Laura Jean - Musician

Singer-songwriter Laura Jean has released six widely acclaimed albums. Her most recent, Amateurs, is a pulsing examination of what it is to be an artist working in Australia today. As well as making music and touring, she also works for a film financing company and studies Arts/Law at the University of NSW. 

In this interview, Laura Jean describes how she nurtures her 'three children': music, work and study, and how her working-class background influences how she regards herself as an artist – or an amateur.

For Laura Jean being an artist is not only about producing, it’s a way of life.

WE HEART LAURA JEAN.

Transcript

Are you still working?! Episode 2 - Laura Jean
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Courtney: [00:00:00] Hello gorgeous listeners, welcome to, Are You Still Working?! How to take your creative ideas seriously. I'm Courtney Collins, and this is episode two, an interview with musician, Laura Jean. 

Before I begin, I want to tell you how this podcast got its name. My Nan, Shirley, passed away a year ago, she was almost 90 and still doing Zumba. Whenever I visited Nan, she would squeeze me and say, Are you still working? You see, Nan was a working class woman, who worked at the telephone exchange for a lot of her life. And as much as I tried to convince her, I don't think she thought that writing or creating was ever a proper job.

I don't earn a weekly wage and I don't even have a boss. It occurred to me that even the ones closest to us can struggle to understand the work we do because so much of it happens [00:01:00] unseen and it changes. 

So perhaps this podcast is an attempt to explain to my Nana Shirley just what the work actually is because I'm sure she's listening. So let's begin. 

Episode two, Laura Jean interviewed on Gadigal country in Sydney's inner west.

Laura Jean makes beautiful music. At times ethereal, at times earthy and deeply personal. She's been shortlisted three times for the Australian Music Prize. She's recorded with The Drones and Paul Kelly, toured with Courtney Barnett, Aldous Harding and Marlon Williams. She's released six albums. Our Swan Song, Laura Jean's Eden Land, A Fool Who'll, A self-titled album, Devotion and her most recent Amateurs. Amateurs is a pulsing examination of being an artist in this country. She's also studying arts law at the University of New South Wales, and I'm so thrilled to be talking to her today. Laura [00:02:00] Jean.

Laura Jean: Hello. 

Courtney: Hello, are you still working?

Laura Jean: Of course, I am

Courtney: What are you working on at the moment?

Laura Jean: For me, a big part of what I would probably term my working life is my three children, you know, the three horses of my apocalypse, which is study, music and work. So my, my day job, and I need to constantly weigh up my priorities, so, If something comes up with music, I have to say, Ooh, I'm not gonna be able to do my readings that day for law, can I get away with that? And then if something comes up for my exam, I have to take leave from work. Our exams are now at home and they usually last for a couple of days. So, sometimes I have to take leave and then sometimes I'm at work and my manager wants to talk to me about something and I have to sneak away. So there's all this kind of tension between my works. Yeah. So music is [00:03:00] kind of my life's purpose in some way. Like I can't separate music from myself. It just is. So that's always gonna happen. Work. I need to work because I have to survive and I need to think about my career, think about you know, getting old, I'm gonna need money, all that stuff. And then law is a couple of things. It's kind of, it's a bit emotional because there's some psychological element to why I chose to do it because when I was a kid I was super bright at school and was considered gifted, but I didn't actually finish high school.

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Laura Jean: and I think I always regretted not reaching my potential with academia, and I always kind of wanted to be a lawyer. There's this little part of me that thought, oh, that'd, that'd suit me. And then when I was about 35, I thought, oh, I need to give it a go.

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

In releasing amateurs and this, incredible in the way I listen to it, a kind of a critique of what it is to be an [00:04:00] artist. What this culture we're in is telling us artists need to be and look like and do you identify yourself as an amateur? And what does that mean to you?

Laura Jean: My friend Simon Grounds, who I recorded my first couple of albums with and my bits of, my second bits of my third album he's been like a mentor throughout my life. He's like an really amazing kind of original diy record producer from the early nineties. He recorded like My Pal By God, things like that.

Courtney: Wow, Yep. 

