It’s slowly becoming the norm – or has it always been the norm? – for Australian artists to head overseas to get more exposure or relish opportunities for themselves, but Indiana Avent’s solo project Ma Petite took the slightly different path away from either the UK or US. Indiana found herself in Canada and developed a whole new bunch of friends, fans and a new album The Road That Led Me To Fall. Philippe Perez chatted to her and learned more about her adventures over there.
I’m intrigued by the story behind your album and the fact that you went to Canada to record the whole thing. What was the reason why you decided to record over there?
In 2010 I was asked by a Saskatchewan artist named Zachary Lucky to record on his album. I play violin for other artists, so I was in North America at the time and I went to Saskatchewan on a whim and recorded with him and then as a result of that recording I ended up touring on a six-week cross country Canadian tour. When I was on that tour playing violin for him I had my guitar and ukulele and completely fell in love with Canada.
Everywhere we went, all the people we met, everything all just resonated with me. As a result I wrote almost an album’s worth of songs about my time there. I came back to Australia after that trip and I had met a producer in Vancouver and played violin for another friend and I was like “If I ever record a Ma Petite album it’s going to be with this guy”. I planted a seed for it all to happen and I was itching to go back. I moved to Canada and lived there for a year and a half to work and save and record the album.
The whole idea behind the concept was to use Canadian musicians and have what inspired me about their music be embedded in the album. I wanted it to be all cohesive. I could have recorded it all in Australia but I feel that it’s a special feeling about the record and who I recorded it with. They all understood what I was writing about and they’ve in that country and they’ve seen all those beautiful things.
You went to Saskatchewan, which may not be necessarily the first place, a musician or a traveller would go. What was particularly captivating in Saskatchewan?
It’s the prairie, so it’s flat and gridded. When you are driving around there, you’re driving on straight road and there are no hills. There is nothing there. It is just farmland with empty wide space and then in the middle of nowhere there’s be a massive mill in the middle of a paddock. There’s something surreal about that and extremely beautiful to me mainly because I have not seen anything like that before.
It sounds like Melbourne without the buildings.
The rest of Canada is so diverse to, much like Australia is. There are so many aspects to the natural beauty of both countries. Canada is very famous for its mountains, for the Rocky’s and all that sort of thing. When you talk to people over there saying “I’m going on a tour around there” and they go “you’re not going to the prairies are you?” I say: “Yeah! I totally am!” This upcoming tour I am not going there though, it’s only because I don’t have enough time and I don’t drive a car.
Tell us about your upcoming tour. Where exactly will you be going to?
So basically I’m releasing my album on the 22nd April and on the 29th I leave to showcase for Canadian Music Week. So I’ll do that and then will tour for May and June and stick around for a bit longer for some festivals. I’m just going to go through some application processes now in the hope to play a few festivals there.
There’s uniqueness to you in that you decided to go to the USA’s northern neighbour rather than making a name in the USA itself. What made you want to go to Canada when there’s more possible opportunity awaiting you in the USA?
Music initially drew me to Canada. I was given a CD by a friend’s husband of an artist named Andy Shauf. He said “I think you’re going to like this” and I was like “how are you going to know what I like?” I listened to it and I fell in love with it. There’s something really unique about the Canadian independent folk singer-songwriter storytelling kind of vibe. It spoke to me in ways that no other music had spoken to me ever before. That was what started this whole thing. Through researching Andy I found Zachery Lucky’s music.
I just contacted him and that was our first contact. I then found myself in America on a trip working with a French artist, Soko. I contacted Zachery again saying that I was nearby and that I’d like to come up to catch some of his shows. He then was kind enough to ask me to record on his album, which I did.
I then just continued on my trip, and because the violin became such a part of his record, he asked me again to come back and tour with him, and that was when I did the whole cross-country thing and wrote the album like I explained before. It was just a happenchance, really and not any concerted effort to break it in the States or anything.
At this point Ma Petite had just been created. I have always only ever played violin for other people. I only had just started writing six-to-12 months before I went to America in 2010. It was quite fresh for me. It never was trying to break into a market; it was more about “This is happening. This is great. I’m just going to continue with all this.”
I was so lucky when I moved to Vancouver to fall into an incredibly talented group of people who embraced me and my music. Through that and through playing violin for local artists in Vancouver, it just snowballed. I almost feel like there is more of a connection with my music in Canada than in Australia because I’ve been doing it for longer over there. So when I came back to Australia I had to start all over again. It was just a plain reset of my career. That was interesting.
