Natalie – “ I was born in Toowoomba in 1979 which makes me 40 next year. I have a beautiful family of musicians and artists. My grandmother is an incredible painter. She’s 92 and has had multiple strokes, lost her eyesight and she still paints every day. She is almost totally blind so she paints from memory, by feel and by heart. Her name is Veronica and she is so beautiful. She was also a Medium for a long time which is a strong theme through our family. Spirituality and connection to spirit. I was very fortunate to grow up with those guys.
My grandmother lived on a property in Texas, on the border of QLD and NSW. We spent a lot of time out there and it was really remote. Looking back now that’s probably where my love of remote living and also just believing that you can..you can go bush. Those times were so powerful, so amazing and so strong in my memory. Grandma did up this amazing cottage, they had a generator. When she went out there for the first time she was like holy s#*t. It was so dilapidated but she made it a beautiful home. Just the other day she told me a story, she said to my Poppy, ‘I’d really like a window here’ so he grabbed the chainsaw and just cut it out of the wall. ‘And that was how we did things’ she said.
I left Toowoomba when I finished school in 1996, took a gap year and cruised around. Went to the Goldy for a while and flittered about but I had already applied to Lismore Uni at that stage. I deferred a year and in ’98 I started music at SCU. I’d grown up with lots of music around the kitchen table. My dad is an incredible songwriter. Everywhere we went there was music. All the aunties and uncles sing together, lots of harmonies so that was my normality. I did the country music circuit with Mum and Dad for years and started singing on stage when I was about 7. Country music festivals were a lot of fun and a way to explore what performance is about without the pressure. It felt like a big family. I would get up with my tambourine and do harmonies with all the oldies .
I moved to Lismore for Uni. I was living in Goonellabah and Leigh Carriage was my lecturer at Uni which I think was the first year she started as a lecturer. She was only 27 and I think about that now. She was so mighty. I looked at her through these eyes of total wonder and she kicked my arse. It was an amazing relationship we had. I was hard work! I wasn’t very committed to being at uni but I loved singing and I was passionate about music and life in general. I think that got me through. I took studying live music very seriously (laughs). All that going out in Lismore and studying all the bands. I was like, this is education, this is university! It was an amazing time in Lismore, when the Gollan Hotel was just pumping. It was so fun. The live music scene was huge back then.
It was a really strong sense of coming home when I moved to Lismore and it’s an amazing time for me now as an older woman searching back through my family history and finding what my ancestry looks like. I have this new understanding about that from living in Aboriginal country for the last 8 years, from being in Indigenous tribal clan groups and the connection they have to their place or their Grandmothers country. The way that the thread of the spirituality from that place informs their whole identity. That has become this thing for me where I really feel drawn and passionate about trying to figure where the threads of my blood and ancestors were from.
I recently found out that my family initially came across from Ireland and they ended up just out of Sydney. It became too populated for them so they came North to just outside Ballina and literally walked to the back of Binnaburra. There is a farm there still called Gay’s farm which is my last name. We only just found all this out so we are getting a good grasp on what my history looks like. I knew my great grandma was from here and now know nearly all my family are from this area. When I moved to Lismore I felt it. It makes so much sense to me now.
I remember coming here and meeting amazing people and the friendships I made, I felt like I had tapped in to who I was and who I was allowed to be…by being here. Coming from Toowoomba which is a quite conservative place although my family aren’t by any means, coming here and seeing all these incredible people with such a sense of freedom about them was such a liberating time for me.
I played in bands like Ventana. It was my first venture into bands and a lot of fun. I’d always sung country music but was also obsessed with Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, big vocalists, Chaka Khan. My mum had all those old soul and R&B records on vinyl. I used to crank those. I’d drag the speaker out to the back door, put suds on the trampoline and jump with the music pumping into the back yard pretending I was Whitney in a big stadium. I loved the mix between big souls singers and country and I still feel like that’s where I fit in. Singing jazz was awesome. I started gigs with Jim Kelly and Dave Addis who was one of the most influential people I have ever had in my life. Dave gave me hundreds of gigs. We played jazz for years together. Dave passed away and he was so special to me.
I fell pregnant with my first daughter Ziian in Lismore. I was living in Rock Valley at the time. I went back to Toowoomba for over a year. I did that pregnancy on my own. I had broken up with her dad and 3 weeks later found out I was pregnant. I was only 21 so that was a crazy time. I decided to come back and I really wanted to be on the coast so I moved to Lennox and my friend Karina, her little daughter Zali and Ziian and I bonded. We had this group of young mums, all young single mums and we all looked after each other. It was such an amazing time. I have such a fond place in my heart for that time.
Moving on from that I feel I have had a few hardships in the last few years particularly living in a community in Maningrida. Some things have been tough. I think back to those days in Lennox and they were just carefree days.
Mitch and I had studied together at uni. He was living in Lennox as well. We had been mates for a long time and had mates in common. I was doing gigs again. Mitch was in a relationship but I had never seen them together. They parted when I was away. I was hanging around with him and one day we were doing a gig in Wollongbar Tavern. It was a really important gig for all of us as it one of the first gigs Jim Kelly had invited us to come and play. It was kind of a right of passage. Not many students at uni got to play with those guys up until then so it was a big deal. We were feeling chuffed and nervous.
It was Australia day 14 years ago. I had this moment at the gig where I just saw him for the first time. I was watching him interact with a couple of oldies and people in the audience. I was watching him and I just thought Wow, he’s a remarkable dude and he’s everything that I had been looking for. I really knew him, how loyal, grounded, how intelligent, creative and amazing he was and all of a sudden I had butterflies. He drove me home and I just crushed on him in 3 seconds flat. The next day I was like…You wanna come over for a beer? And then he never went home. That was the 27th January. Three months later I said you may as well stop paying rent at your other place and just move here. Ziian was 2 at the time so she only ever remembers him being around. We got married 3 years later on the 27th. He has been the most amazing father and we have had another two girls Raia and Selkie since then together. “