Caitlin Park on Song Summit and songwriting
Sydney's Caitlin Park is hard to pigeon-hole. A classically-trained saxophonist turned neo-folkie, her music owes as much to The Books as it does to friend and fellow Sydney songwriter, Holly Throsby. Park's music is both cinematic — in scope and palette — and startlingly personal. She is releasing her debut on Broken Stone Records later this year and is one of only a few young songwriters in Australia chosen to attend this year's Song Summit.
You've been chosen by Triple J Unearthed as the NSW representative at Song Summit this weekend. For the readers who maybe feel like this sounds more like Olympics than songwriting, what exactly does it entail?
Triple J Unearthed have picked a couple of songwriters from around Australia to participate in a songwriting workshop and discussion, this coming Monday. Julian Hamilton from the Presets, Megan Washington and Bob Evans will be talking about their approach to songwriting - the heavy emphasis is on 'the song' here people! As well as this workshop, over the weekend there will be talks, workshops and presentations by well known artists and industry folk.
How long have you been writing music for? Do you have a particular approach, or do songs come out just when the mood strikes you? Details, please:
Music, in general, I've been playing with since I was much younger, but the music I write now, I starting experimenting with about four or five years ago. There's definitely an approach to these things - I love old film and soundtrack, and I usually write a song with the idea of it following moving images like film does, using dialogue and sound effects as well. But yes, sometimes things come out when the mood strikes - sometimes when I'm walking down the street and I have to sing into my phone to try and remember it.
Name three Sydney songwriters who have been instrumental/influential in your development as a songwriter.
Those three would be Aidan Roberts - who is a great friend of mine and an amazing songwriter - he writes beautiful folk songs and has a stunning voice. Aidan and I often sing together cause our voices match quite nicely. Holly Throsby and I have been good friends for years, we both worked in the same video store and I used to borrow films off her when I was in my teens. Holly has been extremely instrumental in the development of my songwriting, as a friend and as somebody I have always looked up to. She asked me to do some backing vocals on a track on her new record that will come out sometime soon - that was a lot of fun and the first time we had sung together. Rand and Holland are a Sydney band I listened to a lot as I begun writing songs, I loved the way they made folk songs build with the adding of instrument after instrument, brett had such a listenable voice as well. They played a lot of live shows then, and I think those shows were very influential in my songwriting. Writing a song is one thing, but i think performing it is another.
Tell us a little bit about your upcoming release for Broken Stone Records.
There will be two releases with Broken Stone this year which is very exciting. A 7 inch vinyl, hopefully coming out in the next couple of months, and a record towards the end of the year.
What are you thoughts on Sydney as a breeding ground for young creatives?
Sydney has many, many young creatives and I think for this reason, clearly it is a breeding ground. I don't think creativity in Sydney is particularly encouraged as much as it should be - and that leaves many a disgruntled youth. But maybe this breeds it.
You can listen to tracks by Caitlin Park, including latest single 'Warriors With Wild Hearts', on MySpace.
Published on June 18, 2010 by
Lucinda Hearn
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