Imogen Clark & Ali Barter Interview Each Other Ahead Of Annual Holiday Hootenanny Gig

Imogen Clark and Ali Barter have a lot in common – the two indie-rockers didn’t let the pandemic squash their creativity, releasing their new EPs Bastards and Chocolate Cake last before the lockdowns, and now gearing up for their return to the road in January. 

They’ll be kicking it off with the same gig – Clark’s second Annual Holiday Hootenanny, a show featuring an awesome line-up of guests joining the Western Sydney rocker and her band to collab on her songs, their songs and special surprise covers. 

This year the line-up includes Barter, Anita Lester, Dan Kelly, Eilish Gilligan, Gretta Ray, I Know Leopard and Mo’Ju and will take place at St Kilda’s Prince Bandroom on Saturday 8 January with tickets available here.

The two singer-songwriters caught up on Gravy Day for a chat about the upcoming shows, making music over Zoom, Christmas music, artists they love, old songs that hit different and what they’re most proud of achieving in 2021.

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Imogen: Have you gotten to see any live shows in the gaps between lockdowns?

Ali: I think the only live show that I've been to is my husband [Holy Holy’s Oscar Dawson], because I played it. I saw it four times because of playing two shows a night. Queen P who supported him, she’s a rapper and a pop artist, she was amazing, so fresh and fun and awesome. What about you – did you get to see anything great this year?

Imogen: Thelma Plum and Kira Puru at the Enmore just blew me away. I hadn’t seen them live before, loved their music and it was so amazing to be back in that venue for the first time in two years, where I’ve seen so many of my favourite shows, and their tour had been rescheduled so many times, it just felt incredible that the show was even happening. That was my favourite show of this year. I’m so excited for you to be a part of my show in a couple of weeks, I can’t wait to play with you and all the other amazing guests.

Ali: I'm so excited to play. You'll be my first gig since lockdown. And at the Prince Bandroom, where I was a true scumbag as a young person! I can walk you through the toilets and remember all the times I did terrible things… what a perfect place to play Ur A Piece Of Shit with you… I’m very excited. 

Imogen: I can’t wait to relive those scumbag memories with you! Is there anyone else on the bill you are excited to watch?

Ali: Anita Lester supported me years and years ago, and I’m so excited to reconnect with her and see her play for the first time in ages. It’s so great to be a part of this show and this line-up – what was the original idea behind it and how did you put this line-up together?

Imogen: When we did the first one last year, it was really a celebration of connection, how we as musicians had been so isolated from each other because of COVID, something where I could bring a bunch of people together to collaborate and celebrate live music and what a privilege it is to be able to play live, and create unique moments that are only going to exist on this one night.

Really it’s the same thing this time around, we’ve all had one of the worst years of our lives, we haven’t been together, we haven’t been able to play, this is a way to bring people from different kinds of music together to mix it up, create new versions of their songs, do these special covers. It’s really just all people I admire, some I’m mates with, some I’m just a fan of, but all people whose energy and talent I love and wanted to steal a bit of, and find a way of melding the more live indie rock thing I do with people like Eilish Gilligan and Mo’Ju whose music is more electronic. It’s almost like a condensed mini-festival with a variety of people playing with me on the show.

You also put out your Chocolate Cake EP in April. Was it weird putting a record out and not being able to tour behind it?

Ali: I recorded that remotely last year during lockdown with a friend in LA who I’d always wanted to work with. It was a bizarre experience. I love the songs, but maybe they’re only meant to exist as they are and not get toured, and I’m just moving on with the next thing. They’re all really weird, sound is different, but I think this is such a moment in time and everything just exists in that context. I guess you had a similar situation with your Bastards EP which came out in May?

Imogen: We had really similar experiences, I think. I’d started a couple of tracks in LA pre-COVID, but most of this record was done remotely with my producer and engineer in LA on Zoom and me here in Sydney doing it remotely, and the whole tour behind it has moved from August to November to now January. It’s such a weird thing that we’ve gotten used to, because I never would’ve thought to or wanted to make a record in this way pre-COVID. 

