“I’m just at home in Ballarat,” Harry Nijam tells me after he picks up the phone. “Just actually making music right now.”
Harry, AKA Surfe (the e is silent), is the kind of teen who possesses wisdom far beyond his years. While most schoolkids fill their weekends with social sport and video games, Harry is at home on the rainy Saturday that I speak to him, making music. “I’m just messing around,” he says of the sounds he’s working on. “I don’t like to do anything with too specific of an intention.”
Harry is gearing up to bring his experimental indie pop to Ballarat’s Be Hear Now music festival on Sunday August 11, sending off the festival with a show on the Civic Hall stage in the heart of the city. A two-day showcase of local Ballarat artists interspersed with workshops, talks and networking opportunities, Be Hear Now is presenting the best of the best of the emerging musicians from the community. For that reason, of course Harry’s on the lineup.
Surfe at Be Hear Now
- Sunday, August 11
- Civic Hall, Ballarat
- Free to attend
Keep up with the latest music news, features, festivals, interviews and reviews here.
An artist who began making music with the intention of creating a sound that was aligned with the surf-indie-pop sphere of Aussie music, as Harry moves forward in his music career, his sound is changing with him.
“At the time, I loved indie music,” Harry reflects on when he started out. “It’s still got a special place in my heart,” he adds. Now, Harry’s focus is less on producing a specific kind of sound or style, and more on experimenting and discovering what happens in the process. “I feel like the aim is to just express myself.”
Harry is no stranger to the Be Hear Now stage. The musician brought his dance-pop bops to Ballarat audiences at the Be Hear Now fringe last year, with the performance taking place in an old hairdressing salon-turned-live music venue. “That was cool,” he laughs. “I got all my friends to come.”
Harry Nijam AKA Surfe
Despite performing in a tiny room, Harry says the show was a great one. “There were people splayed out through the whole thing. I was having a good time dancing, having fun.” Of the people always filling up the rooms that Harry plays in, he says that he manages to wrangle in most of his mates, and mates and mates, and even some people he hardly knows. Evidently, everyone wants to get a listen in on the next big thing in music.
Out of all the gigs that he’s played, Harry says that if there had to be a favourite, it would be one of the times he played at Volta with school. “I literally just had a fifteen-minute funny little waiting type of set,” he says. “But I just smashed through a few songs, and I loved it. I felt like everyone loved it.”
Harry’s music is the kind you want to dance to, and so it’s no surprise that his shows often feel like one big party. “That’s why I love it so much,” he says. “It’s just like a big get together.” With most of his friends also being musicians, gigs are also a space for Harry to connect to his peers and be supported by the music community – a community that is very much thriving in Ballarat. “It’s fun to share that with them,” Harry says about seeing muso mates at his shows.
“Expect to have some fun”
As for Harry’s next show in Ballarat, he says that Be Hear Now festival attendees can “expect to have some fun” at his performance at the Civic Hall on Sunday August 11. “I love to dance and get into it,” he says. “They should also expect to be a little bit weirded out, but hopefully in a good way.” Harry’s set will be a compilation of some new experimental work, some of his upcoming singles, and some covers. “And I’m also going to sing Complicated by Avril Lavigne,” he adds.
Represented by Unified Music Group, Harry says that at this point there’s nothing specific lined up to be released at the moment, but there’s definitely some things in the works. “I’ve kind of got a plan,” he says. “Just a rough plan.” Like making music, if Harry’s openness to experimentation and nailing the process to unveil the finished product is anything to go by, he definitely knows what he’s doing.
You can check out the program for Be Hear Now here.
This article was made in partnership with Be Hear Now.
