Tobias Broughton, Omni Anti

Tobias Broughton is the MC in Brisbane’s Omni Anti, who are a mini-orchestra playing jazzy hip hop.

Do you come from a musical family?

TOBIAS BROUGHTON: My grandfather was extremely musical. He was the head of music at Brisbane Boys Grammar for like 25 years and was at one point the head of Music, French and English. They used to do that kind of thing to people in those days, classes of 40 and all of that, but he was the Master of Music and he was the organ player for churches. He was the one who gave me piano lessons, which is why I can write with Johnno [Jonathan Bolt, keyboardist/saxophonist] musically, because he taught me how to do that so I guess he’s the biggest musical influence in my life. There’s one more, my grandmother who was a violin player. My sister’s inherited her violin and I’ve bought a viola and we just love the sound of it. She was a big influence, she was the opposite of my grandfather who was a stern cat. She played by ear, she never read music or anything. That’s more what I do I suppose. I really play by ear. Johnno’s the technician.

Your day job is as a teacher as well, just like your grandfather.

TB: Yeah, yeah, for the same reason you know. Either love or necessity and usually a good measure of both. Music’s necessary although there’s no filthy lucre in it, it’s not lucrative at all, not at this stage anyway in the really pointy end. We get riders and people being nice to us and getting to engage with cool people asking us questions.

Elana Stone

Elana Stone is an award-winning jazz vocalist, leader of the Elana Stone Band (who are a bit jazz-rock, only not in the lame way you're imagining), winner of the Rockwiz trivia competition and member of Jackson Jackson's backing choir, the Jackson Jackson 5. She’s also sister to Jake Stone from the band Bluejuice, who is about as disgustingly talented as she is.

Do you come from a musical family?

ELANA STONE: Not any more than anyone else I don’t think. Like, our parents, they’ve both got normal jobs. My dad’s pretty eccentric.

Eccentric?

ES: He’s sort of like, I dunno, just a bit European. He’s a bit passionate, sort of like an old Yiddish grandma. He used to burst into tears when we’d do things well, like put a bike into a car efficiently... He introduced us to music he loved, which wasn’t so left-of-centre. It was the Beatles and Police, Paul Simon, so it was like pretty much just ’80s music – pop music. As kids we did a lot of performing at home. My sister’s an actress and we used to make radio shows and write songs and we had a little kiddie band, but we only played La Bamba and I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Jake played drums in that and I sang and my sister played tambo or something. We definitely like do a lot of performing, but probably the same amount as any other family. But yeah, we kind of developed more interest in it later when we were in high school and Jake really suddenly got seriously into music, ’cause he was always a writer and a standup comedian. He just suddenly became a rock star and I’ve been doing it forever. It was quite a shock to me, I was like, ‘Oh shit!’

Did you have some sibling jealousy?

ES: God yeah. Like, I mean, it’s quite confronting – Jake’s brilliant, he’s a smart guy, unstoppably charismatic, he’s probably my favourite live performer, like I just I think that energy he creates on stage is so incredible and that’s just him. He’s not doing anything unnatural. He’s just a little bit manic and I think I’m a little bit more even keel. I think his live energy is a lot to do with why the band is so great and also ’cause, you know, Vitriol and the videos that they’ve made and stuff like that. I’ve come from a more sort of weird purist angle from studying jazz and really studying music. I think we’ve taught each other a lot. He’s taught me a lot about writing pop songs and thinking about things in a more succinct way.