Photo courtesy of Emily Barker, on Facebook
The latest “Where Music Meets Travel’ interview sits down with a musician who is more than your modern day Renaissance woman. Read on to see what Fund My Travel Director, Victoria Mita, learned about Emily Barker and her appreciation for travel as a means for growth and self discovery.
To call Emily Barker a Modern Day Renaissance Woman, doesn’t even begin to cover her range of talents.
Emily has traveled extensively, from Australia to Brazil to Canada and throughout Europe, having now “settled” in Stroud, England.We quote the term settled, because Emily is a professional Musician, just finishing up a lengthy Record Store Tour throughout the UK. This is in celebration of her most recent album, Dear River.
Where Music Meets Travel is not a review column, but if we were forced to share our rating of Dear River, it would officially earn eleven gold star stickers, two and a half high fives, and a creatively, choreographed, aerial dance of appreciation. All flattery and unique rating system aside, Emily did something significant for travelers and fans alike with this album. She explored the complex and multi-faceted concept of home, as well as the way that it transforms over time, through the travel experience.
When did you move to the UK from Australia and what inspired your destination choice?
I moved, it must have been in 2000. I think it’s partly through having ancestors that are generally from Europe. So, on my mum’s side, my grandparents were Dutch and on my dad’s side it’s Irish and Scottish roots there. In Australia, growing up with it being a colony, there are all these ties to Europe, so I think lots of non-indigenous Australians want to get away and explore that, explore their past. Australians in general are just really adventurous. We’re so far out of the way, where we are. We’re just tucked right down at the bottom there. Especially being from the west coast, Perth is the most isolated city in the world apparently, from other cities. A lot of young Australians have this huge desire to get out and go explore, so that’s when it all started..
How did your move transpire? Did you go back and forth between countries?
You can get a two year working visa for Britain, being an Australian, but you can only work 12 months out of the two years. I was working in restaurants and bars and record shops, wherever I could get work, basically, and I was in Cambridge and London. In between that, I would go travelling to Europe, through Spain and France. In Holland, I went to go and meet all of my mum’s family, and she’d never been there before, so I brought lots of photos and stories and sort of bridged the gap between my grandparents and my mum. I was also doing Capoeira at the time, the martial art from Brazil. When I was in Perth, I was really involved with that and met loads of Brazilians. I just fell in love with their attitude and way of being. I learnt about all sorts of aspects of their culture. So I went and lived in Brazil for six months and just travelled around and studied Capoeira, had an amazing time there.
I also went to Canada for three months, so I ended up being away for about three years in total, just travelling all over the world. It is a really common thing for young Australians to do, especially when they’re not quite sure what they want to do in their life, which is the category which I fell into at the time. I started doing music and wasn’t sure that I wanted to do that for a career. I started doing university and started lots of things but never settled on anything until I was a little bit older.
I interjected my respect for the exploratory approach and belief that travel is the ultimate in experiential learning. Emily noted:
Yea, it seems crazy to decide what you want to do with your life when you’re a teenager. People say, “you need to work out what you want to study so you can go to university and da da da…” and that’s the system, that’s how it works.That’s cool, but I just felt really unsettled, I suppose.
It [travel] is such a way of condensing a lot of experiences into a relatively short amount of time, meeting so many different people, and putting yourself into unfamiliar situations constantly. You really have to learn a lot about yourself.
Three years is a long time for a first move away from home. What is your family like? Do they still all live in Australia or do you have any relatives with you in the UK?
It was hard to be away- as well as I needed to go and be my own person. In so many ways I had an ideal childhood, growing up in the countryside. I’m the eldest of four kids and my parents are still together, so I am a lucky person. I just felt like I really needed to get away and discover who I was without all of that. I did miss them a lot during that time but that was almost a part of it. I knew that I would, and I sort of wanted to in a way… I still miss them now and it’s always good when we spend time together. My brother just arrived a few weeks ago and he is here for six months, which is great. He used to live over here in London, so he comes from time to time, which is cool. He is a musician as well, doing some writing over here so it’s fun. (Joel Barker.)
Do you struggle with being away from family for a long time or does UK now feel more like home to you?