There was never a business minded decision to get there; it was about following my heart. Definitely with my upcoming tour, it has crossed my mind to do a tour in the USA as well. It is so unbelievably expensive. There is so much paperwork. It is also so over-saturated and so much going on. If I feel like I’ve already done some touring in places where some people kind of know who I am, it’ll be better for me to reconnect with them and just see how that grows. Maybe at Canadian Music Week I’ll meet some people. I’m definitely open to talking to some people in the States and making connections. It’s just so hard to do as an independent artist so it’s really in the back of my mind.
Australia and Canada are both big vast countries with a handful of music markets, while the USA is oversaturated like you say. I suppose you could relax a little more working within those countries as a musician.
Yeah, that’s right. What really struck me about Canada and since coming back what that there was a special, specific camaraderie between musicians and artists. Especially in Vancouver – there are always musicians who are encouraging and going everyone else’s shows. You’re always playing with so many people who pass on your details to someone else.
As I’ve been playing more and reconnecting with people here in Australia, I found it to be a similar thing. I certainly haven’t really been playing as Ma Petite in America, so I don’t really know much about the country’s scene. I don’t actually know about networking because I’m not the one who makes those contacts (in America). It’s all done for me.
I would love to see more connection. The problem is that it is over on the other side of the world. It is so hard for Canadians to fly out here and vice versa. I’d love to start some sort of initiation of tour swapping. I feel like the music scenes complement each other, but in quite a different way. (The Canadian scene) is quite specific in their sub genres doing well, while other pockets don’t. I feel they could do well here and vice versa too.
You mentioned that you’ve played violin for many other bands in a wide variety of genres. How does playing for others influence your own work?
I try not to play with people who don’t inspire me. I like to play with people whose music speaks to me in a certain type of way. A very good example of that is Soko. There is something unique about her style and the way she writes. (She) is about being in the moment and not about strong song structure. She’s like “I fell it. I’m going to write it.” That was very inspiring to me.
I’ve been so unbelievably lucky to be able to play with Bon Iver too which was wonderful. I went to sound check and he was like “let’s run through a few songs, and I was like “ooohhh okay”. We did four songs in sound check and that was it. We got on stage and we played live that night. There are moments like that (where I was thinking) the universe was giving me a break. It just happened. I think the most amazing thing about that was Justin sitting on stage while I was playing a solo part with his eyes closed just taking in. I was like “Is this actually happening? This is inane.”
Moments like that (are) so inspiring. His music is so gorgeous. From those moments and from moments from my old band Lamplight in Melbourne. The two songwriters in that band are incredibly talented and so beautiful with their words too. Recently I’ve become more successful, but until that point it’s just been like a means for to (get inspired). If something sad happens to me, it’s my therapy in a way. I think that is why people can relate to it. It’s because people are like “Oh, I feel this.” Often people come up after shows and say “Oh, that song. I was crying because I went through that last year.”
So, I don’t know. I was definitely influenced by the people that I’ve played violin with. Like I’ve said before, I just meet through (seeing others perform) that as well.
Someone that I recently saw – Georgia Fields – (asked me to) sing in a little choir for her a couple of weeks ago. Phia, who is an incredible artist and I have never seen her before. Never heard about her. She does all this incredible loop stuff and it was all about those moments. It was all like “Bam!” Oh my goodness… I just sat at the bar and wrote all this stuff down at the time.
So you try to write songs in a moment rather than making time in a diary or something like that?
I tried to do that. I try to go “OK I need to write a song, so I’m going to set this up.” I then sit down and it just never comes. It’s very spur-of-the-moment for me. I saw someone perform the other day, and they had this one piece of a line and then I wrote that down in my phone and then (I get) to thinking about it. I know that within a month I’m going to write a song that has been inspired by that one line.
I can’t rush it. It’ll just be about playing a chord, singing a line, singing a melody and then that will be the beginning. In about two hours or so it would be close to completion. Then there will always a bridge or a line that I will never quite get. Then after a couple of weeks my brain goes “Oh, that’s what I needed!” It’s a really funny process. It’s really strange.
It’s really strange and quite wonderful because it feels really new to me as well.
As mentioned went to Canada for a few years and waited for the right time to release the album. Is there anything that determines what the “right time” is?
