I chatted to the rising country star shortly before she made the trek to south-west Victoria to play the Port Fairy Folk Festival. “I’m playing four shows there,” she tells me. “Never been there before. I’ve kind of learned to just do what I do. If they like me they like me and if they don’t they don’t. I’m pretty excited though, I think it’ll be fine.”
Having successfully crowd-funded The Hurting Scene in 2013, it’s shaping up as a busy year for Pool. “I actually had quite a bit of time off at the start of this year, but it’s just starting up now. It’s starting up very quickly. It’s very full on, but that’s exactly what I wanted. Over the last year it’s kind of gotten [crazy] – I’m not famous or anything, but I didn’t expect when I released that record that I’d be selling tickets this year. It’s pretty cool!”
We chat about her experience of crowd-funding, which has been overwhelmingly positive. “I think it really it gives more of a strength of the relationship between fan and artist I suppose,” Pool explains. “It’s really good for fans to feel like they’re involved and that their artists appreciate it. If you don’t have fans, you’re not going to have a career in music. It’s really just strengthening that. I know it did for me. It also gives artists more of a concept of where they’re at, I suppose. That’s what it did for me. I had no idea – there were people I didn’t even know who contributed to my record and I had no idea that would happen.
“When I sent all the records out I made sure I put a note in every one of them so they knew I wasn’t just going, ‘Here’s your record, see you later’ – it was super appreciated.” She’s even kept in personal contact with most of the funders who started out as strangers. “Most of the people are on my Facebook now, so I try and communicate with them as much as possible there.”
Pool hit another streak of well-deserved luck when Jace Everett, the moody songwriter of True Blood fame, offered to produce the album which became The Hurting Scene. “It was an absolute fluke for me. I knew the kind of record I wanted to make I just didn’t have any idea of who I wanted to work with for it. It just happened that Jace was touring out here and I was playing guitar for the girl who was supporting him. He heard my music and just said, ‘If you come to Nashville, I’d like to produce your record’. He had the resources and I was like that’s what I’ve got – I’ve got this guy who’s willing to help me and it’s there for the taking I guess.”
Growing up in a musical family – her father is the country musician Alby Pool – the younger Pool has had no dearth of positive musical influences. But there are always the occasional negative interactions. “I can think of one thing that happened to me once. There was an older artist and I quite liked her music. We were doing a festival together and doing an interview together early in the morning. My throat was croaky and I just asked, ‘Do you have any tips for how to get clear the croak from your throat in the morning?’ and she just said, ‘Your throat should be clear already’ and I was just like, ‘I’m not talking to you again.’”
BY JOSH FERGEUS
