Untitled Document

HOME

NEWS

ARTISTS

PHOTOS

PODCASTS

TOURS

FESTIVALS

WIN

REVIEWS

Featured
Lowrider
Celebrating the release of Lowrider's new album 'Round The World' we go behind the scenes of the hot new single!

Featured Artist
Amy Meredith
A journey is a fitting way to describe the last two years of life for Amy Meredith. From shaping...

Win Stuff
Bam! Festival
BAM! Festival is pleased to announce its first all Aussie, emerging artist line up, full of gems waiting...

On Tour
Crowded House
Crowded House, some of Australasia’s favourite sons and one of the most exceptional and enduring bands...

ON THE COUCH WITH: Micky Green

RSS Artist Interviews Feed

QUICK LINKS: Artist Interview | Artist Biography | Artist Website

Share this

Send this to my mate

ARTIST INTERVIEW

Access All Areas.net.au: Congratulations on the success of your album, how does it feel to have gone gold in France?
Micky Green: Thankyou- um, it’s really cool, I guess it was like really unexpected. I was happy enough just making the album and that it came out so anything after that was really great. It was a good surprise.

Access All Areas.net.au: The first single from the album is called “Oh”. What is it about?
Micky Green: I wrote it when I was like 17, for an ex-boyfriend. It was just before I left to go overseas. I was sort of breaking up with my boyfriend but not really. Now I’ve heard it so much that it doesn’t have that meaning to me.

Access All Areas.net.au: Could you tell me about how you recorded the percussion on your demos?
Micky Green: Well I’ve been playing drums since I was like 11, so when I was writing the demos I was just at home and I would be clicking on the tables and like on books - just clicks and clacks.

Access All Areas.net.au: Did that type of percussion inspire the percussion on the album?
Micky Green: Yeah I guess because when I got to the studio, I just wanted to play the drums and like play around with percussion. I love playing the cowbell; for me rhythm is like the most important thing.

Access All Areas.net.au: How do you recreate the sound of your album on stage?
Micky Green: Well like it sorta stays the same, I have a really cool drummer. He’s sorta on the same percussion wavelength as me. On stage we also have bass and guitar and like backup singers, so it’s more sort of rock on stage and less electro pop.

Access All Areas.net.au: Are you planning to tour Australia anytime soon?
Micky Green: Yes, we are hopefully coming in like a year. I come home once a year my sister lives in Sydney and my mum lives in Wagga Wagga, so I go to Wagga every Christmas.

Access All Areas.net.au: I noticed you went for a very minimalist sound on the album, what inspired that?
Micky Green: Well, the demos I wrote are even more minimalistic then the album. I just didn’t want to put too much into it - I wanted to keep things simple.

Access All Areas.net.au: What is the story behind the name of the album “White T-Shirt”?
Micky Green: White T-Shirt is just really funny, and it’s a really simple thing you know, like everybody’s gotta have a white t-shirt, it’s just really random.

Access All Areas.net.au: You originally went overseas to pursue a career in modelling, what is it about France that made you base yourself there?
Micky Green: Yeah when I left school I started getting photo shoots in Melbourne and Sydney and then Germany and overseas. I don’t think there are any cities like Paris and Milan you know, I like the way French people move. Its nice listening to the different language, and even being in Europe, being in Paris, you’re so close to the rest of Europe, it’s a good chance to travel to other places as well. It’s so beautiful.

Access All Areas.net.au: Do you speak French fluently?
Micky Green: Err I'd say I am about 80 percent fluent (laughs), but I can understand it a lot better.

Access All Areas.net.au: Have you always dreamt of having a career in music?
Micky Green: Yes, even when I was a little girl I think, I’ve always loved music videos and music and being in the studio.

Access All Areas.net.au: What Australian artists excite you?
Micky Green: I think the best band of all time is ACDC, I like Van She and I love Kylie.

Access All Areas.net.au: Are you friends with Kylie Minogue?
Micky Green: (Laughs) I wish! We were actually both involved in a TV programme, and I wanted to go find her and say hello but I didn’t want her to see me in my robe!

Interview by Emma Bruhn

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Girls have certainly changed. Looking at her angel face, blond hair and huge green eyes, who would have thought that Micky Green, 24, singer-songwriter of delicate folk ballads, has watched all Snoop Dogg’s DVDs more than once, porn included? The most flagrantly macho of West Coast rappers (as well as the world’s funniest) is part of this young Australian’s personal pantheon.
Unabashed, Micky also occasionally treats herself to “a bit of old-school Mariah Carey”: heartbreak in stereo, dripping vocals and hyperbolic video from start to finish. That doesn’t prevent her from enjoying Bowie and Erikah Badu too.
So appearances are deceptive. Who’s complaining?

