Photo by Tajette O’Halloran
What’s best about being a young up and coming artist is, that adventure, liberation and fun outweigh the negative aspects of an artist’s life in general. Australian shootingstar FRASER A. GORMAN seems to be no exception to that rule. He’s about to release his first LP Slow Gum on June 29 (June 26 in Germany) and already shared a few tracks from it that left the impression of a positively careless but artistically ambitious young man. In order to be able to give you a more complete picture we asked him to take part in our Introducing-series. Read on and learn about how FRASER A. GORMAN has been effected by SHANIA TWAIN, his skills as a carpenter and why EDM simply sucks.
How would you describe your music to our readers in one sentence?
Some wordy, groovy, alt country filth.
Which 5 tracks should start a mixtape to perfectly capture your musical influences?
BOB DYLAN – I’ll Keep It With Mine
TOWNES VAN ZANDT – Two Girls
THE FELICE BROTHERS – Frankies Gun
YOU AM I – She Digs Her
WILCO – Jesus Etc
Describe your earliest musical memory
I remember being backstage at a Shania Twain stadium concert, i vaguely remember road cases and concrete walls and security and stuff. My parents knew her touring guitarist. I was about 4 years old.
Would you rather be a dragon or have a dragon?
I would definetly rather have a dragon. I feel that being a dragon would have its downsides, hard to find female companions due to fire breathing and scaly skin etc. But owning my own dragon would be wicked because i could say “hey, come over and look at my dragon” or “fuck getting an Uber to the pub, lets just ride the dragon!”
If your music would score a movie what sort of movie would that be? What actors can you imagine playing in it?
If my music were to score a film, i reckon it would be an australian movie, set on the south coast of Victoria, Australia. And it would be in the early 70’s. My character would be played by mid 20’s BOB DYLAN and the plot would entail him trying to get out of said location and his plight to travel the world playing music. I would also like a young Mick Jagger to be in it. I thought he was pretty good in his role playing australian outlaw Ned Kelly, in the 1970 film, Ned Kelly. And BOWIE can be in it too, due to his acting skills in Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence. I reckon musicians being in films is awesome. I would love to be in a feature length film one day.
If this whole musician thing won’t workout – what would be your alternative dream job?
I would probably give acting a crack. I did drama for a while at university and I loved it. I have always said if I couldn’t play music I would do stage productions or musicals. But I guess in reality, I have a job as a carpenter in Melbourne. And that is pretty fun, so there is that too.
Tell us a mostly unknown artist we should definitely check out
I guess it kinda depends on what mostly unknown means. My friend Marty fronts a Melbourne rocknroll band called TWERPS. They have toured the world a few times but I guess they aren’t as big as Mariah Carey yet. This song, Who Are You I reckon is a really beautiful track.
The music industry is changing quite heavily these days. What’s the best and what’s the worst part of these changes, in your eyes?
This topic gets debated over and over a lot between musicians that I know especially after a few tins. But I reckon the best and worst part are sort of the same. And that’s the internet. The internet allows people to access your music for free, even if you don’t want them too. So in turn you don’t sell hardly as many records as what bands used to. Which is bad.
But on the other hand: It’s great because you can use the internet as a tool to spread your music far and wide across the world with the click of a button. Whereas before that, you basically needed a big record deal to get anywhere in music.
I reckon in short: crew should just relax and make rad tunes and not give a fuck. And if you make money, then great, but if you don’t, also great. Enjoy your life, don’t get jaded, etc. Maybe my views will change when my life gets more serious but at the moment i’m just cruising.
Unleash your inner Burt Bacharach and complete the following sentence… “What the world needs now is…”
Way less EDM festivals, EDM culture, and EDM music in general. I went to a club in Amsterdam the other day where about 1000 people were raving to some ridiculously repetitive and awful (in my opinion) music. I guess I just don’t get it though. So good luck to everyone.
What role play ‘hope’ and ‘passion’ in your life?
I hope everyone who reads this has a good day. And they get to passionately make out with someone at some point in the next week or so.
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