AAA Backstage Archive

Artist Spotlight: Eden Mulholland

This weeks Artist Spotlight is the multi-talented Eden Mulholland. We had a chat to this legend before his show at Black Bear Lodge on the 14th August.. find out what happened when he stopped stretching, his guilty pleasures and why he wants to be a festival slut!

First off, introduce yourself!

I’m Eden Mulholland and I’m from the Sunshine Coast, via Brisbane, via Melbourne, via Townsville, via New Zealand originally!

How would you describe your sound to someone who’s never heard you before?

Multi-genre-al (which is now officially a word). All sorts of styles really, I have foot in the pop camp, and folk and electronica. Kinda anything goes.

So on that train of thought, do you have any musical inspirations that come through in your music?

Um, I’m not too sure if any are apparent in my music. Who do I sound like? It’s hard to say! I grew up listening to a lot of Radiohead, and Oasis, Blur, Joan Armatrading… old school.

Any guilty pleasures?

Yes! Who does that song “It’s all over you electric blue” (Eden gave us a stunning rendition and we couldn’t work out who sang the song. On further investigation we figured out it is Icehouse!!). You can’t go past a little bit of Jimmy Barnes of Crowded House.

What made you start in music, or has it always been a passion for you?

I’ve always played music ever since I was a kid, sort of naturally. I never had music lessons. But I used to be a contemporary dancer, and I played music on the side, then I got sick of dancing and wanted the instant gratification of playing music because I was sick of doing stretches.

What instruments do you play?

I play guitar, bass, keys, and drums, anything that makes a noise really. Except for, I had a go on a trombone once and I was pretty shit at that!

Anything you want to learn? Apart from Trombone…

Yeah I’d really like to learn how to play an accordion properly! I can do the squeeze box and chords and stuff, but I’ve seen a virtuoso accordion player play Mozart, and it’s unbelievable. You know those massive ones with like 100 keys? I’d love to play that!

Are you currently just gigging around Brisbane?

Well in the past little while I’ve been everywhere really! I’ve been to New Zealand and all around Australia, been to the states a few times. But for this tour, which starts Friday (14th) I’m playing at Black Bear to launch the ‘River of Hurt’ single and I’ll be playing a bunch of the album songs.

So people can kind of get a taste of what’s coming next?

Yeah definitely, I’ll be playing all the songs from ‘Hunted Haunted’, which comes out in Australia on October 23rd. We might throw in a couple of covers as well, maybe even a Cure song!

Oh yeah, that’s a good one! Because you’re playing the Triffid for the Cure tribute night?

Yeah! Very cool

Are they another influence would you say?

Not hugely, no. I missed the whole Cure boat, except for the singles obviously I’ve heard those. But I have a couple of friends who are fanatic Cure fans, and those people are something else!

One more question: What does the next year have in store for you?

Well with the album launch and the tour, we’ll wait and see what happens. We’d love to be playing bigger shows and doing some festivals. It’s just a lifelong goal to be backstage drinking someone else’s rider. It’s pretty simple really!

What’s the ultimate festival you’d love to play?

Uh, all of them! Splendour, Falls, Bluesfest. I’d be a festival slut!