FREAK OF THE WEEK
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Photography by: Dane Singleton
La Niña foiled our original plans with Chloe Dadd. We wanted to play into Chloe’s upbringing, pay homage to her roots in Milton, planning to do a photoshoot at McRyan Park. Our iconic Freak armchair was supposed to be in the park, Chloe nestled in it with the rolling farm hills behind her. It would have been a glorious shot if it wasn’t a measly 13°C and absolutely pouring with rain.
Growing up one of Chloe’s favourite places to play was at the Harvest Bar in Milton. However, since her time playing there Harvest Bar had moved out to Croobyar Road and Seeking Serendipity had taken its place. Thinking on our feet we asked the owner Sarah if she would mind an impromptu photoshoot in her venue to which she quickly replied she wouldn’t mind, in fact, she would love it.
Across the back wall of the bar, there is a bright yellow neon sign lighting up the dark space “You are exactly where you need to be” and it felt that way as I watched Chloe relax into her poses for our photographer Dane. There was an easy rapport between the two, knowing each other from the wedding circuit years back.
Moving on from local venues, Chloe now lives and works in the inner western suburbs of Sydney. Not only is she a musician but she’s completely immersed herself in the scene, working at Golden Retriever Studios in Marrickville as a recording engineer, producer and mixing engineer. The combination of her talent and attitude has led Chloe to work with some of the nations biggest stars, including Courtney Barnett and Lime Cordiale and is currently the lead guitarist of rising star MAY-A.
It surprised me to find out Chloe was only 22 years old. I’d never officially met Chloe but found her demeanour to be easy and calm as our conversation began to unfold.
That’s awesome.
More permanently I’m playing for MAY-A. She’s awesome and we have built this really cool band with her and do heaps of shows. That’s a lot of my time.
That’s pretty big too. I was listening to some of the songs and they get flogged on Triple J. It’s real boppy and really nice.
I totally love the music and everything she stands for as well. It’s really good to be a part of that journey and it’s just growing bigger
and bigger.
Was that a hired-gun position that you stuck around for? Or you were in the formation of it?
More of an original thing. Maya and her team wanted to curate a band of all-female and/or non-binary people. They wanted to create a unit that grows together rather than just playing single shows.
Like a team.
Absolutely.
I was looking at some really cool performance shots, I thought this is my scene, it’s a good vibe! You’re also in Fi-Ka?
Yeah, we haven’t done much in a while as we have all been doing our own thing. We were together since high school.
So locals?
Yep, we all grew up here, went to high school. Played everyone’s 18th’s who we were friends with. Even our year 12 formal. Chucked a bunch of amps on stage and went wild.
Then you do your own solo stuff as well?
Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of solo stuff this year, a lot of recording and mixing in the studio. It’s good to have that space to work on my own stuff. All of my worlds are very integrated and that’s how I like it, and it’s constantly evolving. Finding more people and my community broadening. It’s really good. Even though the community is growing in Sydney, you ask anybody about down here [Ulladulla] and they know about it, or somebody who is down here. Everyone is kind of connected in a long-shot way to here anyway.
Sometimes a hard question, but I want to know what you define as success for yourself?
Obviously it’s different from person to person. Personally, I don’t have a benchmark or anything, it’s not like a shelf type thing for me. It’s purely within, how fulfilled I am in that time.
Like how you feel?
Like being busy, making connections, building a community and just seeing that grow. I think that’s success to me personally. I have a trajectory that I can see myself going along in life but there’s no destination kind of thing. As long as I am doing things that I enjoy and it’s pushing me and my work.
Do you feel successful now?
In myself, I would say it feels successful to be growing but I would never be like “I am a successful person” I don’t necessarily think I’ve obtained success, but that is just a personal thing.
I think to be working in that industry, doing your own stuff and being a part of a community, at least for me, is pretty successful. Especially because you’re 22!
No matter what age there are still people that obtain success and sit on it. Success for me is always being hungry and never reaching the benchmark - ever. I think that’s what keeps me going rather than deters me. The thought you’ll never reach true success because there will always be something bigger you want to achieve.
I agree. It’s definitely a hunger but it’s good to be able to reflect as well.
It’s so important. Otherwise, it can make you so blind that you’re running towards this thing and then it gets you in this constant pull between have I achieved anything or haven’t I?
Especially with social media.
Definitely agree. It takes a lot of self-control to not let it get to your head too much. Even little things - like I’ll see someone online with some sort of plugin and then I think “I need to download it! I’m not good until I get that plugin!” You’ve got to get out of that mentality, that obtaining what other people have will make you as successful as them.
It comes back to what we were talking about before - Music for me when I was young was purely for enjoyment and for creating an atmosphere, then at 14 that competition really opened my eyes to the parts of the industry that are about competition and comparison. It should really be like it was before then, which was pure enjoyment.
