Success comes with sacrifice. Emma Royle and Jessie Vintila – the double trouble wunderkinds who are Byron Bay’s The Lucky Wonders – know this all to well.
But sometimes you need to make a big sacrifice to pull off a debut album and a three and half month national tour.
‘I pretty much sold everything I had to fund the project. That meant letting go of security that had taken a decade to accumulate,’ said Royle.
‘Its funny how for a long time you can want something and work really hard towards it and then once you have it let it go to chase another dream. I guess for me that’s what living is about.’
The debut album, Thirteen O’Clock, dropped earlier this year in March. Straight after the girls hit the road, taking the whole of Australia.
When they got home, it was only a matter of weeks before they were back in the studio with ARIA nominee Anthony Lycenko (Xavier Rudd, The Beautiful Girls, Pete Murray). He’d helped produce Thirteen O’Clock and this time lent his hand in creating to new tracks, Anyway and Thing About Leaving.
‘I wrote Anyway as a way of coaching myself through the journey of throwing everything into the music. It’s about living in the moment and not being afraid of change,’ Royle said.
‘Sometimes good things don’t just come; you have to make room for them. It was great getting back into the studio right after touring, we all seemed to walk away with an extra spring in our step.’
And to celebrate these new recordings, the girls are hitting the road again. First stop? Perth, naturally, because where else do you find the most stunning sunsets in the country?
‘Our tour was also huge because we decided to come back from Perth the long way, mainly because we all wanted to travel the north of Australia.
‘Being in stunning, remote places, playing to travelers from all over the world with a sunset as the backdrop, on balmy evenings in June, they’re the sweet moments. The ones that make people all starry eyed about the dream of being a touring band.
‘We’ve decided to write it into our riders from now on. Some musicians demand rare imported whiskey and bowls of green Smarties, but we’ll settle for some tea making facilities, a bottle of wine and an awesome sunset.’
The Lucky Wonders will appear at Clancy’s in Fremantle this Saturday September 25.
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