I think the longer you’re away from somewhere then the more… Well this is the thing about being a bit obsessed with the idea of home; here is very much a home for me as well and I find that if I go back to Australia, then there are parts of living over here that I miss. I’ve spent most of my adult life here really. So my friends are my family here, in a way that they wouldn’t necessarily be if I was still at home. I guess it’s sort of being a part of two worlds now… forever.
Emily Barker en route to Scotland, on Facebook
Having done all of the songs and read a lot about the subject, doing a lot of self exploration and everything; I think my truest home is by the Blackwood River, in the southwest of Australia, where my family is. But the answer is much more complicated than that and there is more than one home.
You put a lot of thought into the concept of home with your new album, can you elaborate on this?
It is such a huge subject, once you start really thinking about it. I had to break it down so that I could have some sort of boundaries, otherwise I could have just kept on going and going and going. So I break it into three parts, which is my personal story, but then it brings in other things. The first part is set in Bridgetown, by the Blackwood River and it sort of touches on themes of childhood, innocence, my first home, family and first relations. Second and looking at the wider picture; I’m of European descent, so living on stolen land which the indigenous people call their home. Then there is the home away from home. The path along one’s journey between point A and point B becomes a home within itself sometimes… Other themes included are language, exile, and immigration.
Is the music styling on your new album different also? Will you perform much of it soon?
It is. It’s more rock and a bigger sound. I believe in the Neil Young philosophy of making records. I have been with the Red Clay Halo for eight years now and we will be doing an Independent Record Store Tour of the UK: Every day, playing one or two record stores around the country, signing the album and meeting people, which I’m looking forward to. I used to work in an independent record shop, so there’s a part to supporting them and appreciating what they do. We’re also doing a bunch of festivals. We’re especially excited for the 2000 Trees Festival, one that Frank [Turner] is doing as well, so we’ll get to see him and the boys, [The Sleeping Souls] and they’re going to play something with us.
How has your engagement with music affected your connection to travel?
It’s just changed. It’s funny because I was thinking about that recently. When I was travelling before I had become a professional musician, I was travelling purely for the purpose of experiencing that culture, that place, and myself within it. That was the whole point, just that. Now, I travel and I do go to a lot of places, but I don’t necessarily get to experience them, which can be difficult. I was on the Revival Tour in October-November last year and we did something like thirty-six shows in thirty-eight days, on a tour bus!
I know that we went to loads of places but it sort of all just blurs into one… But I go running on tour and at home. Every second day, I go for about an hour and that is the best way to go and experience something. I generally chat to fans and people who are at the show after the gig as well, so that’s a nice way of experiencing the people where you are. I love travel, I love movement, and I still get to have the movement and feeling of being away, which is great, but I don’t get the same, in-depth understanding of a place or culture. When I have holidays, that’s when I get to do that.
Are there any other countries you’ve been where you felt an immediate comfort within the culture and would you ever live there?
That country would have been Brazil because I learned to speak Portuguese over the six months that I was there. Just doing Capoeira, and I met so many cool people there. There is such a divide between rich and poor, so that was my first experience of seeing that sort of poverty. There were a lot of challenges there, which I overcame and dealt with. I just met so many amazing people there, so I would have said Brazil but I wouldn’t be able to live there, I don’t think. My current one is Sweden, which is very different from Brazil! I have some really good friends in Stockholm, and I’ve been there quite a few times. I’m just learning Swedish now and I really love the people, the landscape and just how creative it is there.The people are really passionate and deep. I find that they’re very honest and straightforward as well.
Please tell us about the World Coffee Map! This is a project that you’ve started with Ben Lloyd, an incredibly skilled guitarist from The Sleeping Souls, who play with Frank Turner.
Yes! We’re going to do some sort of music and coffee blog, where we interview not just musicians but anyone involved with music, in anyway. We ask them their favorite cafe, local coffee shop and what coffee they like to have, maybe a little bit about their music and then drop a pin on the map. We’ve already begun the map with different cafes found along our own travels.
Well Emily it has been more than a pleasure and I hadn’t realized what a world-traveler you were before now! You’ve offered some thoughts for our viewers which could be really helpful for considering time abroad.
You can follow Emily on Facebook and Twitter. Be sure to check out her new album, Dear River!