Laura Jean: So he took me under his wing when I was about 23 and he taught me lots and he still does to this day. And one of the things he said to me about six years ago was, I was talking about amateurism or amateur or something, and he's like, Laura, do you know what that word means? And I'm like, oh, I never really thought about it. And he's like, it means that you do something for love. He said in some part of English history, you know, it was quite [00:05:00] prestigious to be deemed an amateur because it meant that you were quite upper class.

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Laura Jean: and you had the time to be an amateur scientist. It didn't mean that you were worse at it. It meant that you didn't have to do it for money and you could actually, you know, make even a more amazing discoveries because you didn't have that pressure.

And I thought, oh, that's interesting. That's an interesting, different way to look at being an amateur. And then I started to think about the way that Amateur is a a negative term in our culture. Mm-hmm. an Australian culture. Like you call someone an amateur if you wanna give them an insult. And I thought, isn't it interesting that it's an insult to say someone does something for love?

That was my guiding thought and then everything from there, that's when it starts to come into the theme. Like anything I see on TV or anything I notice in my everyday life, like Market on the Sand is just about going to the market with my mum and, you know, getting annoyed. So everything starts [00:06:00] to go through that little filter. All my albums are kind of concept albums and an idea that I want to express. And all the songs are part of that idea. 

Courtney: Did the process of making the album itself help you define I guess in the way you describe your children or your, the triumfate, the horses, did it help you, I guess, separate your human needs into where they could potentially be satisfied or met?

Laura Jean: Yeah, definitely. And I didn't answer your question about if I'm an amateur or not. And it's funny that I avoided it because I don't know, I don't know what it means. I don't know what I am, and that's the hardest thing of all, is that I really can't label myself in a industrial capacity of why I do what I do. The music industry has always left me cold. I don't like going to conferences. I don't like being around the music industry. I don't feel like what I do has much to do with commerciality, so it's very hard for me to say to someone, you know, I'm a professional or I'm [00:07:00] an amateur musician, I just am. and that can feel a little bit a little bit scary sometimes. And in regards to your question about separating my needs, absolutely because music gives me that feeling of indulgence in a way, or what starts as indulgence and expression and then quickly becomes refining and working over a line, you know, for a month cause I'm really rigorous with my songwriting, I'm more of a Leonard Cohen than a Bob Dylan. You know, like Bob Dylan will write something in five minutes. And Leonard Cohen will like spend 12 years and I'm more of that way. I like to really refine my phrasing and the ideas and so that satisfies that part of me and then law satisfies the part of me that is very rational and practical and wants to work out the jigsaw puzzle of whatever I'm learning, and then work satisfies my need to expose myself to worlds that I would never understand unless [00:08:00] I had to just do this job. 

So I'm just talking to producers all day. They basically borrow money off us against money that they're gonna receive later. Tax offsets, things like that. So, I, I've got this insight, this tax free, pardon the pun, insight into this world.

Courtney: Can you give me an example of a moment or a an experience where it feels like those worlds are cross pollinating.

Laura Jean: Absolutely. Like I want my worlds to cross pollinate and when they do, it's thrilling, but it hardly ever happens. 

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Laura Jean: So I mean from an egoic standpoint, what really flatters me is when like someone I work with or someone I'm studying with knows my music because it makes me feel like my music has burst out of, its Melbourne bubble, you know, cause my music's mainly appreciated in Melbourne and certain cities around the world, but Melbourne is like where my main audience is, and that's beautiful but I [00:09:00] make music to be reachable even though it's not necessarily commercial, I still want it to be friendly enough for people that aren't into music to be able to have some entry into. So it thrills me when my coworker Zach said, oh yeah, my girlfriend loves your record. Or one of the students I studied with last year, she's like, I really like your music. And then I had to do an assignment with her and I wasn't like that diligent. And I think it was a bit awkward by the end But like it's, it's thrilling. It's thrilling. Makes me feel like what I do in music matters to people that aren't just my friends. And that makes me feel like I'm putting energy into something for a reason.

Courtney: yeah.

Laura Jean: not just for my self-expression, but it's meaning something to other people 

Courtney: what do you think that meaning is, if you could name it?