Micky - her parents call her Michaela (the family tree is said to stand on old Dutch roots) - left home at 18 to be a model. A childhood dream? No. “It’s a practical career if you want to see the world,” she says. Especially when that and music are the only things on your mind. She carried on working as a model from time to time, because you can’t make a living from your songs overnight. It also paid for the iPods she loses with the regularity of a dreamer. Six so far. “I fill them up with music at my friends’ places. The upside is I listen to artists I don’t really know and I replace the essentials, like Bob Marley.”

Micky wrote most of the “White T-shirt” tracks on planes, in hotel rooms or in airport waiting rooms, whenever her mind began to wander. For 4 years now, she’s jotted everything down in a notebook she always keeps to hand. Some songs go back to her teenage years. Micky has been writing for a long time.

She was part of a group at secondary school, playing drums, the most masculine of instruments. You don’t have to toe the line just because you’re a girl. Before that, she’d taught herself piano. Singing was also a sort of tie with her father, who originally infected her with the music-making virus (he played with friends). When her parents divorced like all parents (nothing “serious”), Micky stayed with her mother in a normal, pleasant, everyday Sydney suburb. At home, they listened to Fleetwood Mac, Heart and glam rock. After school, Micky worked in a record shop in a shopping centre to earn some pocket money. “It didn’t take me long to learn the value of money and independence.”

Micky made her demos using Garage Band software and her computer microphone, tapping on the table and her legs with a pencil or can to produce the perfect microbeats to accompany the details that pepper her lyrics. She always looks at life from a distinctive angle: a way of holding a cigarette, the colour of a T-shirt (that’ll be white, then), a slip-up, a doubt…

This fragility and simplicity shines through on her record, even though the instruments have changed. There’s a reason for this: the recording was entrusted to Renaud Letang. In the studio, the two of them didn’t talk that much, they just listened to the music they both liked. What music was that? Rap. In loops, all the better to soak up the smoothness of the groove. A laid-back, simple attitude that characterises both the girl and her songs. “Arriving in London and Paris, I soon realised you don’t wear flip-flops here,” she reminisces. Yet she must have felt at home with all the commotion, since she chose to stay and make the best of it. “I don’t think I’ve ever gone out so much as I did during the recording. I spent my nights out partying with my friends. It was such an extraordinary time for me that I had to express it.”
Whoever said that honey-voiced singers had to be well-behaved?

www.mickygreen.com

GIGS & TOURS GUIDE

search by Artist:

Search by Festival:

Recently Announced: Crowded House | Gorillaz | Amy Meredith | Klaxons | MORE GIGS

EVENTS & COMPETITIONS

+ View more competitions

Win Tix

Bam! Festival

BAM! Festival is pleased to announce its first all Aussie, emerging artist line up, full of gems waiting to be discovered in a true...

Win Tix

The Likes Of You w/ Stephan Bodzin

Intuition is the little man inside all our heads. A flash of illumination that can’t be judged by logical reason. Intuition gives us...

Win Tix

Biffy Clyro

Biffy Clyro have announced new tour dates for Brisbane 18th The Hi Fi, Melbourne 19th The Hi Fi and Sydney 20th Metro this May. Coming...

Win Tix

The Holidays

Sydney quartet The Holidays announce East Coast headline dates to coincide with the release of their imminent new single Golden Sky....

LIVE PHOTO GALLERY

+ View more photos

Amy Meredith + Finabah
Live @ Rock at the Schools tour 2010

Karnivool + MM9
Live @ The Hi Fi Bar, Brisbane, QLD (June 2010)

Train
Live @ The Forum, Melbourne, VIC (June 2010)

Gyroscope
Live @ HQ, Adelaide, SA (2010)

MUSIC FESTIVAL NEWS

SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS TURNS 10 : Day1 Reviewed

Posted August 1 2010

It’s a celebration bitches enjoy yourselves. That’s...

WIN TX TO GODSKITCHEN 3D IN MELBOURNE

Posted July 28 2010

Godskitchen returns to Australia in October to blow...

30 Seconds To Mars to return to Oz for Soundwave Festival!

Posted July 28 2010

30 Seconds To Mars will return to Australia in February...

MY FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE

Behind Crimson Eyes
This year we were lucky enough to play at 3 Big Day out shows. It was great because we were friends with a fair few of the bands (Karnivool, Something With Numbers, Gyroscope, Hilltop Hoods) so it was such a great party vibe. Not only were we paid to get drunk and have fun with our friends we also got to see Rage Against The Machine play 3 nights in a row!!!

Ideal Lineup?
Blink 182, Guns N Roses (circa 1988), Marilyn Manson, Knye West, Muse and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Fave artist you've seen at a Music Festival?
Rage Against The Machine – Big Day Out 2008. I have been a fan of this band for so long and I thought that I would never get to see them. When I heard that they were confirmed for BDO I nearly shat myself!

Tips for attending Music Festivals?
Alcohol is usually very expensive at festival! All you need is a hip flask, a roll of tape and your preferred beverage. Don’t go too hard too soon as festivals usually go for 6-8 hours and you don’t want to end up as one of those sunburnt, passed out, semi naked people that litter these events.