It’s hard when you have to sustain yourself. When your craft becomes your job, inevitably there are things you have to do that you don’t want to, whether it’s admin or networking. It’s trying to find those spots of enjoyment. I often find talking to people reignites
my spark.
As creatives, and I’m sure other industries as well, when your business is you, it never stops. You go to sleep thinking about your next move or what you have to do. It’s the constant upkeep of your business, which is you, and I look at people who have 9-5 or whatever and they clock off and their day is done but with a lot of my creative friends, there is zero switching off - ever. But you kind of choose that, that’s the price you pay being a creative and going after what you want. That’s it, you never switch off, because you don’t want to. When you’re passionate about it, you feel a sense of luck “I can’t believe I get to do this!” or “I can’t believe this is my job!”
I don’t think I’ll ever stop being grateful that I get to do this full time. Not that it’s a bad thing, but letting go of cover gigs was definitely something that I knew I needed to strive for because my passion is my artistry. Now every day is something that I love, even though there are intricacies that can make it a bad day or whatever, assholes during the day get you down, but I’ll never stop being really just thankful for that.
You’re in all these collaborations, you’re a hired gun and you work with several different groups. What do you find the most challenging?
Admin! *laughs. That’s the worst part. I’m also at a point in my career where it’s kind of like fast-paced growing and adapting. It’s hard but enjoyable. It’s not something that dwells on me or gets me down, but it’s definitely a process.
Deadly South: Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me Chloe. We are going to start with our ice-breaker question. I don’t want you to think about it but answer with the first thing that pops into your head. What is your go-to spot in Ulladulla if you need some time away to clear your head - where’s your happy place?
Chloe Dadd: I’d definitely say my parents [house] because they have a nice big backyard with lots of trees and rolling grass hills.
Such a good spot. Its out the back of Milton, Slaughterhouse Road area on a nice little property. There or North Molly, definitely.
North Molly… not in peak time?
Yeah, not on Christmas Day! We learnt to surf there and everything so it’s where I go naturally and it’s usually best. North over South Molly
most days.
Chloe performed as much as she could here in Ulladulla while she was growing up. When you search her name on the Milton-Ulladulla Times website countless articles appear, not to mention a few cute photos of her as a teenager with her guitar in hand.
There’s a few that piqued my interest, specifically the youth music scholarship. I wasn’t that familiar with it, but I remember it’s on Australia Day, with performances held at Mollymook beach.
I know it was a little while ago for you Chloe, but what do you remember about your experience with the youth music scholarship
growing up?
You’ve done your research! *laughs
What was it like? You were 14/15 so quite young.
Music for me up until that point hadn’t been competitive. That was a very strange introduction to the competitive side of music.
The prize is money, right?
I think so, I can’t really remember.
Yeah, it’s like $2000 or something if you win, which is not bad.
Yeah! It’s coming back. I don’t think I won, maybe second or third once? I don’t know, it’s very strange, getting up and playing a few songs rather than playing a set. Up until that point, it was cover sets or my artistry. Either I was playing for three hours at a cafe or a half-hour set of my songs. Very different.
I guess it would have been your own music, and at 14/15 I can’t imagine you’re getting many opportunities to play your own stuff.
No, not in front of people, that’s for sure. Most of the time you play music for peoples enjoyment but in that circumstance, you’re playing for somebody’s approval which was very strange.
Were you writing your own stuff back then?
I literally started writing the moment I picked up a guitar.
Which was?
When I was nine.
Super young! Why did you pick that guitar up?
There was a guitar at my Grandad’s house up in Queensland. He played in bands when he was younger, lots of Creedence Clearwater type music. I just wanted to play the guitar, I would pick it up and just play really terrible songs because I didn’t know how to play. My parents thought it would be a good idea to learn so I started getting lessons from Roddy Reason in town. Do you know him?
Yeah, he is still a huge performer in town. He could play in a paddock and people would go.
Seriously. Local legend. I used to go once a week, walk down after school, get ice cream and wait outside his house. I’d go into his little recording shed there. I don’t know how many lessons I got, it was a few, I learnt some chords, some songs. I picked it up pretty quick. I think I came to him in the next week with a song and he said we should record it. He stuck a mic on me, recorded that. Then he said I should play some drums, we recorded that and then some harmonies. He gave me a CD at the end of the day and said “this is your single”. That was my first song and I still have it. I think I made a couple of copies and gave one to my grandparents.
That’s so cool!
It was called ‘I Want To Dream’. My first full song. It was what you’d expect from a nine-year-old.
That’s so wholesome, that he did that as well.
Such a good experience and it got me into recording. It taught me how to make your songs come to life. Make them a forever thing to be able to record it so people can listen to it.