Laura Jean: when I teach songwriting one of the classes I teach is about thinking about your archetype, like your jungian archetype with songwriting [00:10:00] and kind of how that interacts with your everyday self.

And when I did the exercise myself, I realised that a big archetype in my music is the relatable person.

Courtney: Yeah.

Laura Jean: I'm wanting to relate to people like-minded, give them a nudge and go, Isn't this annoying? Like, don't you feel this? don't you feel that? I'm trying to bring into the physical things that are very intangible so people feel like they're not alone that what they feel is real and they shouldn't discount it, but actually explore it. Have a laugh about it, not take it too seriously. Make something beautiful out of it, you know?

Yeah,

Courtney: We've touched a just a little bit on class and mm-hmm.  I guess growing up in a, a working class culture or household. And it's not a conversation we have very much in this context of making work and even being in this country. 

Laura Jean: Yeah. 

Courtney: How has that impacted on you in terms of [00:11:00] how you regard yourself as an artist and, and the work you're doing now?

Laura Jean: Yeah, it's something that's really intense and it's really, people don't like talking about it because we don't like to admit that we all struggle with different things and that not everyone is struggling with the same problems. I think people that might be supported by family money have their own problems.

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Laura Jean: My particular struggle with my background, I guess, is firstly I feel like some people that might have been raised with lots of resources think they're maybe possibly entitled to

Courtney: mm-hmm.

Laura Jean: oh yeah, I'm an artist, or I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a businesswoman. yeah, you know, that's me. Whereas for me, it's like, I don't feel entitled to that life. And I was so lucky to have a few people come into my life growing up that opened the door. But I guess the reason I identify as working class is cause my parents didn't go to uni and they [00:12:00] were nurses and my mum struggled with money and we struggled with housing. 

Laura Jean: We moved all around the Central Coast, Gosford Mooney Mooney, Terrigal So me and Erica, my sister, grew up we didn't have security. We moved all the time It's hard to explain, but We grew up around a lot of housing commission situations, so a lot of my friends parents were on welfare, stuff like that. So we grew up with this awareness of that. And then we also grew up with my Uncle Colin, like marrying Jane Campion. So, Jane mentored me from a young age and she said to me, you can be creative, you can be an artist. You're allowed to do this. My Mum and Dad wouldn't have told me that. So that was like life changing.

Courtney: Do you you remember that moment was it a little sprinkling of fairy dust?

Laura Jean: She would just say little things to me all the time. Like they got married when I was about nine or eight or something, and. she'd just be like, why don't you try this? [00:13:00] Why don't, why don't you do this?

Jane comes from a rich family and didn't really understand me and Erica's background. So she'd try and take us shopping and Erica and I are like what shopping, what do you do when you go shopping? Like for clothes? Like don't you just go to Salvos or like. And I remember Jane tells this hilarious story taking me and Erica shopping in some lovely boutique in Sydney, and she's like, all you guys wanted to do is go to Maccas, You just, you were real, we were intimidated because we, we grew up in a working class way. We, we, we didn't do nice things. That was a revelation. So me and Erica grew up exposed to all kinds of levels of wealth. Yeah. It's a long-winded story, but it goes into my identity. 

Courtney: Yeah. 

Laura Jean: And yeah, I feel like I have to work harder, it's like this thing of I can't just waft around and be an artist. I have to work my ass off. I've gotta treat it like a job in, in as much as I need [00:14:00] to work on it. if I'm writing a song, It's not just gonna happen. I have to like refine it and not just like in a cute way, like in a full on way. as in every day for months and months and months, I have to work on these songs. 

Courtney: I sometimes think of myself as a brick layer, just like I'm just laying down another word. I'm just laying down another sentence and not to tell some big story about it. Just a brick layer in the sun.

Laura Jean: Exactly. It's like you, from what the language available to your background, You know, my parents were nurses, so sometimes I feel like I'm in the healing practice. 

Courtney: Mm-hmm. 

Laura Jean: Because I'm, I'm making these concoctions, you know, and that's how I think about it sometimes too. 

