Clare Bowditch

Clare Bowditch
Clare Bowditch during the songwriters' workshop at The Great Escape music festival, 2006.
Background information
Origin	Melbourne, Australia
Genres	Folk Rock Pop
Instrument(s)	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1999–present
Labels	Capitol/EMI
Website	Official website

Clare Bowditch (born 1975) is an Australian musician, writer, coach (creativity and creative-business), social commentator and occasional actor from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. She has released five albums, her fifth, The Winter I Chose Happiness was released on 14 September 2012. In May 2012, Bowditch released the single, "You Make Me Happy", which was featured in the Network Ten television show, Offspring, a series that she also acts in; the song was Bowditch's first "top 40" (placed in the chart representing the 40 highest-selling songs) single in Australia.

Bowditch's creative ventures have extended beyond her own musical career and, as of 2012, she is Secretary of Music Victoria; Bowditch is also an APRA and PPCA Ambassador. In 2013, she will be launching a Creative Business Mentorship through her organisation, "Big Hearted Business". Bowditch is also an Ambassador for Smiling Minds and Life's Little Treasures.

Bowditch has also occasionally participated in journalism and has written articles for Harper's Bazaar, Rolling Stone, ABC's The Drum, and hosts summer radio shows on the ABC.

Biography

Early life

Bowditch graduated from Melbourne University's School of Creative Arts with a BCA—a now-defunct degree.

Music career

Bowditch began writing songs early and continued writing in private until 1998, when she met John Hedigan, with whom she formed her first band, Red Raku. Marty Brown, today Bowditch's husband, produced their first EP. Bowditch and Brown had their first daughter, Asha, in 2004, around the same time Bowditch received her first recording grant from Art's Victoria's Music for the Future program. Autumn Bone was recorded in the front room of their house in Melbourne, with Libby Chow and Warren Bloomer. The Feeding Set was a name Libby coined as a joke referring to the meals Bowditch cooked for them every Wednesday night after rehearsal.

Having performed on the Melbourne pub circuit since she was seventeen years old, first with Quarter Acre Dream and then with Red Raku (they recorded two albums), Bowditch first came to prominence in 2005 with the release of her second album What Was Left, which received excellent critical reviews, and high rotation airplay on national radio stations such as Triple J, although her success can be largely credited to the strong support of local independent radio stations throughout Australia, who championed her early work.

Bowditch and her partner and drummer Marty Brown, have toured extensively in Australia and, later, in Europe since 2003. Much of this touring Bowditch has been accompanied by her band The Feeding Set. On stage, Bowditch is known best for the beauty of her songs but also for her satirical on-stage humour, and unconventional use of everyday objects (tea-pots, bottles, old casiotone) for sound-effects.

In 2005, Bowditch was invited by Deborah Conway to take part in the Broad Festival project, with three other Australian female artists, they performed their own and each other's songs. With Bowditch and Conway were Sara Storer, Katie Noonan and Ruby Hunter. In October, Bowditch and the Feeding Set licensed their second album, What Was Left to EMI. The album was publicly and critically recognised, with two songs being included in Triple J's Hottest 100.

Bowditch and the Feeding Set released their third album, The Moon Looked On, on 13 October 2007.

Bowditch and her band The New Slang completed the recording of their fourth album, Modern Day Addiction. The album was party recorded with producer Mocky (Feist, Gonzales, Jamie Lidell, Peaches) at the legendary Hansa studios in Berlin. This album marks a decided change in direction for Bowditch, having been written on casio and piano. In October 2009 she released her first single, "The Start of War", from Modern Day Addiction. The song also features Bowditch's partner, Marty Brown, and Mick Harvey, formerly of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The album became both 3RRR's "Album of the Week" and ABC Radio National's "Album of the Week". Modern Day Addiction is the first Bowditch album to enter the Australian Top Ten chart.

The fifth album from Bowditch, The Winter I Chose Happiness, was released on 14 September 2012, with the lead single, "You Make Me Happy".

As of January 2013, Bowditch is regularly invited to sit on both Ministerial and Award Assessment panels (Australia Council, AMP, ARIA, APRA).

Touring

In 2008, she temporarily moved to Berlin, Germany, for three months to follow up on opportunities to release her albums in Europe. This move was precipitated by a sold out twenty-five date experimental solo tour through major and regional venues in Australia, where she was supported by Australian band Hot Little Hands, whose founding member is Tim Harvey of Feeding Set fame.

Bowditch supported Leonard Cohen on his 2010 Australian tour.

Collaborations

On 1 July 2011, Bowditch released the EP, Are You Ready Yet, which includes the single, "Now You're Home" (featuring Lanie Lane), as well as collaborations with Gotye.

