By AIDAN KNIGHT
A LATROBE Valley resident has recently made waves in the 2024 International Songwriting Competition (ISC), making it to the semi-finals of the US-based global contest.
Blaike Murphy, performing under the stage name ‘Cheap-Skate’, is a Westbury-based punk/garage rock outfit contending in the Music Video category for his track ‘Cellphone’.
His work has drawn comparisons to other impressive Aussie acts like Hockey Dad and SKEGSS, and earnt him live slots supporting the likes of Dune Rats, Smith Street Band, and Press Club.
“It’s wild to think I’ve played with almost all of my favourite bands at this point,” Blaike said.
“The day you’re hanging out with Will Wagner from Smith Street Band and realising all these crazy talented people are just people, is when it really starts to open up for you. It’s not easy as a musician in a regional area, there’s not nearly enough venues to stop me having to do a four-hour round trip to play shows consistently, but I’m pretty hype to be the only person (in the Valley) who can say they’ve played a set in the snow with Hockey Dad.”
Blaike describes himself as “a musician who can’t tell you what a chord is, living in a shed out the back of Moe”, and he wears those roots as a badge of honour in everything he does musically.
“I turned my partner’s mum’s shed into a studio, talked her brother into becoming my producer, and made a 13-track record with nothing but that and the hills of Westbury around us.”
ISC is an annual song contest open to musicians of any description, amateur or professional, with categories covering Best Music Video, Unpublished, Unsigned, Lyrics Only, Performance, and each respective genre.
Judges this year include Tom Waits, Joe Hahn (of Linkin Park), Paul Stanley (KISS), Armin Van Buuren, and comedian Bobby Lee.
Previous winners include acts such as Tones and I, Vance Joy, Gotye, Passenger, Kasey Chambers, and Kate Miller-Heidke to name just a few.
The overall grand prize includes $25k USD, a Timberline guitar valued at $2.2k, and a broad range of musical gear and programs to help the winner reach new heights in their career.
“I think it goes without saying that would change the entire trajectory of my life – I’d quit everything else and sink everything into music, do the US and UK tours I’ve been too broke to invest into for a while now,” Balike said upon the thought of winning the competition.
Cheap-Skate is a distinctly Australian act, but somehow has seen their sound seep into the underground scenes of these foreign markets, to enough of an extent that several bands in England and America have reached out to offer support slots if an overseas tour ever eventuates.
This kind of support is only possible by the sheer drive Blaike has to get his music off the ground, and this has been evident even this early into 2025.
So far, the year has seen him support three different bands live, auditioned for Australian Idol, announced his debut album releasing in May, played both stages at NYE On The Hill after being chosen by Triple J, and is even on the horizon to launch a limited edition Cheap-Skate beer with Traralgon’s own Good Land Brewery as part of a one-time performance at the venue.
“Despite all the money and time I’ve sunk into this (music), there’s nothing I’d want to change about it. The only bad side to chasing it like I do is when I realise that I put it before myself sometimes – when I headlined the Mornington Peninsula festival I really badly broke my foot a few days before and was jumping around on stage in a moonboot and made it worse,” Blaike laughed at his own expense. He’s come a long way since playing burnt CDs from his uncle on a Batman stereo as a kid, but grand prize winner or not, Cheap-Skate is a Latrobe Valley name you can count on hearing from again.
The International Songwriting Competition announces the winners and runners-up in the April-May period.
Cheap-Skate’s discography is available to stream and download on all platforms.
