Achoo! Bless You

Achoo! Bless You are  a great Sydney act doing good things. Loved what I heard and as always interview was a must so please read on.  Ashleigh Steel answers my questions.

https://www.facebook.com/achooblessyouband

1. Are you happy how things have gone for you so far?

1. We’ve definitely had a great time doing this music thing over the last couple of years. How many people get to make music with their best friend and have people turn up to watch them play it?

2. What inspires you when writing music?

2. We both have a variety of inspirations, some similar and some quite different. I’m much more inspired by difficult/awkward/confusing situations – going through these times or helping a friend through often proves to be a catalyst for some strong, honest songs.

3. What is your latest song about?

3. I actually wrote ‘Wild Eyes’ in response to an argument we kept repeating late at night and inevitably after a few drinks. So in that sense it feels like an honest expression of frustration and emotional distance but told through a conversational framework of two people who love each other and want to work it out. It’s also a quite a celebratory song; there definitely a feeling of reconciliation and positivity in there.

4. What do you like about touring?

4. We really love getting out to new audiences. It’s great to roll into a town you’ve never been to before, say Armidale in rural NSW for us last year, and to see people dancing along and enjoying themselves. Then you do it all again in a different town the next night. It’s great to keep moving.

5. How important to you is touring regional alongside touring the cities?

5. In my experiences so far, regional audiences generally seem more excited to be there, more grateful that you’ve taken a detour to come to their town. I feel they’re more willing to take a chance on going out to see an unknown act, and stick around for a chat after. And besides, good old fashioned, rural Aussie pubs are in a league of their own, we can’t get enough.

6. What has been your favorite show to date?

6. This is a hard one! Playing a music festival over New Years in the middle of the Australian bush and looking out to see a crowd of all our best friends singing every word of our songs back to us was pretty mad.

7. How does social media help you as an artist?

7. Social media enables us to draw in audiences to the whole story of Achoo! Bless You, beyond the recordings we release. In that sense, it enables us to establish ourselves as a “brand” (for want of a better word!!) and communicate our world to our audience. It’s great to retain that daily, constant connection with people and definitely helps us build our fan base.

8. How important is connecting with your fans?

8. Connecting with fans is very important – it’s pretty much the whole point of being a recording, performing, touring musician. We need people to come to our shows and listen to our music, so we owe it to these people to be as open and out there as possible.

9. If you could have any body in a video clip who would it be?

9. I’d just love to have a film clip with all my favourite people in it: friends, family, loved ones – and we’ve done that for ‘Wild Eyes’ so I’m happy!

10. What’s your favorite venue to play at?

10. We really loved playing the iconic Annandale Hotel alongside our friend’s bands and  legends like Tim Rodgers, but that place as we know it is gone now.

11. What does 2014 have in store for you?

11. More writing, more recording and more travelling around doing what we do!