J-“Leesa was offered a recording opportunity by this guy.”
L-“He said he wanted to start up a record label out of Dubai and would I come and record a few songs. After we lost the gigs I asked Julz to come and hang in Dubai for a bit before she went to London.
J-“ We had recorded a bunch of Leesa’s demos. We were going to go our separate ways but I said, You’ve got some great songs, I should do some rough demos and that ended up being our first album we toured with. Not the first real album but one that we toured through America with.”
L-“We’d burn the songs onto CD’s, make little covers and sell them for $5 at the gigs. We realised we loved recording music together. We met with this guy and we decided to make an album. We got a few more gigs and the guy who wanted to create the label offered to pay for an apartment for us. We found our apartment and we had this little messenger guy ride up on a bike who gave us an envelope full of cash to pay the rent. It was really odd. We stayed there for a couple of months but we didn’t really get anywhere. The producer was really difficult and we didn’t have the same vision.”
J-“He was great at sounds as his background was advertising. Although he had a studio our visions didn’t align.”
L-“ Before we were in the studio we flew my sister over who is a great songwriter and after the record company stuff fell apart for me I stopped writing songs. The three of us had played heaps of music together and her songs were so good we decided to make an album with the three of us.”
J-“ In the meantime I set up a little studio in the apartment we had and when we weren’t playing we would hole ourselves up in there and play music.
L-“ You could send out for anything. We had this juice place called Krispys and they had this extensive juice menu.”
J-“I’ll have the Helicopter! “
L-“It was one of my favourite things, reading through the juice menu. There were pictures of all of these brightly coloured juices called the weirdest names like the Palm Leaf or the Lady Diana or the Helicopter.”
J-“ You’d have to say no sugar cause they put sugar in everything.”
L-“We took to calling up and saying, Can we please have the Mannequin? Or whatever name we made up and they’d say Yes! Yes,! One Mannequin! It wasn’t even on the menu (laughs) and no sugar please! The other great thing about that apartment was the streets don’t have any names so we would call and say..We are in the apartment in the Almahid building and they’d say.. Oh is it the rock bottom side of the Almahid building..how many stairs? It was so crazy, no names or numbers on any streets so you would have to describe roughly where your building was and then look out for the little guy on his bike carrying juices.”
J- I got to the point where I said, in July, no matter what happens I’m taking a month off. I can sit here never playing a gig again and I’d done an American tour the month before so I knew I could pull out it off again. I said to Leesa, I don’t like playing on my own so I asked her if she wanted to come and she did. The first Hussy Hicks tour ever was an American tour.”
L-“We needed a name for the project and we had never really called ourselves anything. In Dubai they booked us under The Muse but we didn’t really have a name. They made it up. They did these flyers of sexy lady silhouettes which was pretty funny. Their marketing was hilarious. Julz always called all her best mates including me Hussy so it was her term for her friends and I said one day we should start a Bluegrass band and call it Hussy Hicks. We could just play really fast Bluegrass songs.”
J-“Except that we don’t play any bluegrass at all.”
L-“I sort of omitted the fact we don’t really know how to play any Bluegrass. It was the only name we came up with.”
J-“In hindsight we should have just gone with Leesa and Julz.
L-“Occasionally we will be in the States and someone comes up with one of our CD’s from back then. I made the paper and sewed up the edges to make a little cover. We used the money that we made in Dubai to pay for our flights and our hire car. We rented this big old enterprise commercial van and we bought a mattress for the back and an esky and we drove around the states sleeping in the van.
J-“And we survived…doing little gigs, making travellers salads of chickpeas, corn, garlic and tomato. When we still had money we bought balsamic vinegar, olive oil salt and pepper.
L-“We still have that in the van.”
Julz – “I was born in the manor on Manor Rd, off Powderworks Rd in Ingleside. I was a home birth which was unusual then. My parents were original hippies. My mum and dad had a little property there and would always have friends at home playing Neil Young songs around the table. Dad would play harmonica and guitar, there was always jamming and music.
Mum and Dad used to take me up to get violin lessons when I was 3 by the Suzuki Method which I’m sure was horrible for them (insert squeaky violin noises). It wasn’t until a few years ago I realised those lessons really helped my ear, if you have to work out what pitch is when you’re a foetus. I changed to guitar when I was about 8 because all Dads mates were playing Neil Young songs and the violin, well, (insert more squeaky violin to the tune of Needle and the damage done). I Just became obsessed with the guitar. I would steal all his records and slow them down so I could learn.
I showed enough interest that Dad started taking me to some local gigs. I went and saw a guy called Terry Murray and a band called Fargone Beauties, an English guitar player. I got lessons from him for a few months. I used to watch Phil Emmanuel play every Sunday down at The Sands in Narrabeen so I became a little guitar nut. That’s all I cared about.
We moved to Tallebudgera Valley in The Gold Coast which is how I ended up in this general area. Moved from the hinterland behind Mona Vale to the hinterland behind Burleigh which is pretty similar. Dad was a mad surfer. He used to surf at Dee Why all the time. His name is Greg parker and his nickname was Smokecool. When I was in my early teens there was a Kiwi family band called Donna and the Moderations and they just knew every song. They were so good. I would sit in with these bands at 13 and play solos. They played heaps of soul. I sat in with another band for a while called Double Shuffle and they had about 500 songs up their sleeve, stuff like Jackson Browne and for me it was a joy to learn all these songs.
I started playing with Phil Emmanuel when I was 15, I did some tours with him.
