NIDALA
Last month NIDALA released her 100% carbon-neutral EP Colours of My People. Born of the Djugun people of the coastal Kimberley, now living on Bundjalung country, Byron Bay, NIDALA blends perfectly together indie-rock, blues roots and soul. Hazy Days Music would like to thank NIDALA for taking the time out and having a chat.
NIDALA, could you share a little bit about your music background and how you started this project?
I've grown up around music my whole life, my dad is a musician, so I've been dropped into the live music scene from a very young age and toured the world with him from when I was four years old.
It’s funny because I had a lot of resistance towards it. I suppose a lot of children who have hippy types of parents seek out structure. I went to school and uni. I studied Human Rights Law, moved to New York, and worked at the United Nations. I had this big urge to help change the world, whatever it may be. But then it just felt so soul-draining and tiring. I felt so disempowered. It was exhausting.
I remembered watching my dad and how his music affected all these people. I thought, hmmm, there is something in that.
Throughout my life, I have always kept playing music almost every day. My first single, Howl At The Moon, I wrote for my friend's birthday. I was like, look; if I’m going to do music and actively step into it, I should understand how this all works. I recorded Howl At The Moon in our garden shed and did everything on my own. I didn’t even know what mixing and mastering were until my second EP, so I'm not sure how I got away with that, haha.
From there, little by little, it all kind of lined up to the point one day, where I was gardening with a friend, and she mentioned this project called the Tambah Project. A song for the earth was the idea at the time, and asked me if I would be interested? At this point, I had some resistance to it, like, are you just asking me because I am an aboriginal woman? Because the two other artists you have asked are two major dudes, and then there is little old me with one song out with two thousand streams. I was quite reticent, is this tokenism? But I am so glad I accepted because this is where all of the EP started. I was walking into the studio thinking, damn, I can do this, and it’s not as unattainable as I thought it was.
I really like your latest single, Said Too Much. What was the inspiration behind this song?
It's funny, I thought Said Too Much was a bit of a silly song at first. I wasn't entirely sure that/how it fits in with my carbon-neutral EP. And if I'm writing these songs about mental health, chronic pain, addiction, aboriginal people and breaking stereotypes, and then I have this one song about dating, does that work?
But then it all just came to such an important point one day. I think we all can often get so caught up in the seriousness of it all; whether it be about the writing or creating the instrumentation, you can forget to do something just for fun and enjoy it.
That became the inspiration, not just for this track but how we shaped and grew with my band, lets just make things that seem uncomfortable feel good and playful. That's why I chose to make this my last single before the release of the EP. The first song, One Of Those Days, was the closest to what I had released previously, a slower ballad, very directly around lethargy and poor mental health. And before I drop something else on addiction and stereotypes, I wanted to take a breath, make it fun, it's ok, and we can dance it out and shake it off before the next step.
It must feel great releasing your EP, Colours of My People. When did the idea to make a carbon-neutral EP begin? How did you find the process?
It's been a long time and a real culmination of so much work. It was a gradual process in the sense of directly integrating music with sustainability and being carbon neutral. It first started with the Tambah Project, and when I arrived at the Rockinghorse Studio with Kyle Lionhart and Billy Otto. The idea of carbon-neutral music wasn't there yet. They were looking for artists to write a song and have the streams go towards planting trees. Let's try and make a track for the planet and write whatever we think the world needs right now. We saw working with people in sustainability this is what it would take to make it neutral, and anything above that was an extra.
I really got stuck on that idea of carbon-neutral music, and if I wanted my music to do good for the planet, then it can't start in a deficit. Like it can't already cost the earth, because then it's just the whole "saviour thing" of you thinking you are doing good, but you're actually standing in the way. So if I actually wanted to create something good for the planet, that has to be my minimum, and my minimum standard has to start at neutral.
That was a big part of it. I was talking about it to my community and my amazing team behind me, who have helped me fund and understand the logistics of it all.
At first, I wasn't too sure how to blend in carbon neutrality without the aim of the EP shifting the way we think about aboriginal people to something less stereotypical and more inclusive.
I wasn't sure entirely how it made sense together, but I just felt that it did.
Then one day, one thing clicks, and all of a sudden, it all lines up. This is reconciliation. This is a custodianship to maintain, take care and protect. How can we do the things we love while asserting custodianship in the world?
The music video you made for Colours of My People is incredible. Who did you work with? And how was it to film on the day?
The whole process was unreal, to be honest, whether it was recording the music or the video. Though, I was arguably a bit of pain in the arse with who I worked with on this EP.
