Q&A: One of One shines light on women in the Australian music industry
Joanna Cameron, Communications Manager at the Australian Independent Record Labels Association (AIR) and Sarah Hamilton and Vader Fame from distribution company Ditto Music have launched a website to profile and celebrate women in the Australian music industry.
One of One launched today with nine interviews from women across all sectors of the industry; MusicNSW Executive Officer Kirsty Brown touches on gender inequality within her interview, UNFD Label Manager Maya Janeska offers advice for those wanting to get into the local industry, Pandora’s Industry Relations Manager for Australia and New Zealand Hazel Savage touches on Australia’s geographic handicap when it comes to touring and triple j Publicist Gerry Bull offers her story on how she landed her position.
The website, which will add new interviews each week, will operate as a resource for those inside and out of the industry. It also features a function to nominate a colleague, for those wanting to shine a spotlight on women who deserve recognition.
Speaking to TMN,Joanna Cameron and Sarah Hamilton provided further insight on how One of One came about, why it matters and how they came to choose the women who have been profiled.
You’re both respected figures in the music industry, you live and breathe it, tell us about the conversation that lead to One of One.
Jo Cameron:
Towards the end of last year I felt the discussion about women in the industry came up pretty regularly (more than usual), at panels, in the media, in our social groups etc. I guess the initial conversation between Sarah and myself stemmed from that. We both had the same views. We wanted a platform where we were able to share stories from all the women that we’ve had the pleasure to work alongside for so many years who might not get the chance to hold the spotlight in other publications.
We want One of One to be a positive platform where we can learn from other women and hear about their triumphs and challenges.
Personally – one of my main motivations for the site was to create a resource for those who are in the early stages of their career, whether they be studying the business or interning at a music company. I wanted a platform to be able to say – “hey, there’s this woman doing a kick-ass job as a tour manager, let us tell you about her!"
Sarah Hamilton:
I think we’re both passionate about celebrating women doing interesting things, and while we’ve been working in the industry for a few years we still have a lot to learn and I personally just love people’s stories, advice, and lessons.
The personalization of an interview and someone telling their own experience makes something real for me, and attainable. We chatted about it over lunch one day, and Vader who works with me at Ditto has also been involved since the beginning. The three of us have worked together to create the site and concept. We have all been on the same page since day one, which has made working on it together really fun and easy.
We see a lot of women working in the industry in so many different roles, and we just wanted to highlight the killer job they’re doing.
Why is it important to you to have a local resource like One of One on the internet?
Jo Cameron:
I’ve been so lucky to have had so many strong, hardworking women I’ve looked up to in my life. My Mum – first and foremost. I also went to an all girls school and it was ingrained in us, that as a woman, we could literally do and be anything. When I started in the industry I guess it was just a natural thing for me to look up to women – Annmarie McMath (Trial Kennedy’s Manager) being one of them. Not to say I don’t have male role-models, Nick O’Byrne (former AIR GM) who I had worked with for sixyears has had a huge influence on me.
Going back to the question, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think it's important to have a place where these stories are shared. As a young woman, I loved reading about women that I aspired to be and learning about different parts of the music industry. I wanted to create a place where other people can do the same.
Sarah Hamilton:
We wanted to create a positive platform where people can read about women doing their thing. A place to get inspired, learn about what it’s like to be a publicist or a booker or any aspect of the industry and also just highlight how many great women there are working in this field.
One of One currently features interviews with triple j’s Gerry Bull, Unified’s Maya Janeska and Hannah Shepherd (Airling) among others, how did you come to choosing these women to interview?
This was incredibly easy! After we made the decision to work on it we came up with a list of 150 women in under an hour.
In terms of picking the women to launch with, we wanted to choose women from different parts of the industry, at different stages of their career as well. We will be interviewing and posting a new interview each week and aim to cover all areas, locations, facets of the AU music industry.We will also be accepting nominations from people in the industry because we realise there would be a lot happening that we may not be aware of.
What’s the grand plan for One of One?
We want One of One to remain a simple, positive place and community for people to check out. We want it to be interesting to men as well – although we are focusing on women in the industry, we want it to be accessible to everyone. In the future we may have events, we may open it up internationally, or we may just keep it as is.
Are there any partnerships or team-ups in the pipeline that will help broaden the reach of One of One (perhaps to education providers)?
We’ve had such a positive reaction and quite a few partnership offers already – we welcome chatting about opportunities and ideas with anyone. Universities, tafes and music programs such as Freeza/The Push in Melbourne are definitely on the list of organisations to approach.
Will the website ever feature advertising?
Jo Cameron:
Not at this stage. We want to keep the message to the point and not have it bombarded with ads. Our main focus is getting these women’s stories out to as many people as possible.
Sarah Hamilton:
It’s definitely not a money-making venture – rather just something we all wanted to do. At this stage I can’t see advertising being a component, but if One of One does change and morph into something else then we will reassess. For us though, it’s just about highlighting women doing great things in Australian Music.
One of One currently features interviews from: