Hoodoo Gurus’ Rick Grossman behind new course for singer-songwriters
Some of Australia’s most prolific songwriters and the label sector’s most distinguished figures have been tapped to pass on their knowledge to those starting out their careers as singer-songwriters.
James Reyne, Diesel, Rob Hirst, Jim Moginie, Mark Seymour, Pete Murray, Suzy De Marchi, Dave Leslie and Ian Moss are among the artists involved in a new initiative called Icon Mentors, set to launch in Sydney in May.
Music industry executives as Tony Glover (Sony Music), John O’Donnell (Managing Director, EMI), Michael Harrison (Frontier Touring), Andy Kelly (Ivy League Records), John Watson (Eleven Music) and Damian Trotter (Sony Music Publishing) will be advising on career strategies.
The initiative, announced this morning, will see the established talents mentor rising songwriters by discussing their own experiences, deconstructing their songs, and imparting knowledge on rhythm, melody and harmony, lyric development, song structure, instrumentation, mood creation and production.
Icon Mentors is the project of Rick Grossman, of Hoodoo Gurus and The Divinyls fame, and Stephen Baker, Senior Lecturer in Voice and State President of the Australian National Association of Teachers of Singing.
Grossman and Baker met 12 years ago whenGrossman first started working at JMC Academy as a lecturer.
“I think anything to nurture Australian original music is great,” Rick Grossman told TMN. “This is something I’d really like to stress: this is not a ‘how to write songs’ type of course, it is more about giving people access to very successful musicians’ personal experience.”
The project has been in the works for four years and sparked from a discussion on how the pair could steer JMC students toward creating original music.
“We started to lament the lack of original material being produced,” Grossman told TMN. “We started to bring in people who we knew who were iconic musicians, who had all written original material – well-known, Australian material – and it seemed to really connect with the students in a really positive way.”
According to Grossman, getting the artists and industry Icons on board was simple: “They’re all people who are passionate lovers of Australian music […] It didn’t take much convincing there.” However the biggest hurdle was finding a space to run thesix-week course.
“We wanted to make it a very up close and personal thing where there was no stage per se,” Baker told TMN.
TheIcon Mentors course starts on Monday May 4 at Trackdown Studios at Fox Studios in Sydney. The space has been used by Grossman himself; he and Midnight Oil’s Rob Hirst recorded an album there with their Ghostwriters project. Baby Animals, whose vocalist Suzy De Marchi is an Icon Mentor, have also recorded an album there, as well as Hirst’s supergroup project The Break.
Each course costs $1,995 and will only take in 40 mentorees; the classes with a music Icon run for three hours and industry Icons will work in pairs for their classes.
Grossman and Baker hope to achieve a three-pronged attack of sorts, mentoring students on music, the music business and vocal technique.
“From my perspective, as a senior voice lecturer, [my aim] is to bring that side to it as well as the business and music side to it that’s being covered by the Icons,” Baker told TMN. “I’m involved in creating good vocal technique so that they then have more options as to the way they can write.”
Baker and Grossman will take the Icon Mentors project to Brisbane and Melbourne in the future.
To register your interest, email your contact details to [email protected]. More info:www.iconmentors.com. Grossman and Baker will hold an open night prior to the first course class on May 4.
ICON MENTORS COURSE DATES
Monday 4th May
Thursday 7th May
Monday 11th May
Thursday 14th May
Monday 18th May
Thursday 21st May
Monday 25th May
Thursday 28th May
Monday 1st June
Thursday 4th June
Monday 8th June
Thursday 11th June
Image: Rick Grossman and Stephen Baker