The aim of Colours of My People is to create reconciliation, and I mean that. Reconciliation with ourselves, the community and with our environment. The process itself is just as important as the output, so every step of the way, it was always about can we work with a shared intention? Whether the sound engineers, the guitarist or my production manager for the music video, it couldn't just be a technicality, like, ok cool, you are just going to do this to check it off the list.
It was always centred around how do we include reconciliation. And take ownership of our custodian status in this world every step of this process?
So when it came to making this music video, it was chaotic. (As everything seemed to be, haha).
Freya Haley (The director) is a great friend of mine and has been involved with the project since the very beginning. Freya actually came to me wanting to create a video for Colour of My People. I wasn’t planning on making a music video. Over dinner one night, she said, Nidala, I think custodianship takes form in my visual art, and I would like to do that for your project.
It all started with that conversation before any of the creative directions were decided. It was about the amplification of indigenous voices. It was about custodianship. It was about responsibility for a shared message. It was about the link.
And for me, that was the most beautiful part. Then another friend of mine, Chantelle, jumped on board as the production manager. And It was the same with the dancers. All three are aboriginal dancers living locally on Bundjalung land. We had a smoking ceremony from the local Aunties who came down and blessed us all before we started filming.
This was a really important part of the video. Everyone gifted their time and skills throughout the whole process. The amount of generosity has been so overwhelming. None of my musicians got paid, none of the team, anyone, and I tried, and they refused; they were happy too. I haven't taken any money from it either; it's all funnelled back into the project.
There is really this idea of the process over content.
We are still in the process of planting the last of the trees; Covid has made it really difficult to get the volunteers out there and plant the 200 trees.
40% of this is going to funding further projects, 20% goes to community building projects mostly on indigenous land, and another 20% goes to carbon capturing, so soil building, seaweed projects, all that kind of thing.
The video itself was so much fun to film, it was freezing cold, and I did end up with borderline hypothermia. There is a scene where I’m rising out of the lake, we had to film that for like an hour in the dead of winter. Most people in Byron Bay wouldn't flinch at that, but on a ten-degree day, in cold water for that long is quite a lot. It was so much fun.
What advice can you share if somebody else would like to embark on a carbon-neutral project of their own? And where is the best place to start?
At the moment, it is really, really complicated. I have the benefit of a master’s degree in Sustainability, so I was already very well entrenched in that kind of idea. I worked for Greenpeace for a long time, and even with all that, it was incredibly hard.
That’s because carbon neutrality is a murky science at best.
At the moment, we don’t have any kind of accurate data, and we don’t have any set parameters, and the parameters are where I would get most people to start thinking about: What is it that you are including and not including? And though that seems straightforward, that’s actually really intense.
Here is an example looking at your recording process.
There are the obvious ones of band members, all the tech, driving to and from the studio, to and from rehearsal, the power you are using from the day. But then what about the emails? What about the power recorded to store the data? The meetings you have with the publicist? The meetings like this one right now? What about the food we ate? Do you include the clothes you wear? The guitars you were playing? Guitar leads?
What are the parameters?
That bit is arguably what takes the most time. That took me six months to figure out, spending two days a week on it making a spreadsheet. I was lucky to have a friend of mine, Jake Taylor (In Hearts Wake). Who gave me quite a lot of help in bringing in the parameters.
He is actually working on creating a platform, with a few others, where artists will be able to put in the info, and it'll help set some parameters, and it'll give you a number of the output.
Say if you entered guitar strings, it'll tell you the info, and they will take care of planting the trees.
So there is definitely a really big rise at the moment. I don't know if there is anywhere specific to look at right now, but certainly, within the next few years, there will be some super bright platforms that are user-friendly for artists.
If you do want to get started now, start with your parameters. Start with how do I include traceability into my lifestyle.
You need to come up with the data. It’s much easier to figure out the carbon footprint of a guitar made in Australia than a guitar made in a factory overseas. Simply because you can calculate the distance yourself, you know it’s either travelled by road or train. Work with brands that are transparent, start to lay the groundwork, so when you go to do your parameters, the data is there.
It’s been great chatting. Can we catch you playing anywhere soon?
I’ve been playing a lot of online shows recently and I actually have a tour planned for October, but because of Covid, a few of those dates have been taken out/postponed. I’m currently in discussions with the Department of Justice to see if I can tour and play some shows at women's prisons.
I’m just going to play it by ear and see when there is a little opportunity to play live.
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