This week I spoke to Taasha Coates of ‘The Audreys’ about their upcoming tour dates in Tasmania and their new album ‘Til my tears roll away’. Taasha tells me that ‘The Audreys’ have been to Tasmania numerous times, most recently in January for the Ten Days on the Island festival, the middle of last year at the Republic Bar and at Launceston, in fact they wrote a song during the sound check at the Republics Bar and the working title was ‘The Republic Bar Blues’ or in search of a better title! Taasha says she really enjoys getting to Tasmania and calls it ‘Sydney without all the people and traffic’ and finds it calmer than the mainland.
The band has strong links to Tasmania, as the other half of ‘The Audreys’ Tristan Goodall, spent some of his childhood in Georgetown, with his dad a school principal.
I ask Taasha how the band came up with the name ‘The Audreys’ and she tells me there is no exciting story about it’s name, it was just picked from the ‘list’ as a title that appealed to them. Sometimes, when curious people want and hope for something more in the name of the band, she and Tristan will say the it is named after their grandmothers! Audrey does translate as meaning strong and noble and ‘The Audreys’ songs are most definitely strong so the name was indeed, subconsciously a fitting choice.
We chat about the new single ‘Till my tears roll away’ and the clip made at home, that features a white cat, or as some fans have mentioned on social media the ‘token’ white cat. Again,Taasha hates to disappoint but the white cat does not have any special significance or symbolic meaning such as being the negative of the black cat and so representing ‘good luck or optimism’, which ironically again, it might subconsciously mean, considering the song is talking about strength after a broken romance. The cat is in fact, Taasha’s very own ‘Ricky Lee’, named after Ricky Lee Jones, who, Tasha said ‘just got in the way.’ the song is interestingly inspired by a children’s ‘silly song’ about ‘waving one’s arms in the air’.
Taasha is also involved in teaching song writing master classes and one of the thing she stresses with her students is not to attempt to tell their whole life story in one song but spread different ideas over different songs. It is a fact that songs with too much going on can drive people away as many people do not have the attention spans required for a ‘busy’ song.
Below are the dates for the Tasmanian leg of the ‘Till my tears roll away’ national tour:
Thu June 26, Fresh, Launceston, TAS
http://www.moshtix.com.au/v2/event/the-audreys-duo/71143
Fri June 27, Tapas Lounge Bar, Devonport, TAS
http://www.moshtix.com.au/v2/event/the-audreys-duo-devonport/71518
Sat June 28, Republic Bar, Hobart, TAS
http://www.moshtix.cvom.au/v2/event/the-audreys/70964
Paula Xiberras
