas. “Maybe it’s because I wasn’t signed
when I was 16,” she muses, “but I’m in my
ways, so I’m never gonna turn into a dick
or be unappreciative, or take things for
granted, because I’ve just seen too much.
I’ve been through too much. I’ve had so
many people not give a shit about me.”
Ju ne, 2017 RollingStoneAus.com | Rolling Stone | 29‘I
t’s hard not to mention the
Traveling Wilburys,” says Eric
Pulido. He’s sitting under the
stars in his backyard in Denton,
Texas, fielding calls about how his band,
Midlake, morphed into trans-Atlantic
supergroup, BNQT. “I humbly give that
point of reference,” he adds with a chuck-
le. “If we’re super then we are a poor
man’s super when you’re talking about
the likes of George Harrison, Bob Dylan,
Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne.”
Insert Ben Bridwell from Band of
Horses, Alex Kapranos of Franz Fer-
dinand, Jason Lytle of Grandaddy and
Fran Healy of Travis and the dimensions
of BNQT’s debut, Volume 1, become clear.
The Wilbury parallel is not so much
about the aesthetics of the new outfit –
“that unabashedly lush, Seventies rock
production vibe” – as the reason for its
being. “What’s cool about what they did
was that they did it purely for the joy of
making music together,” Pulido says.
“This is probably not something any of
us could have done 10 years ago. It’s
something organic and almost simple
and it makes sense. There was no hiddenagenda. Just a story of folks loving and
respecting each other and saying, ‘Hey,
wouldn’t it be kinda cool?’”
The coolness began a full four years
ago, when the songwriters started mail-
ing in demos for Pulido and some of his
Midlake bandmates – Joey McClellan,
Jesse Chandler and McKenzie Smith –
to bang into shape. Lytle and Healy went
to Denton for more hands-on input.
Bridwell and Kapranos worked remote-
ly. But the common pool of musicians
and agreed production values resulted in
a seamless whole, from the vintage glam
stomp of the single “Restart” to the clas-
sic rock swagger of “LA On My Mind”.
“Oftentimes this [business] is very in-
sular and not as collaborative and ar-
tistic as it can be,” says Pulido, who in-
sists that Midlake are merely on hiatus
while BNQT pulls together what might
be their only tour. “Sometimes it gets less
fulfilling, or you can feel like something
is missing. That’s why sometimes you
have to go back to the core of why you
first started a band: this is fun, these are
my friends and it’s just about the music.”(^) MICHAEL DWYER
BNQT’s Indie
Rock Feast
The indie world’s latest supergroup
is all about the joy
INDIE-PENDENCE DAY
Lytle, Pulido and Healy
in Texas in March.
SUPERGROUP
GETTY IMAGES