Courtney: You are way beyond this. But there is something about the moment. Where you learn to take your ideas seriously. Can you describe that? Can you, does that

Laura Jean: it's like discovering a superpower. Yeah. Like when I started to [00:15:00] consciously work on my songwriting, I probably was subconsciously refining and working on my craft as a songwriter before this, but from about my fourth album, which is my self-titled album, that's when I started to go hang on, I've got a choice here. I don't have to live with that lyric. I don't have to live with this bit. I can be the listener and the writer and I can take out that bridge that doesn't feel right and I can put something in that I'd want to hear if I was listening to this And when I realised that I could make a song more effective with craft, it was like, oh shit. It felt amazing. And also bringing other people into the process is really important. I realized that I needed to bounce my songs off other people, for them to be better than I could get them, like Girls on the TV, was a very long process of saying to people, what do you think of this bit? And got really valuable feedback from lots of people about where they wanted it to go. Cause girls on the TV was just like a, a [00:16:00] line in the first verse and then Jess Cornelius from Teeth and Tongue said, oh, I really wanna hear girls on the TV again, that's a really good line. And I'm like, okay. And that's when I wrote the chorus. So bouncing off people is really important cuz it can take the song higher than you can take it yourself.

Courtney: And how do you know what feedback to take in and let go of

Laura Jean: It's more how do you know who to ask? It's like choosing who you ask carefully knowing that like Talia, my best friend and my sister Erica are my vibe checkers. So like they'll just straight out go, it's not fun. It's not like it's not working, it doesn't feel right. My sister really helped me out with, a funny thing happened I was getting a bit bogged down in all these little stories, and she's like, just say the big stuff, just say the money lines. Like just say, I'm gonna have an American baby, drop it and walk away. And I'm like, [00:17:00] cool. and Tali will just be like, oh yeah, you know, it's not working yet.

And then there's people like Aldous Harding, who's a very close friend. she'll help me with more specific things. Like, oh that's not it. Or That word isn't working. And same with Alex Gow from Oh Mercy. I'll often say, what's wrong with this line? And he's like, oh, it's cuz it's this cuz he's, he's a wordsmith.

You've gotta ask wordsmiths about the words, vibe, Smiths about the vibes. And you, you gotta know who to.

Hmm. And then you just trust them, 

Courtney: And is that something that gives you, I'm calling it courage and confidence to keep going and to go deeper in, you know, deeper into craft, deeper into yourself?

Laura Jean: Yeah. I think I'm a very relationship oriented person. my relationships are the most important thing in my life. My relationship with my friends, my family they are why I [00:18:00] do everything. Like they're just my guiding light. So involving them gives me courage because it makes me feel loved and supported and you need to feel that because out there in the wild, the wilds of Australian culture, working for three months refining one line in a song probably isn't given the support that, that your friends and family will give you on that, cuz they understand that you have to do it for whatever reason. That's just who you are.

Courtney: Mm-hmm. In terms of the, the work of songwriting and the mood state that you want to be in, do you prepare yourself to do that work 

Laura Jean: Yeah.

Courtney: what do you do?

Laura Jean: Well, I think a lot about how writing and being creative, it's not something that you just sit down and do. It's like making a garden. You can't just grow a flower,

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Laura Jean: have to prepare the soil for like months. people get into this productivity mindset like, I've gotta do something, I've gotta [00:19:00] produce something. That's not what being an artist is, it's not producing. It's a way of living. you have to live it. You gotta like sensitise yourself. And that's the biggest, the hardest thing about being an artist is committing to deciding to be open.

You've got to be affected. And to be affected means pain, it's kind of what people miss about the whole artist thing. It's not just, oh yes, I just made this and now I'm at my art exhibition opening and it's glory No, no, no To make that, that person had to cry and sit in a dark room and ask themselves some hard questions and miss work and offend someone and it's all pain. We all wanna avoid pain. So being an artist is actually putting yourself consciously in the way of some pain, so you can transmit that pain into something beautiful.

Any intensity you feel,[00:20:00] that's where beautiful things come from mm-hmm, if you decide you're gonna take that and put it into a painting or into a song, I don't know if I answered your question.

Courtney: It does, majestically, I would say but I wanna know more. 

Laura Jean: Yeah. 

Courtney: So is there a, is there an icon or an image that reminds you to, to keep that state.