So you started at nine and you competed for the scholarship at 14. Were you performing in between then?
Yeah, I think so. Roddy encouraged me to sing after the guitar lessons, which lead to the song. Then I started wanting to play songs that I loved. So I got a collection of covers and then I think I started playing in school rock bands. You gradually get yourself cover gigs at little cafes or bars, and then after that at weddings. I was writing my own music in between.
Do you still play covers now?
Not really. That’s become a thing in the past few years that I’ve let go of gradually. Just becoming busier in my own artistry, playing in other bands and being in the studio, it’s just taken up all my time.
Understandable. Am I right in saying you’re in three different bands?
Well, I am a session guitarist. I’m like a hired gun, I guess you could call it. So whenever people need me I get an email asking if I want to do a thing for a show or a film thing. I just learn the music and go play it.
Adapting - now with music there’s so much. Everything is so accessible. You can record something and put it on Soundcloud or Youtube. There’s so much content and so many people are doing different and new. It’s not like when our parents and grandparents just had records. You can find whatever you want on the internet. Is that what you mean by adapting.
Yeah in that aspect and in every aspect! Especially technology advancing. In the studio, I record a lot with tape machines and analogue gear but then I might do a writing session at home and it’s all in the box, digital land, and you’ve just got to be adaptive depending on the circumstance.
Even with photography, there’s been such a return to film cameras and things like that. With sustainability, there is a real look back to older technologies and how to integrate that with new.
That’s the way forward right? That “old style” is still quality and it’s highly regarded. A lot of the time with technology we will go too far forward into the more accessible, easier and quicker option forgoing the quality. Efficiency and quality tend to tetter a lot with technology in music. Records are coming back into style. You have people pressing them and buying them as opposed to the overconsumption of digital music. If you buy the record it’s such a physical thing to have forever and the artist gets more of the royalties.
I try and buy a lot of band merch because I know Spotify sucks unless you’re a huge artist - you get shit from there.
2 cents a year or something!
It’s like okay well how do we support these people who haven’t had gigs, they get shit all from Spotify. Do they have a shitty white
t-shirt because I am going to buy it!
Exactly. That’s promotional material when you wear it around. I think it’s cool walking around and seeing people rock band t-shirts. That sparks conversation and broadens communities as well. It’s like the old style of communication, seeing someone and striking up a conversation.
Like many other young creatives from the area, Chloe moved to Sydney shortly after she finished school. I want to know what would have had to be here to make you stay?
I’ve been thinking about this. Sometimes it’s just not the right place for you at that time. A lot comes down to the reach between here and Sydney, I don’t know, it just feels isolated in a way. I took all I could from here, every opportunity.
KLP [Australian singer/songwriter] and Rob Conley, who is a big producer, came down one year and did a day or two with us writing a song and recording it. When they talked about the industry it opened my eyes to a whole new world, before then I just focused on the cover gig and was just dreaming of bigger things.
It’s good to get some prior learning before you HAVE to do it and you don’t know-how.
That’s the thing - when you move you’re surrounded by all these people who have been fast-tracked to what you want to do. It’s just common knowledge for them.
Another universal question coming up Chloe, one we ask all our Freaks. If you could wake up tomorrow with no responsibilities, no COVID, no bills, you were just free. What would you do?
The exact same thing… I just lead my life like that. It just comes back to me being really thankful for being able
to do this.
Has there ever been a time where you wanted to give up or take a break?
Never. No. Not a break or anything. I definitely have days where I just lay in the sun and have coffee and not feel too obligated to my tasks but never give up. When Covid hit it was like what do I do? Maybe a day of panic where the lockdown looked never-ending and I was like what skills do I have? What else can I do? I’m pretty good at Math?! But then I was like I’m being ridiculous…
*Looks up accountancy courses…
Totally. If I do this course in a day maybe! But it ended pretty soon.
Especially after Covid, everyone wants live music or they want to support it. Everyone has been like we need to help artists because they are struggling. Next year is going to be crazy. I’ve already got heaps of stuff booked in my calendar. I think the live music scene in Australia is going to go bananas.
You read my mind for my final question. What’s next for Chloe Dadd?
What’s next? I’ve been recording heaps in lockdown and I’ve been able to mix in the studio that I work at which has been really nice to explore sounds and find my audible identity. I’m really excited to release these snapshots in time of my music. Hopefully a few singles, a body of work and some more shows. I’m playing the Yours and Owls Festival in April next year. That’ll be really fun.
Sounds like a pretty sweet gig to me! I see why you wouldn’t change a thing. Sounds like you’ve got a great couple of years coming up.
That’s the thing, it’s all enjoyable and exciting. It’s constantly keeping my life exciting and putting things on the horizon. I’ll never be sick and tired
of it
Freak of The Week is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.