Articles
Dallas Frasca’s music, like so many other things about her, is wonderfully ramshackle. There is a kind of organic...
RedHotPie Editor | October 21 2009
Soul Woman - the Dallas Frasca interview
Dallas Frasca’s music, like so many other things about her, is wonderfully ramshackle. There is a kind of organic structure to the chaos that writhes atop her bastardised brand of blues and soul.
Her powerhouse husk is an ominous tool, a voice larger than life and every bit as intense. Along with her long-time string slinger Jeff Curran, Frasca creates music that should be listened to while shooting cans, smashing moonshine or starting fights in found bars along lost highways.
The cathartic release of honestly delivered roots music is unlike any other genre, and you can hear that speakeasy sass in the steel guitar slide lines that criss-cross beneath Frasca’s unstoppable vocal, a combination that works with devastating effect in the live realm.
With the release of Not For Love Or Money, the dreadlocked dynamo is attempting to capture the raw emotion that has amazed her live audiences, and in true Frasca fashion, while the end product is rock solid, the recording process was indeed wonderfully ramshackle.
“We’ve worked really hard on this record” explains Frasca. “We recorded it over the last eighteen months, between touring and some other great opportunities that came along”.
Unlike most, Frasca doesn’t wait around for these ‘opportunities’ to land in her lap, she goes out and makes her own luck. Over the last couples of years the highlights have included several appearances on the national festival circuit, an Australian tour with roots giant Xavier Rudd and an invitation to front one of the country’s most iconic bands.
“Yeah, the chance to perform with Midnight Oil, that was crazy” Frasca laughs”. “I’d been reading Rob Hurst’s book about Midnight Oil’s U.S tours, I was like ‘wow, I’ve got so many questions for this guy’. So we were backstage at the Narooma Blues and Rockabilly festival shortly after and these two old fellas get out of a van and ask where the stage is, so I’m like ‘just cruise up with us’. I pick up this guy’s cymbal bag and say ‘hi my name’s Dallas, what’s your name?’ then I realise I’m actually asking Hursty what his name is! So I just said ‘oh my god, I’ve got so many questions to ask you’ and we connected like that.”
“So he ended up saying, ‘hey if you ever need a drummer for anything, we should hook up’ and he ended up playing on a B-side version of our track Burnt Toast… he’s been really supportive of what we’ve been doing and has been a bit of a mentor. So, it came about that Midnight Oil were doing a gig for Amnesty International at the convention centre in Sydney last year and they asked me to come and front the band, which I did. I did three or four tracks and it was just amazing.”
Most artists dream about moments like that, but it seems that of late Frasca’s been running up quite the tab on the dream moment account. Earlier this year she was invited to appear as one of seven artists from seven continents for International Earth Day in Montreal. Representing Australia, Frasca had the opportunity to perform and engage with other musicians and industry representatives about environmental and social issues facing the planet.
As is so often the case, Frasca’s live show amazed those who witnessed it, earning the singer and her charges an invite to return. It’s this universal appeal that also landed the singer in what was perhaps the most surreal moment of her career to date.
“I just can’t explain properly what it was like meeting BB King” she says. “We were over playing at the Blues Passion Cognac in France; all the acts got their own minders, well they actually called them angels, but I ended up befriending the angels that were looking after BB King. He had come in with his twenty person entourage but I just put it to them, I said ‘look I know it might be a bit out of my league and a bit stressful or whatever but if there is that opportunity to meet BB King can I please put my hand up”.
“When it came to this tiny window of two minutes that I had to go in, I was dragged through these back stage areas and there’s 15,000 people out the front chanting his name, there’s people yelling at each other in French, ‘what’s this fucking red head dreadlock chick doing backstage’, it was really intense. So when it got to the moment, I was standing at his door and my heart was pounding thinking ‘oh my god I’m about to meet BB King’... and then there he was. I was like ‘hi, I’m from Australia, I’m from Wangaratta and this is a ridiculously surreal experience’ and he was so lovely, what a man.”
