people like Clare Moore, who worked with Dave
Graney, she came in and played marimba and
xylophone cause that's very much the sound that I
wanted, Jack Howard from Hunters and Collectors...
we started to bring in other people like Bruce
Haymes (from Paul Kelly's band), and my husband
Claude Carranza who plays with the Black Sorrows.
Also Pete Farnan, from Boom Crash Opera, he and I
go way back, when we did an EP back in 2000 under
the moniker of Basic Daughter, which we produced
together...
St Kilda fish shop. I just thought, well a lot of the
people who play on the album have played with me
there, so that's where the name is from... but
everything's a collective now, it's like when you get a
red car, everyone's got one – don't you think?
And when I launched the album in Melbourne they
were all available to play, so we had this awesome
band, with 18 people on stage, just incredible! We're
doing another one on the 19th December so I figured
they're all available on that Saturday night... We can't
wait to come up to Sydney – we're doing it at the end
of February, and we'll go on to Brisbane...
I've known him for nearly 20 years and he and Deb
are very dear friends. They have always been big
supporters of my music. Hugh posting my album to
his social media pages was incredible. He has an
obscene number of followers, I believe 40 million!!
The name of the band is Fish Shop Collective, which
is my nod to the fact that where I sing is actually a
fish shop, because Claypots is a renowned fish
restaurant and Renan affectionately refers to it as the
There are collectives everywhere!
But you received some very nice support on the
release of the album from your friend Hugh
Jackman. How long have you known Hugh, and
what did having his support mean to you?
As I said, I really did like the album. Do you think
there's something that a mature artist, if I can use
that term...
Well I am!