On her fourth studio album Modern Day Addiction, Clare Bowditch delves into the core of our insecurities and societal obsessions.
At its centre is Your Own Kind Of Girl – an extremely moving song that every soul should hear and be moved by. It delves into the dilemmas that are too often hidden or ignored… eating disorders, dieting, mental illness… those that are exacerbated by destructive modern mechanisms seeking to manipulate our self-perception in order to profit from our vulnerabilities.
“It’s definitely fuelled by the feeling of ‘if we don’t speak up then who will?’ I think it was based on someone that I knew and I could see how glorious this young woman is,” says the Melbourne-based singer-songwriter, “but inside she felt deeply inadequate. I see that so often and I see it because I recognise it in myself and I think most women go through at least some phase of that living in modern times; I think that gave me the courage to be open about it.” At a time in which we are overwhelmed by weight loss fads and gossip magazines that glorify makeovers, it’s of monumental concern that young people are the prime targets.
“What I’m deeply concerned about, always, is this feeling of powerlessness that people seem to have in the face of that level of machinery,” asserts Bowditch. “’Cause it really is a star-making dream machinery that.
if you dig a little deeper behind it, it’s usually about selling a product, magazine or an idea of ourselves that’s unreachable. I think the only solution to that is so simple that we don’t even believe it. “What concerns me is the voices that young people carry in their heads about this notion of being not good enough again, again and again. I think the good news is that there is a solution and it’s usually about affection and things that are the complete opposite of the busy world that we live in.”
At 13 years of age, Bowditch was approached by a modelling agency, but it was an invitation that her mother swiftly declined. “She just had the insight to see that it wasn’t a healthy place for a 13, 14 or 15 year old to grow up in,” Bowditch affirms. “She was just always very clear on that – my mother is a beautiful Dutch woman – she herself did a little bit of modelling in her youth… I see old photos of her where she looks like Audrey Hepburn… but I think it was her life experience that said ‘let children be children’ and the overriding principle that ‘women are more than what they look like on the outside’, and if you’re living in a world in an age where you’re constantly told that your only worth is how you look, it’s dangerous.
“I think that was it – she’s not your typical stage mother; she sensed that it was dangerous for someone like me, who was clearly already showing a sensitive, creative temperament. And that was that; she’s very clever.” Bowditch’s partner and musician Marty Brown – who performs in her band, The New Slang – also assisted in her revelatory discoveries during the writing of Modern Day Addiction. “I guess the point of Modern Day Addiction is that it really can be anything, so although it seems to rotate around the insecurities of body image, a lot of the time men have an entirely different set of insecurities that plague them at times,” Bowditch expresses.
“But what surprised me is the intersection… I’ve had a lot of insights into the fact that men are now being marketed to in the same way that women were for a decade. And they’re also starting to fall prey to the same eating disorders, the same ways of thinking that keep them down as human beings, and that’s the tragedy of it. Usually it’s the very sensitive people who have the capability to make incredible changes in the world that are most susceptible to those kinds of illnesses.”
Before this year’s federal election, Bowditch conducted an intimate interview with Julia Gillard – one of their most significant discussions revolved around the issue of mental illness. “My feeling is that we’re all somewhat disappointed by the offer that Labor put on the table before the election in regards to how much they were willing to spend on mental health,” says Bowditch. “And I had the privilege of having a very interesting discussion with Pat McGorry, the Australian of the Year, the night before the interview. He said to me that we have the cure and it’s not as simple as throwing a tablet at things; it’s more complex than that; it takes longer.
The whole solution is more engaged than that. “In order to roll it out, we need money so that we can put these programs into place. We need them to be funded, so he encouraged me to challenge Julia Gillard to commit to a prime ministerial-run taskforce on mental health within the first six months of office. “So one of the things that I’d like to do and would love you to do is to remind the Prime Minister of that because she had essentially agreed to that. She thought it was a good idea and that was a show of faith and commitment ’cause the money wasn’t there, but could she herself show her commitment to the problem by taking it upon herself to run this taskforce? I thought that was an excellent idea and I was happy to pass it on from Pat.” Bowditch and The New Slang will enlighten fans at The Forum Theatre this Monday with those issues in hand, supported by Glenn Richards and Hello Satellites.
“The Forum is going to be our biggest ever show, with our biggest ever band,” she enthuses. “And to have two of our very, very favourite artists supporting us just makes it even more extraordinary. It’s a very sentimental venue for all of us – we’ve had great memories and we just look forward to truly entertaining people that night and engaging them on a number of issues.”
Unsurprisingly, Bowditch remains awe-struck about that rather significant invitation from Leonard Cohen to support him on his Australian tour. “It’s been months and I still don’t have the words… that’s just one of the sweetest gifts that I could be given – the opportunity to basically have a free ticket to all the Leonard Cohen shows, to be able to observe from the side of the stage to see a master at work… that is a great honour. There’s definitely an angel on my shoulder.”
CLARE BOWDITCH & THE NEW SLANG launch Modern Day Addiction with a huge show at The Forum on Monday November 1 (Cup Eve) – they’re joined by Glenn Richards (Augie March) and Hello Satellites. Tickets and info from clarebowditch.com and oztix.com.au. Modern Day Addiction is out now through Universal.