Fulton Street
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Fulton Street

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With commanding lead vocalist Shannen Wick at the helm, the band is rapidly gaining traction as one of the city’s must-see live acts, and have cemented themselves as a band to be reckoned with, drawing capacity crowds that are encouraged to vibe gracefully and ooze positivity with a gospel-like sound that hits highs like you’ve never heard before.

 

We vibe very strongly off crowd participation, our connection to our audience is extremely important,” says Wick. “When everyone’s in the same room and you’re all feeling the same thing, that’s incredible. We really feed off it and we’re all about creating that vibe for the audience as well.”

 

That focus on high energy has taken Fulton Street to places they never dreamt they’d be, from receiving airplay on triple j, PBS and ABC National to taking the stage on St Kilda Festival and taking part in Melbourne Music Week. While the band is incredibly grateful for the attention they’ve received, the support is still overwhelming, and sometimes leaves them in shock.

 

You almost don’t expect that to come of your work, you just do it because you love it,” says Wick. “So when you get a great reaction or when people take an interest in your music, it’s very surreal. It’s like really, us? I’ve been a massive fan of Vince ‘The Prince’ Peach and Soul Time on PBS ever since I can remember, and when he contacted us to be on his show it was an honour.”

 

Inspiring change and intending to create waves, Wick knew that her true calling was creating her own music to share with the world, and when she hooked up with the current members of Fulton Street after finishing her university degree, she knew that they could do big things with an irresistible and unique sound that challenges the constraints of the genre.

 

I’ve been singing since I was seven-years-old and that was around the time I joined the National Children’s Choir of Australia,” she says. “I didn’t quite rate it and it wasn’t really my thing, so as I got older I knew I had to pursue my passion. When I was at Monash I wasn’t studying music, so I just put an ad around the uni looking for band members. I didn’t know anyone else except the drummer who I studied Indonesian with and Fulton Street just really took off from there.”

 

The band’s soon to be released single Young People is an anthem inspired by aimless angst – a powerful message to society about the current state of unemployment for the younger generation that have finished their degrees and seem like they are getting nothing out of them.

 

I was definitely struggling after I finished my degree,” Wick says. “All that time being unemployed, you’re just looking for something, anything really just to keep you afloat. During that time, all that kept rushing through my mind was, ‘How am I going to keep living with all this instability?’ That’s really what Young People is all about. How are we going to help young people once they finish their studies in this current work environment that is so barren?”