With Broods playing as part of the Reorientation festivities next Monday we thought we’d take the opportunity to sit down and chew the fat with Georgia Nott, who makes up one half of the brother sister duo, to talk ABBA tribute bands and life on the road!
You guys are down here for the start of the semester, are you hoping to get in and amongst some of the festivities or is it all business no play for you guys?
Well I’ll have to look at the schedule, but we’ve got so many mates that have gone down to Dunedin, so it’s always nice to see those people who we just literally never bump into anymore because everybody’s just doing their own thing! But it’s so cool down there, the vibe is so different to any other university in NZ and it’s always so cool to play down there. But usually we will go out after and then I will realise that I’m just so not equipped to going out and I’ll head home.
Its been a pretty crazy last few years for you guys and if I’ve done my research right I believe that you guys have gone from playing in an ABBA tribute band to opening from some pretty big acts such as Sam Smith and Ellie Goulding. How has that transition been?
I don’t know where the rumour of being in an ABBA tribute band came from! It’s been like a really big game of Chinese whispers! At the start we just said “yeah sure, let’s just stay we were”, but we were never in an ABBA tribute band sadly. We did like covers and stuff when we were younger and played in pubs and churches around Nelson… But it was when we decided to show people what we were writing that we really got some attention, people seemed to like what we were creating and everything just sort of sparked from there! And now we’re touring around everywhere with these crazy acts!
Is the life of the touring musician everything you expected it would be, or is the reality a bit more of a drag, travelling to all these places and living on little sleep and a busy schedule?
There are definitely times where it’s just like woah another big day! But everything that we do is what we’ve always wanted to be doing and a lot of people don’t get to spend every waking moment on something that they love. But we do have those really shitty days where we’re so tired and we haven’t had any sleep or when we’ve just got off a flight, we’re hungry and we’re not allowed to eat because we’ve got another interview. But you just have to take a step back and realise that holy shit we’re doing something we love and that we really can’t complain about anything.. I guess you just have to take the good with the bad and appreciate that anything worth having doesn’t come easy.
When you talk about travelling around on those tough days with little sleep or food, surely travelling with your sibling has lead to some toys being thrown out of the cot on occasions? Have there been a few tears or a few words said on the road that have lead to apologies later on?
For us having each other to lean on is so much easier, like if we had to do this by ourselves I think we would be a lot less sane! We also have our cousin with us too who drums for us and for us family has always been the priority growing up. It also makes it a lot less intense actually when you do have those crazy days you can kind of let yourself go and nobody gets offended. We’re all family and we love each other.
I believe that you also have two younger sisters and an older brother? How was it that you and your brother Caleb came together to form Broods? Were there family auditions set up by your parents? Or where you two the standouts in the family?
They’re actually all insanely good. Our two younger sisters are just incredible in their own right. We actually wanted to be the Corrs when we were kids, that was the dream. But for Caleb and I we were the closest in age growing up and we were both so into music and our parents saw that we both worked so well together so they sort of sneakily paired us up!
I see that you guys have just recently moved to Los Angeles! How is life in Los Angeles for two Kiwis such as yourselves trying to crack it in such a big fast and competitive market?
Were really lucky that there’s a lot of Kiwis and Kiwi musicians that we have connected with over there! We keep real close with those people just because it is such a different culture and just remembering who we are and where we come from and who we want to be is just such a large part of that. When you have other people who are like-minded and who have come from the same background it just makes all the difference, especially when half the people can’t understand you!
Broods are playing here at the Union Hall, Monday 18th July