ANGIE HART [03:10:07] ALL HART Occasionally taking mouthfuls of her soggy cereal as it dwindles before her, Angie Hart is now home in the familiar surroundings of Melbourne. After living in Los Angeles for nine years, she has embarked on the biggest journey of her illustrious career, her debut solo album. With an already decorated music career, most notably her collaboration with Simon Austin in Frente, Angie is of course no stranger to the music industry. Yet despite her experience, her first solo effort has stood as a scary proposition. So why exactly has it taken over five years for the album's release? “Fear,” admits Angie, “it just took me a really long time to know what it was that I wanted to put out.” Every time the wheels would get moving, Angie reveals that she was quick to slam on the brakes. “I would kind of have a panic attack, and spend my time doing something else for a few months, and then get back in and start writing again. I just didn't have a clear picture, so it was really just about keeping on trying to make the album and the rest would come, and it did.” Plagued by tenuous writing partnerships involving boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, and husbands, Angie's music had been born out of strained relationships. Now, writing music by herself and for herself, it was this un-paralleled freedom that Hart found difficult. “There's that moment of realising that there's nobody to answer to and you're not going to have to negotiate it,” she explains. “Some of my creative process used to come out of a reactionary place, really bucking against whatever the other person was coming up with. To not have that rebellion and to have it all in agreement, that put me at a standstill for a while in itself - just nothing to rebel against … I was spoiled for choice. I didn't know what that was because I'd been so busy fighting against somebody else's ideas.” Now, starting back at the bottom of the music scene after her successes with Frente, and to a lesser extent Splendid, Angie is prepared to put in the hard yards to gain recognition. It's a maturity often not found in music, an acknowledgement that appreciation is earned and fame is fleeting. “In the time I've been doing music the one thing that I've learned is that it's very inconsistent,” says Hart. “Your music, one day it all means something very big, and another day it means that you better buckle down and do a lot of work.” Nate Shea 'Grounded Bird' is out now through ABC Music / Warner Music Australia. Angie plays The Zoo on Friday October 12. back to top ^

BACK TO ARCHIVED INTERVIEWS