Opportunity doesn’t knock anymore. It emails. Take for instance Grace Woodroofe. The name might not be familiar yet, but by the time this summer is through it most certainly will be. When opportunity emailed her, it took the form of the late Heath Ledger who had heard her music on Triple J Unearthed. He was so moved by her voice he wrote to her, offering her the opportunity to travel to LA to work with Ben Harper. That was almost four years ago. Now Woodroofe is all ready to make her debut with Always Want, a brilliantly dark moody affair she’ll showcase at length this January when she wows the crowd at Southbound.
What can you tell us about the day you received that email from Heath? I’d been to New Norcia that day and had gotten home and was thinking how bad my week at school had been when I went to my inbox and there was an email from Heath Ledger saying how he had heard my music and loved my voice and felt it’d be an honour to really help me out. And of course I wondered if it was real. But he had this vision for me from the very beginning and it was something I agreed with. We were very much on the same page about my goals for my music and career.
What was the best thing about when you went to work with Ben Harper and his artistic collective in LA? I think the best thing that happened was this creative collective called The Masses. It was a group of filmmakers and artists and they just totally embraced me. It was just magnificent.
How are you feeling about the release of your album? I’m nervous. The magnitude of it has just hit me. It’s all the talk, like Ben getting out there and saying that people have to listen to this. But it’s good because people are finally going to hear what these people are talking about. And the album is very representative of me and my personal journey.
Can you describe what it sounds like? It’s very dark. It’s confessional. And extremely honest. It’s very much about innocence and experience. This album is a journey you can listen to from start to finish.
Grace Woodroofe appears at Southbound January 1, 2011. www.southboundfestival.com.au
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