Laura Jean: that's right. We're talking about state. So the way that I prepare. It happens automatically now cuz I've made, you know, I've been making songs since I was 16. And it's just the way I live now. I, I live in this songwriting cycle. So once I've finished a block of performing as I just have, I find it hard to write and perform. Like performing is its own thing. And I can't really take writing seriously when I'm trying to work up the courage to get up in front of people. But I've just finished a block of performing and now I can feel, Naturally feel my mind and heart opening. It's like I decide to pay attention [00:21:00] to everything.

You know, the other night I was just sitting at town hall station and this group of teenagers got off the train and there was something about the way they were walking, the way that they were dressed, they were holding these squidgy silver balloons that said one and nine, and that was kind of bumping through the, in industrial space of town hall.

And I'll just have a little tear. Mm-hmm. like, and I'll write a poem or I'll write it down like what I felt, or I'll just describe the situation and then wh when songs usually come out, I'm in like, semi trance state. So what I like to do is I put on free to air tele or 
something and I sit on the couch with my guitar in my lap and I just watch something shit on TV that I'm kind of like watching, but not really watching. And then I fiddle around with my guitar while I'm doing something else, but not, and that helps me, my conscious mind kind of get out of the way so my hands can go where they want to go.

I remember once I sitting there with my nephew and we're doing something and I was just playing guitar and I [00:22:00] wrote something that became a song. So it's like if, if I sit down and go, I'm going to write my guitar line now. No. No, that's just never happens. You've got to have your guitar just there all the time. I got it this morning actually, and last night my guitar's in the garage cuz I just got back from touring. I'm like, I gotta get my guitar out. Cause I'm getting that feeling again that I have to play I've got things I need to get out on the guitar. Yeah. I need to have it in my space.

I think it's important to have something to write on, just on the table around you at all times so you can just grab it and. go with your intuition and just play when you feel like it. some people do it a different way, like they have scheduled time, which can be really great too. But my personality's a bit looser and I just do it when I'm feeling this. It's a restless feeling. It's like a restless, emotional kind funny feeling that comes over me. 

Courtney: So this thing of love, the practice [00:23:00] of being an amateur.

Laura Jean: Mm-hmm.

Courtney: when you're describing the way you are in the world, who you are in the world, it sounds like the love for the work is innate.

How, how do you stay in love?

Laura Jean: So the

Courtney: with the work?

Laura Jean: so not so love for the work. As in the work process. So the process of the work or love for the work as it, when it's finished or, or more like love for the process? 

Courtney: Well. In my practice. So I'm revising a novel at the moment. Mm-hmm. And so my work cycles are that this is another cycling through a draft.

Laura Jean: Mm-hmm.

Courtney: and I'm really conscious of staying in love with the work because there's an exhaustion that can set in and, and that moment of going, I've gotta get it away from me. , you know,

Laura Jean: I know that so well.

Courtney: I'm done Like, leave me be. Yeah. So,

yeah, that's a long-winded way of [00:24:00] asking,

Laura Jean: that's ex, I totally now know what you mean. That's, yeah, it's like a long term relationship. It's a similar principle where you're in a relationship with this work and sometimes you just wanna leave it. You just wanna get out of there. And if you wanna stay with that work, you have to allow yourself to just leave inside for like a few days and give up.

Courtney: Mm. 

Laura Jean: It's okay to give up. 

Courtney: Mm. 

Laura Jean: Just don't erase the work. don't give up in a dramatic way. So don't erase all your demos and you know, paint over your painting. Just, it's an uncomfortable feeling because it means the work is still alive and it's still there. And sometimes all you wanna do is, is cut it

Courtney: up. Mm-hmm.

Laura Jean: so it doesn't exist anymore, and it's not this thing that's demanding something from you. So what I tend to do is live with the uncomfortable feeling of it not being finished, and I decide to give up for a few days and [00:25:00] it usually just takes like a few days of giving up before I wanna start working on it again.

 Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Laura Jean:  It's kind of like having space from someone you love, like someone you live with that you're in love with.