By the time I left Canada, it was mixed and mastered. It was ready to be released. It was finished at the beginning of 2012, and I left Canada in October of that year. I was like “Right. This is ready to go.” I also had a publisher in Canada who I turned to for advice who told me to sit on it for a bit, to not rush it. In my head I (wanted) to get it out. At the same time I really (wanted) to give it 100%. I moved to the other side of the world. I worked a shitty café job for a year and a half to save money to do this, and now it’s here.
I then thought that I do want to wait. I do want to make it the best that I can. Then I waited, and then waited, and waited. At the end of last year my partner told me that I was wanting to release this for ages and I know that I wanted to, but that I wasn’t doing it. (He brought) it to my attention. I was like “Oh my god. I just have to do it. I just got to do” I could have kept on waiting until the right time but I decided to (release the album) because – how am I going to know if it’s going to work? How will I know how it’s going to go if I don’t just bite the bullet and go for it? From that point I have been working fulltime every single day on this album. By the end of mid-February I had 28 dates booked in Canada.
I (also) did a Pozible campaign to help with manufacturing which is something that I didn’t have money for and I can’t really do this without this support. It got to the target and it’s being manufactured as we speak which is such a mind-blowing thing. It’s all kind of coming together and if Al (my partner) didn’t say: “hey, remember how you really wanted to release this?” I probably would have kept on wanting to wait for the right time.
I just needed a bit of a kick in the butt.
Considering that you write in the moment, it then must be frustrating to be sitting on songs for such a length of time and be familiar with them when no-one else knows about those songs. Surely you would want to move onto new work?
It’s a funny thing, because it is a funny thing. I feel like the album represents that time in my life. I’m so proud of that album and I can’t wait to show the world. It’s funny because it all feels a little bit old to me now. As my musician friends in Vancouver tells me: “No-one else has heard the album. It’s all new to them.” It’s all about having to deal with that thing of writing new songs and working on them. I do feel like as an artist, that I’m developing. It’s sort of making me go into a particular direction.
I think my next album will be quite different to this one I’m about to release actually. At the same time, I’m proud of what is happening now. The album itself is just about Canada like I’ve said before and I think it’s good I’ve had time to let it set in for me. All the artwork I’ve taken was of that country. It really is a little snippet in my mind of that time of my life.
It doesn’t really seem or feel old. It just feels like that I am slowly moving on. Actually I was revisiting the songs for this tour, because I was playing newer songs at gigs lately. I was all like “Ooohhh I looove this song!” It was so nice to reconnect with it again.
It was an interesting conundrum to be in because time just slips by. Sitting on something and not being held back a little bit in the sense of your work and direction is a nice thing. I keep on working on newer stuff to refine.
Would you say that your new songs then ready to go for the next album then?
Yeah. The next album in my mind will be a lot simpler. The Road That Led Me To Fall (is) my first album. My producer Paul Beckler asked me what I wanted, and I was like “I don’t know… I’ve never done this before, you know?” I heard all these things in my head and he just encouraged all that to come out. We went “let’s do it and see where it takes us”. There are drums, bass, horns and string quartets and choirs, all this epic stuff. I think next album will be… – as much as I love that epicness from a little song I wrote – just me.
I am thinking of dealing with just a double bass and maybe a snare drum and a horn somewhere. Just bringing it down for a bit.
What are the gigs that you will be doing in Australia?
Well I will be doing a show at the Northcote Social Club as my release show here. I then go straight to Canada for three months. Then, I will be going to the UK and EU to travel and perform a bit there. I will come back and do a six week national tour, so that will be October/November. It’s a little odd how it all sort of worked out but it had to do with the timing of being over in Canada over summer.
I’m also touring with Taylor Birds in Australia and they’re going to be in Europe when I am in Canada, so it made sense for us to wait until we both come back. We are actually going to be truly national. We are going all around Australia. It’s going to be insanely amazing. I can’t wait. We’ll also do Tasmania in January, that’ll be another trip.
The tricky thing about being connected to both countries is that I am widely spread with where I can go, but things like publicity and stuff has to be in those two countries, and that’s a hassle. It’s twice the amount of work, but also twice the amount of love and fun that I get out of it in the end.
The wonderful thing these days is the Internet, so I’ll keep in contact with people in Australia with what I am doing over there with videos and all that stuff to keep a presence online.
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Ma Petite will be playing at the Northcote Social Club to launch The Road That Led Me To Fall on the 24th April. More tour dates after that launch can be found on her site http://mapetitemusic.com/
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