“We weren’t together very long, we had a bit of a chat and we held hands and it was pretty intense, I mean people are still chanting and he’s literally about to walk on stage, so we got our little happy snap and I watched his performance from the front row in the press pit… just amazing”.
Her powerhouse husk is an ominous tool, a voice larger than life and every bit as intense. Along with her long-time string slinger Jeff Curran, Frasca creates music that should be listened to while shooting cans, smashing moonshine or starting fights in found bars along lost highways.
The cathartic release of honestly delivered roots music is unlike any other genre, and you can hear that speakeasy sass in the steel guitar slide lines that criss-cross beneath Frasca’s unstoppable vocal, a combination that works with devastating effect in the live realm.
With the release of Not For Love Or Money, the dreadlocked dynamo is attempting to capture the raw emotion that has amazed her live audiences, and in true Frasca fashion, while the end product is rock solid, the recording process was indeed wonderfully ramshackle.
“We’ve worked really hard on this record” explains Frasca. “We recorded it over the last eighteen months, between touring and some other great opportunities that came along”.
Unlike most, Frasca doesn’t wait around for these ‘opportunities’ to land in her lap, she goes out and makes her own luck. Over the last couples of years the highlights have included several appearances on the national festival circuit, an Australian tour with roots giant Xavier Rudd and an invitation to front one of the country’s most iconic bands.
“Yeah, the chance to perform with Midnight Oil, that was crazy” Frasca laughs”. “I’d been reading Rob Hurst’s book about Midnight Oil’s U.S tours, I was like ‘wow, I’ve got so many questions for this guy’. So we were backstage at the Narooma Blues and Rockabilly festival shortly after and these two old fellas get out of a van and ask where the stage is, so I’m like ‘just cruise up with us’. I pick up this guy’s cymbal bag and say ‘hi my name’s Dallas, what’s your name?’ then I realise I’m actually asking Hursty what his name is! So I just said ‘oh my god, I’ve got so many questions to ask you’ and we connected like that.”
“So he ended up saying, ‘hey if you ever need a drummer for anything, we should hook up’ and he ended up playing on a B-side version of our track Burnt Toast… he’s been really supportive of what we’ve been doing and has been a bit of a mentor. So, it came about that Midnight Oil were doing a gig for Amnesty International at the convention centre in Sydney last year and they asked me to come and front the band, which I did. I did three or four tracks and it was just amazing.”
Most artists dream about moments like that, but it seems that of late Frasca’s been running up quite the tab on the dream moment account. Earlier this year she was invited to appear as one of seven artists from seven continents for International Earth Day in Montreal. Representing Australia, Frasca had the opportunity to perform and engage with other musicians and industry representatives about environmental and social issues facing the planet.
As is so often the case, Frasca’s live show amazed those who witnessed it, earning the singer and her charges an invite to return. It’s this universal appeal that also landed the singer in what was perhaps the most surreal moment of her career to date.
“I just can’t explain properly what it was like meeting BB King” she says. “We were over playing at the Blues Passion Cognac in France; all the acts got their own minders, well they actually called them angels, but I ended up befriending the angels that were looking after BB King. He had come in with his twenty person entourage but I just put it to them, I said ‘look I know it might be a bit out of my league and a bit stressful or whatever but if there is that opportunity to meet BB King can I please put my hand up”.
“When it came to this tiny window of two minutes that I had to go in, I was dragged through these back stage areas and there’s 15,000 people out the front chanting his name, there’s people yelling at each other in French, ‘what’s this fucking red head dreadlock chick doing backstage’, it was really intense. So when it got to the moment, I was standing at his door and my heart was pounding thinking ‘oh my god I’m about to meet BB King’... and then there he was. I was like ‘hi, I’m from Australia, I’m from Wangaratta and this is a ridiculously surreal experience’ and he was so lovely, what a man.”
“We weren’t together very long, we had a bit of a chat and we held hands and it was pretty intense, I mean people are still chanting and he’s literally about to walk on stage, so we got our little happy snap and I watched his performance from the front row in the press pit… just amazing”.