You know, sometimes you just need to be like, I'm having two days on my own, or whatever. And then you do that and you just wanna see them after two days. And all you need is just this conscious walking away and then you can walk back to 

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Laura Jean: love is, is walking back to them and not walking away, walking somewhere else, deciding that you're going to walk back to the work with all its flaws.

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Laura Jean: I stay in love with the work by imagining what I could do. Oh my God, Like, imagine the bass doing this here. Imagine the strings coming in here. Imagine what it could make people feel. Imagine the thrill of this song because I know that the, the emotion in the work is thrilling. So I just have to let that somehow get to that place where the song is channeling that [00:26:00] emotion efficiently so it thrills people, you know.

Courtney: Thank you. I just actually felt an energetic force filled, open up. I was like, I'm, I'm gonna travel far with that 

So I know that you've taught songwriting and you mentor songwriters.

Laura Jean: Mm-hmm.

Courtney: can you talk about that process and how you, impart this, what feels like hard won knowledge and wisdom. Like a lifelong, your own lifelong learning. How do you ever distill that? 

Laura Jean: I love teaching so much, and my years teaching at Melbourne Polytechnic was so informative for me as a songwriter, as well as hopefully for the students.

Basically I can't really teach them to be pop stars And I kind of do a disclaimer. I said, I'm, I'm here to teach you how to write a song that you feel as though is successful for you and that you've effectively communicated what you want to, I can't teach you how to be [00:27:00] really famous or successful in a money way.

So, prefacing that I've designed exercises and classes that help them investigate themselves and start looking at themselves objectively as a songwriter. Cause it's very easy when you're doing creative things to be really protective of every idea you have as though the idea is you so it's like some part of you and teaching them to detach themselves from their ideas.

And so the ideas can be worked on. You know, it's not, I'm not criticising you, I'm criticising this idea to try and make it more understandable so you can communicate with people. 

So it's as simple as that. And some of my students have, become amazing songwriters. I'm so proud.

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

in terms of the communities that you've reached and who have really embraced your, your music, being big in Melbourne, being famous, Mel, sorry Melbourne famous, [00:28:00] it's a thing. Yeah. Can tell, tell me about that?

Laura Jean: Oh look, I moved to Melbourne when I was 19 and started playing open mic nights and I got into the ears of Richard Moffat from Triple R, who had a show called Incoming and he also booked the Corner Hotel and he booked Falls Festival and was like a music industry person, so he started putting me on as support. And I made my first EP in 2003. I realized a shift when people could take something home and listen, As in I started releasing CDs that's when I started to build an audience and not just kind of play to the random people in the pub every time I did a gig. And from there, I guess people that started listening to me in the early two thousands, a lot of them have stayed with me, shown their friends, and so it's just become this very beautiful community of people that have been coming to see me play for almost 20 years. Apart from that, You know, Melbourne, as we all know, has such strong community radio, because of Triple R, people like me have been able to build a [00:29:00] really strong audience, just because people listen to it. It's amazing.

Courtney: The first time I saw you perform was at the Spanish Club.

Laura Jean: Oh, yep.

Courtney: And you had a full orchestra behind you.

Laura Jean: That was my first album launch.

Courtney: You walked out on stage, I think you had a flannelette shirt on, and then you just delivered this astonishing performance and it was a packed house.

And I remember being in the audience and just knowing that you would be an influence on my life and my creative world, and I am really so thrilled to be having this conversation with you. It could be like 15 years later possibly. 

Laura Jean: Ah, it, it's that was 2006, so it's 17 years.

Courtney: Nice. Well done.

Laura Jean: We're still here. Courtney.

Courtney: still standing. Thank you, Laura. Jean. 

Laura Jean: Pleasure.[00:30:00] 

Courtney: There is so much to love about Laura Jean. If you haven't listened to her albums, listen to them now. Devotion and the track Girls on the TV is my absolute favourite.

After this interview was recorded, Laura Jean shared some of the things that help her do the work. And you can find those by following us on Instagram at Are You Still Working?! where you can stay connected to creative prompts and other episode highlights. Are you still working is an independently produced podcast by me, Courtney Collins and produced by Lisa Madden.

If you enjoyed listening, you can support us by reviewing it and telling all your friends. Till next time.