Guy Pratt

Guy Pratt is a bass player who has worked with practically everyone, including Pink Floyd (as well as Floyd guitarist David Gilmour’s solo project), Madonna, Icehouse, Michael Jackson, Roxy Music, The Orb, The Smiths and, yeah, everyone. He’s also turned the stories of rock excess he picked up along the way into both a book and a stand-up comedy routine.

Do you come from a musical family?

GUY PRATT: It had been. My dad was a songwriter, although that was before I was born. He was Lionel Bart’s partner and he wrote all of Tommy Steele’s early hits, the first English rock & roll songs. And then he was an actor so the music had kind of petered out by the time I came along.

That’s a pretty good musical lineage though.

GP: Yeah!

Have you found your family a good source of comedy material? I mean, are you tempted to work them in alongside the stories of rock & roll debauchery?

GP: No, that’s not really what I do. There’s certainly a couple of stories in my book regarding them. When I had this sort of 'the prodigal son returns' homecoming when Pink Floyd played Wembley Stadium my grandmother, who lives in Cypress, came over for the show and she’d had days of people patronising her, going, ‘You know, Maria, you won’t like it very much but they’re the best at what they do and you should be very proud of Guy.’ Of course she went to the gig and absolutely loved it and managed to run through security and get hold of David Gilmour as he came off the stage and she trapped him and shouted, ‘I didn’t think it was a terrible racket at all!’

Tomek Archer, Van She

Van She are a dancey electropop band with a strong ’80s influence and the synth turned way up high.

Do you come from a musical family?

TOMEK ARCHER: Yeah, I guess so, but in kind of a different way to some people. My parents didn’t have any pop records or anything like that at all. Mum listened to a lot of jazz and both parents played a bit of piano, but it was just like, you know, tinkering and classical stuff. So it wasn’t like I grew up listening to Dark Side Of The Moon or other kind of seminal ’70s records like a lot of other people did. I kind of grew up listening to the radio. I got pushed into playing music when I was really young and sent to piano lessons since I was four and that kind of stuff. I dunno. I didn’t really get guided into following their taste in music, put it that way.

Do your parents listen to your music a lot?

TA: I doubt it [laughs]. I don’t know. They’ve got the record. I don’t know, they never mention it really. They’re always interested to hear what we’re doing, but I don’t know.

Jessica Mauboy

Jessica Mauboy was runner-up in Australian Idol 2007. As often happens, she wound up with more of a career than the actual winner.

“They love country. My first tastings of music was country, so you know like Patsy Cline. I was very American-influenced, so a lot of Alan Jackson, Shania Twain, all that kind of stuff. I grew up listening to a lot of storytelling from my grandparents and a lot of the Aboriginal side, my mum, nanna and grandad. That’s kind of been my upbringing, listening to a lot of music. But I have a 29-year-old sister who got me into the all the 2pac, ghetto gangsta stuff and then you’ve got my little sister listening to pop and the new techno stuff, so it’s a range of things that I’m listening to.”

Do your parents listen to your music?

“Oh yeah, they’re the first ones to hear my music and I always go to them first with ideas to tell me if it’s good or not, which is great because they never lie to me.”

And if they don’t like it, it must be easier to hear that from them.

“They’re very honest, so I’m used to them saying, ‘No, that sucks.’”