Angie Hart Asks Katie Noonan…
What is your main aim in bringing a bunch of awesome women together and asking them to tell their stories in song?
I find that in our industry we don’t get many opportunities to truly collaborate and share our journeys, our process and our inspirations and as you know, we gals are more than often the only girl in the band! So with this show I wanted to bring together six unique women to share our stories and our sounds together. I also wanted to bring together different generations – even though I am only a little younger than you and Abby, I and so many other girls absolutely looked up to you women and as we discovered yesterday Martha was born the year that the seminal Frente album Marvin The Album came out.
What makes you want to write songs? Do you love performing and why, or why not?
I always kind of knew I would write songs, not as a career, but as a pursuit, as it was essentially a basic need – as important to me as almost anything. I wanted to try and dream up albums that would make a difference to someone somehow in the same way that albums had touched my life. I really, really love performing: the sharing of ideas with the musicians on the stage, the sharing of stories and experiences with the audience and the overwhelming feeling that we are all here in this mystery together. Live gigs create an escape, a respite – for the audience and the performers – and bring us together in a truly unique way. The hardest thing is being away from my family. The touring life is not easy, but then of course I feel so lucky to get to do what I do.
Katie Noonan Asks Angie Hart…
Who has been one of your main mentor in your career?
Peter Luscombe is my longest standing friend and mentor in this arena. We are celebrating our 20-year friendship anniversary this year. He’s helped me through the highs, the blahs, and the very low times. You couldn’t get a more even-keeled dude, nor a better fountain of knowledge.
What has been your very favourite gig?
That is a tough question. The best anythings are hard to narrow down to just one. I do remember launching our very first EP, Whirled, some time around 1991. It was at The Punters Club. I dressed like a 1920’s flapper, in a red and black skirt suit, with a bandeau in my lacquered hair. The moment I got onstage, I had the strong feeling that my life was changing. We had worked hard for to make the EP and build an audience. That night, I felt like maybe it was all falling into place. At that show, we were ‘discovered’ by Norman Parkhill from Mushroom Records, and Linda Gebar, who we’d been courting, agreed to manage us.