L-“He said he wanted to start up a record label out of Dubai and would I come and record a few songs. After we lost the gigs I asked Julz to come and hang in Dubai for a bit before she went to London.
J-“ We had recorded a bunch of Leesa’s demos. We were going to go our separate ways but I said, You’ve got some great songs, I should do some rough demos and that ended up being our first album we toured with. Not the first real album but one that we toured through America with.”
L-“We’d burn the songs onto CD’s, make little covers and sell them for $5 at the gigs. We realised we loved recording music together. We met with this guy and we decided to make an album. We got a few more gigs and the guy who wanted to create the label offered to pay for an apartment for us. We found our apartment and we had this little messenger guy ride up on a bike who gave us an envelope full of cash to pay the rent. It was really odd. We stayed there for a couple of months but we didn’t really get anywhere. The producer was really difficult and we didn’t have the same vision.”
J-“He was great at sounds as his background was advertising. Although he had a studio our visions didn’t align.”
L-“ Before we were in the studio we flew my sister over who is a great songwriter and after the record company stuff fell apart for me I stopped writing songs. The three of us had played heaps of music together and her songs were so good we decided to make an album with the three of us.”
J-“ In the meantime I set up a little studio in the apartment we had and when we weren’t playing we would hole ourselves up in there and play music.
L-“ You could send out for anything. We had this juice place called Krispys and they had this extensive juice menu.”
J-“I’ll have the Helicopter! “
L-“It was one of my favourite things, reading through the juice menu. There were pictures of all of these brightly coloured juices called the weirdest names like the Palm Leaf or the Lady Diana or the Helicopter.”
J-“ You’d have to say no sugar cause they put sugar in everything.”
L-“We took to calling up and saying, Can we please have the Mannequin? Or whatever name we made up and they’d say Yes! Yes,! One Mannequin! It wasn’t even on the menu (laughs) and no sugar please! The other great thing about that apartment was the streets don’t have any names so we would call and say..We are in the apartment in the Almahid building and they’d say.. Oh is it the rock bottom side of the Almahid building..how many stairs? It was so crazy, no names or numbers on any streets so you would have to describe roughly where your building was and then look out for the little guy on his bike carrying juices.”
J- I got to the point where I said, in July, no matter what happens I’m taking a month off. I can sit here never playing a gig again and I’d done an American tour the month before so I knew I could pull out it off again. I said to Leesa, I don’t like playing on my own so I asked her if she wanted to come and she did. The first Hussy Hicks tour ever was an American tour.”
L-“We needed a name for the project and we had never really called ourselves anything. In Dubai they booked us under The Muse but we didn’t really have a name. They made it up. They did these flyers of sexy lady silhouettes which was pretty funny. Their marketing was hilarious. Julz always called all her best mates including me Hussy so it was her term for her friends and I said one day we should start a Bluegrass band and call it Hussy Hicks. We could just play really fast Bluegrass songs.”
J-“Except that we don’t play any bluegrass at all.”
L-“I sort of omitted the fact we don’t really know how to play any Bluegrass. It was the only name we came up with.”
J-“In hindsight we should have just gone with Leesa and Julz.
L-“Occasionally we will be in the States and someone comes up with one of our CD’s from back then. I made the paper and sewed up the edges to make a little cover. We used the money that we made in Dubai to pay for our flights and our hire car. We rented this big old enterprise commercial van and we bought a mattress for the back and an esky and we drove around the states sleeping in the van.
J-“And we survived…doing little gigs, making travellers salads of chickpeas, corn, garlic and tomato. When we still had money we bought balsamic vinegar, olive oil salt and pepper.
L-“We still have that in the van.”
Julz – “I was born in the manor on Manor Rd, off Powderworks Rd in Ingleside. I was a home birth which was unusual then. My parents were original hippies. My mum and dad had a little property there and would always have friends at home playing Neil Young songs around the table. Dad would play harmonica and guitar, there was always jamming and music.
Mum and Dad used to take me up to get violin lessons when I was 3 by the Suzuki Method which I’m sure was horrible for them (insert squeaky violin noises). It wasn’t until a few years ago I realised those lessons really helped my ear, if you have to work out what pitch is when you’re a foetus. I changed to guitar when I was about 8 because all Dads mates were playing Neil Young songs and the violin, well, (insert more squeaky violin to the tune of Needle and the damage done). I Just became obsessed with the guitar. I would steal all his records and slow them down so I could learn.
I showed enough interest that Dad started taking me to some local gigs. I went and saw a guy called Terry Murray and a band called Fargone Beauties, an English guitar player. I got lessons from him for a few months. I used to watch Phil Emmanuel play every Sunday down at The Sands in Narrabeen so I became a little guitar nut. That’s all I cared about.
We moved to Tallebudgera Valley in The Gold Coast which is how I ended up in this general area. Moved from the hinterland behind Mona Vale to the hinterland behind Burleigh which is pretty similar. Dad was a mad surfer. He used to surf at Dee Why all the time. His name is Greg parker and his nickname was Smokecool. When I was in my early teens there was a Kiwi family band called Donna and the Moderations and they just knew every song. They were so good. I would sit in with these bands at 13 and play solos. They played heaps of soul. I sat in with another band for a while called Double Shuffle and they had about 500 songs up their sleeve, stuff like Jackson Browne and for me it was a joy to learn all these songs.
I started playing with Phil Emmanuel when I was 15, I did some tours with him.