Interview with Taasha Coates from The Audreys

As the Nimbin Roots festival finalé draws closer the artist line-up is proving that this festival will go out with a bang!

Making their way from Adelaide, ARIA winners and AMC SA Music Hall of Fame inductees, The Audreys, have spent a big part of this year touring their new album, Ruin & Repair, featuring a selection of newly-penned songs honouring the legacy of their late founding member Tristan Goodall (01.01.1974 – 02.07.2022).

The Echo spoke to Taasha Coates at her home in Adelaide last week.

Have you done this particular festival before?

I have never played Nimbin Folk Festival before.

Have you been to Nimbin before?

I have not.

Oh, you’re in for a surprise then…

I don’t think so. I think I’ve been worded-up by literally everyone who tells me that, ‘you’re in for a surprise’. Yeah, I’m not going to be surprised. No, and I’ll be surprised if I’m not.

You’ve been touring since March – how did it go?

It was great. It’s really nice to have new tunes.

Are fans receptive to the new work?

Yeah, very much – it’s always nerve wracking, but it was great. And also, because we’ve been around a while now. This is our 19th year. So we actually had people come with their grown kids who’d grown-up listening to our music – you know 18 and 20-year-olds. They were, like, ‘the first time I came to a gig, I was pregnant, and here he is!

I want to ask you, as far as writing material and creating new music, obviously the way you work is different now than it was five years ago. How has it changed for you?

How has it changed for you since Tristan left the the creative partnership?

Tristan left the touring band because he was too sick to be on the road, but we were still going to write together. And you know, we kind of knew he was running out of time, but you never really, never really believe it, until it happens to you. So at first I just didn’t know if I wanted to keep writing, because I’d always written songs with him, and it just made me sad, and I didn’t, I didn’t know if I could, and I didn’t know if I wanted to.

But eventually, once I got past that initial six months of just horrible grief, I actually found it really therapeutic, really healing, to start writing again, and I did a lot of writing with his brother (Cameron) – we would often be like, ‘hey, let’s go’ and we’d sit down with a guitar and a pad and pen, and then just end up drinking wine and crying. So there was a bit of that. So for both of us, we were, I think both of us, were processing a lot going through that grief.

Do you find now, the burden of producing something for the Audreys has more – twice as much energy, and that if anything goes wrong, it’s only your fault?

I know! I can’t blame him. Not anymore, no, bugger… Yes, I do that. It’s definitely a thing, definitely. But, you know, there’s, there was also a sense in which, particularly in the last five years or so of the band, that I was doing everything anyway. But, in a way, there’s also a sense of… I guess you know when anyone gets sick and then leaves us, there is also a sense of finality that you can move forward…Do you know what I mean?

Has the style, the ambience of the The Audreys, changed?

Yes – there’s a new guitar player now, Tom Kneebone, and he has a different style. Beej Barker’s on drums and Flik Freeman on bass –  it’s great to have a female voice on stage, because she sings a lot of backing vocals as well. It’s nice to have more female energy in the band. Actually, I’m really enjoying that. I hadn’t been touring with another woman. I’m like, ‘hey, I got someone to borrow tampons from’. She’s great. We’ve become really close.

What are you loving about this record?

‘You know, with any group of four people, they bring their own energy. And the wonderful thing about having done this record, I’ve been touring with this four-piece for a couple of years, and then we went into the studio, and made a record. So now, we all have a sense of ownership over that new record, and it’s music that we all made as a group, the four of us together. There’s a lot of ownership and pride about that once you take that on the road. That’s actually much more exciting than, ‘Hey. Do you want to come on the road with me and play songs that I wrote? Songs that I wrote five years ago?’

Now that you feel like you’re well and truly in the groove, of all of those songs, are you finding that your emotions towards any of the songs have changed?

Yes. There was some songs I wrote about Tristan that were really, really hard to perform early on, because I would just get too emotional, and that’s not really my job as a performer. Of course I need to put emotion into a song, but I don’t need to be emotionally incontinent on stage, grieving publicly. You have to keep it together on stage. It’s hard, and I had to do a lot of it, and they were some of the hardest gigs I’ve ever done.

I didn’t want this interview to be all about Tristan, but it feels like he’s still very much a part of what’s happening. Of course, you can’t let go of someone immediately, but there is life after…?

Yeah, and I think that this will be the record that’s our honouring and celebration of him, and the next record will be something else again – oh and I have news! We are putting out a Christmas song.

Is it Christmassy?

It’s SO Christmassy! It’s a cover of ‘Hard Candy Christmas’ by Dolly Parton!

What’s inspiring you?

I’ve actually been working with a new vocal teacher and I’ve been trying to do a bit of belty stuff, which has been great, and I’ve been listening to a bit of Lady Gaga.

Are you having enough fun?

Yep – there is absolutely no way that I would still be doing music if I didn’t love it and enjoy it, because it’s hard, If I wasn’t enjoying it, I would walk away.

Nimbin Roots Festival is on from October 24 to 26. Get your tickets now at nimbinrootsfest.com