Ali: Yeah, only if you were making hip hop or electronic, not so much in the indie world. It’s almost like The Postal Service, that supergroup with Ben Gibbard from Death Cab For Cutie. That was like the analogue version of this, they literally sent tapes back and forth to each other and made the record that way.

Imogen: That’s almost more like how I wrote my Christmas single that’s just come out When Can I Touch You Again?. It was written piece by piece like a relay, starting with my friend Luke Davison from The Preatures who plays drums with me live – he wrote a drum part and recorded it, then we sent it to Mike Bloom in LA who produced my last two EPs and he put down a guitar part and so on, then Anita Lester and I wrote the lyrics right at the end.

Ali: And you worked on this with Oscar, right? He’s working all the time, he never tells me anything, so you need to fill me in.

Imogen: [laughs] Yeah, it was awesome to work with him. We’d written together before so I knew him and loved his work with you and with Alex Lahey, but this was the first time he’d produced anything for me and I’m so stoked with how it came out. We’re talking on Gravy Day and my favourite Christmas song is How to Make Gravy. I always take that as a template when I write my own Christmas songs, trying to make the songs about the human connection during the holidays rather than all the twee stuff like reindeer and toys and presents, more about humans coming together and intimacy and relationships. Obviously, this one is super relevant with all the people who have been separated from those they love and are spending their first Christmases together in a long time this year.

Ali: That’s awesome, I’m putting this on my Christmas playlist for Christmas day. I love holiday songs. I wrote a Halloween song once which I love but it’s never seen the light of day. 

Imogen: What are you proudest of this year – this weird, compromised year?

Ali: To be honest, even though of course I’m proud of the EP, I think what I’m proudest of is being the majority of the way through a psychology degree, and I’m learning Hindi. I know it should be music, but this hasn’t been the funnest time to make music, and I’m proud I found something else to put my energy into that’s made me happy.

Imogen: That’s fantastic!

Ali: What about you?

Imogen: I think I feel kind of the same. I’m so proud of Bastards and being able to put that out, but really I’m just proud of surviving. It’s been such a savage year for my mental health, probably the worst of my entire life. So I’m just proud of dealing with that and trying to take care of myself. Just getting through it and now looking ahead to next year. How are you feeling about that? I know you’re getting ready to go out on tour again.

Ali: That’s so true. It’s made me reassess and I guess think about how I don’t want to just do things the same way anymore; I’m going to play my songs differently, look at my show differently. The whole world turned upside down, things shouldn’t just be the same. I’m not going to just ramble off the top of my head, I’m going to tell a story through my songs, which is something I’ve always wanted to do.

Imogen: These are solo shows – do you prefer that or playing with the band?

Ali: I like them both for different reasons, but at the moment, just me and my songs I feel more in control, like at the moment I would just get lost in all the sound and I wouldn’t connect with the songs. But I’m really looking forward to playing Ur A Piece of Shit with you and your band at this show.

Imogen: I think we’re having the same experience from different directions. I love playing solo, but I think because it’s been the majority of my shows pre-COVID, I’m loving embracing the bigness of the band and the power of that sound, making the show more explosive and aggressive.

Ali: That’s awesome, I’m so excited to watch you at the gig. 

Imogen: It’s gonna be so fun.

What I was gonna ask is, are there any songs you wrote pre-COVID that just hit different now with everything we’ve all been through?

Ali: There’s a song I wrote called January. It’s about when things become like Groundhog Day, the New Year comes around again and you realise you’re making the same resolutions as last year and nothing’s changed. I feel like that hits differently because we literally went nowhere physically last year and I just had to sit in all this stuff I couldn’t change. It wasn’t just feeling like that, it was a pandemic. Do you have a song like that?

Imogen: I wrote a song called The Making Of Me in 2019, which at that point was the toughest year of my life. I was stranded overseas, reeling from a long-term relationship falling apart, exhausted from this marathon tour through Europe and second-guessing every decision I’d ever made. One night, I just sat down at my friend’s piano and this song poured out, about how if I could just make it through this year, I’d be so much stronger for having survived it. Now when I play it live, I just think about all the people in the audience who have had the worst one or two years of their lives, healthcare workers or people in our industry or casuals and people with small businesses… It’s just taken on a completely different meaning.