By PEACE IJIYERA
FOLK rock band Ally Row, based in Yarram, performed at the Australian Open on Australia Day.
In an exclusive interview with the Express the Friday before the big performance, the Ally half of the duo shared their journey to the big stage. Highlighting their humble beginnings busking, and their aspirations for the future.
At the time of the interview, Ally Row had just completed performing at the Tamworth Country Music Festival, which ran from January 16 to January 25.
Technically, this was the duo’s third time at the event but second time performing on the main stage, with the first time being as buskers.
“It’s fantastic to see the growth that we have in the industry but also watching other artists that we all bonded with when we all were busking on the streets, and then seeing them all grow over the last few years as well,” Ally said.
“It’s cool to see us all growing and getting more of a fan base and finding our identity a bit.”
The pair was informed that they would be playing at the Australian Open on a journey to a gig in Geelong.
Feeling exhausted because they had just gotten back from a tour in Western Australia, they were holding out for some good news.
“We just got a phone call from our manager Kaz, and she goes ‘oh just a little bit of good news, our booking agent got you into the Aus Open’, and we’re like ‘oh my gosh this is so cool’ because it’s something that we did not expect,” Ally said.
And that’s the thing about life. The best and sometimes the worst of things happen when you least expect it. Ally Row was on the bill with some of the biggest names in Australian music, including, The Kid Laroi, The Veronicas and Spacey Jane. A whole lot of pop and indie, but no folk-rock.
“We looked at the line-up, and we thought ‘this is insane’ and also we felt quite special because we were looking at the genres of the line-up and there wasn’t a lot in our folk-rock, kind of old country, and so we thought, that’s kind of cool that we can be that token duo for the gig,” Ally said.
“It was surreal because at the time we were driving and doing some gig for a couple hundred bucks to 10 people or whatever and it just kind of shows that sometimes when you’re feeling like you’re not moving forward, and you’re not progressing and you’re not getting anywhere then suddenly a big thing like this drops on your lap and you’re like ‘far out this is incredible’.
Ally says that the call up from the Aus Open ignited a fire and sparked a new motivation for the duo.
“Something with music is that you fall into these moments of like ‘what are we doing? Is everything worth it?’. So, it gave us a real sort of fire under our bellies to lock in this year,” she said.
Before Ally Row, there was Alice Fitzgerald and Rowan Sizer.
The pair grew up in the suburbs of Melbourne and experimented with many careers before landing on doing music full time.
Rowan had his own gardening business and worked in disability support. Ally tried a career in film and TV, being an actress, then a real estate agent. A few managerial positions and a stint being a barista later, before finding the true calling.
“We enjoyed it (jobs) as much as we could during that time. It wasn’t something that we wanted to do forever,” Ally said.
Swapping the suburban city life for a quiet country lifestyle, the duo decided to pack their lives into their car and travel interstate after the lockdown restrictions were lifted.
The pair travelled up the east coast to North Queensland and travelled around for a about a year-and-a-half. Ally’s family had moved to Yarram a couple of years before, and in missing them, the pair decided to have a “pit stop” down in South Gippsland.
What was intended to be a temporary stay to figure out what they wanted to do, birthed the reality of Ally Row.
“When we got there (Yarram) we started busking at the Woolies and people were so lovely and generous, and it held the record for the most amount of money we’ve made in an hour,” she said.
“Then we did a café busking session and then the community started sort of slowly reaching out and saying ‘you guys are great’ and then we got offered to do few little gigs around just to ease into the community.
“Then next minute we thought, ‘I don’t really want to leave’ so, we just decided that that was where we wanted to stay and it [Yarram] became our home base.”
To be on stage, performing to people and having the audience connect with their sound is the highlight of everything they do.
“It’s everything to us, the reason we’re so excited when we get to perform is because that’s literally our whole motivation for music – just being able to connect with people.
“It’s pretty surreal because we forget that this isn’t necessarily something that’s common, to be able to write music out of your head, put it onto instruments and then go out and play in front of people and have people come up and say. ‘I’ve never heard that song before, and I really resonate with the story and the melodies’. Its a surreal experience because you’ve created it out of your own body and spirit and then you chuck it into a song and next minute, you’re creating connections out of thin air.
“It’s addictive. It’s something that we’re always on the lookout for … you never know what kind of people are going to connect.”
As an emerging artist, it can be easy to conform to the textbook route of making a name for yourself – sing other people’s songs until you feel comfortable to sing your own.
Ally’s advice is to not.
“Don’t feel pressure to have to conform to doing the cover route all the time. If you’re getting a lot of gigs and you’re feeling pressured to have to just learn the same old covers to entertain the crowd, just try to keep in the back of your mind that there’s a big world out there of people that want to hear what you have to say, so don’t feel that pressure,” she encouraged.
“Make sure you reach out and find other artists at all different stages coming together and doing a gig together … they’ve been the most memorable and most impactful things that we’ve done, so reaching out Instagram DM’s or emailing and saying, ‘hi, I’m blah blah blah, and I’m near you and I’ve seen you around. Would love to organise if I could jam with you or open for you’.
“There’s really great ways to get into communities cause it’s very isolating when you’re an artist and so if you can find your people and reach out you’ll learn a lot. It can be really good for your mental health as well because when you’re going through some of the harder times, you’ve got people that understand what you’re talking about.”
From busking outside Woolworths in Yarram to performing on national stages, Ally Row have achieved much in their musical career.
With a promising future ahead, they continue to reach for the stars, all while repping Gippsland every step of the way.
Ally Row will return home to Yarram to perform at the Regent Theatre on Friday, February 27.