Big Hearted Business

Bowditch's creative social enterprise, Big Hearted Business (BHB), was devised prior to 2013, but in January 2013, the venture significantly developed through the "Pozible" campaign. In raising funds for the Pozible campaign, Bowditch has published the following description of BHB project:

Big Hearted Business is a practical, creative response to the sometimes-overwhelming possibilities of our times. As part of a new-guard of micro-business educators, BHB exists to teach brilliant, creative Australians how to build strong, successful businesses, without compromising their integrity. In so doing, we aim to help counter the enormous educational gap that still exists for creative-entrepreneurs in Australia. We also teach existing businesses and leaders how to become comfortable with the right-brain thinking they will need in order to truly lead the way in this modern business-landscape.

Bowditch has stated in a January 2013 video segment that BHB will donate 20 per cent of its profits to not-for-profit organisations. As of 27 January 2013, the BHB Pozible campaign had raised AUS$15,120 (over half of its target of AUS$26,450) and 91 supporters were registered for the campaign.

The inaugural Big Hearted Business conference was held on 23 and 24 March 2013 at the Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne, Australia. The speakers list of the event included comedian Catherine Deveny, writer Rachel Power and designer Lucy Feagins.

Journalism and writing

Bowditch has been approached to take on several roles as a "social commentator": she wrote an article for ABC's The Drum, entitled "Mr Jones and Me", and also made her debut on the ABC's Q&A program (she was the first panelist to also perform a song—"Bigger Than the Money"). In August 2010, Bowditch conducted an hour-long interview with Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, for MySpace Today.

Acting

Bowditch plays Rosanna Harding in Network Ten's Offspring, a musician who does some work with Billie's husband Mick, played by Eddie Perfect.

Bowditch performed a successful musical stage show based on the life and music of Eva Cassidy. The show, entitled Eva, featured Bowditch singing Cassidy's songs in the style of Cassidy, in addition to telling stories behind the songs and life of the late singer. Shows in Melbourne, Australia were performed at the Atheneum Theatre.

Political activism

In October 2012, Bowditch performed at the Concert for the Kimberly event in Melbourne, Australia. Held at Federation Square (opposite the Flinders St train station), the concert also featured the John Butler Trio, Missy Higgins and a speech by Dr Bob Brown (former leader of the Australian Greens). The event was presented by The Wilderness Society to protest against proposed industrialisation at James Price Point near Broome, Australia.

Awards

In 2008, Bowditch won the "Best Female Artist" award at the ARIA awards and was runner-up in the 2008 International Songwriting Competition (in the "Singer/songwriter" category for her song, "Peccadilloes"). The same year, she was voted Yen Magazine's "Young Woman of the Year" (Music).

Bowditch was awarded Rolling Stone's "Woman of the Year" award in 2010, for her "Contribution to Culture".

In the 2012 EG Music Awards, run by The Age newspaper sold in Victoria, Australia, Bowditch received two nominations. Bowditich was nominated in the "Best Album" (for The Winter I Chose Happiness) and "Best Female Artist" categories.

Personal life

Bowditch and husband, Marty Brown, are parents to identical twin boys, Oscar and Eli; the pair was born in late-2006.

Band members

Modern Day Addiction was recorded with Bowditch's newly expanded band, The New Slang:

• Marty Brown of Art of Fighting, Sodastream (drums)
• Warren Bloomer (bass)
• Tim Harvey of band, Hot Little Hands (guitar)
• Sally Mortensen, Rachel Head and Annabelle Tunley from a cappella group, [[Aluka (band)|Aluka] (backing-vocals)
• Mattie Vehl (keys)

Bowditch has recorded her last three albums with her band, The Feeding Set:

• Marty Brown of Art of Fighting, Sodastream (drums)
• Tim Harvey (guitar)
• Libby Chow (vocals, French horn)
• Warren Bloomer (bass)
• Greg Walkerr from band, Machine Translations (guitar on first two albums)

Discography

Red Raku albums

• Sweetly Sedated (1998)
• Roda Leisis May (2000)

Clare Bowditch and the Feeding Set

• Human Being (EP, 2003)
• Monday Comes (EP, 2003)
• Autumn Bone (2004) - independent release
• Which Way to Go (EP, 2004)
• Divorcee by 23 (EP, 2005)
• On This Side (EP, 2005)
• What Was Left (2005) - Capitol/EMI - Australia #35
• The Moon Looked On (2007) - Capitol/EMI - Australia #29

Clare Bowditch and the New Slang

• Modern Day Addiction (2010) - Australia #10

Clare Bowditch

• Are You Ready Yet (EP, 2011) - Island Records Australia
• You Make Me Happy (Single, 2011)
• The Winter I Chose Happiness (Album, 2012)

Tracks on compilation albums

• "Hallelujah", a cover version of the Leonard Cohen song, recorded by Triple J and released on the album Like a Version (2005) [1]
• "Fall at Your Feet", a cover version of the Crowded House song recorded for the Finn Brothers tribute album She Will Have Her Way (2005)
• "Blood Red Rose" on the album Cannot Buy My Soul: A Kev Carmody Tribute
• "Georgia's Song" on the album ReWiggled - A Tribute to The Wiggles (2011)

External links

• Official website
• Spotlight on Clare Bowditch - downloadable video interview
• Interview: What inspires Clare Bowditch?