Casey May and The Lovers
01/12/2024 Kate Middeleer and photography Nicole Munnelly
01/12/2024 Kate Middeleer and photography Nicole Munnelly
This month has been a cosmic combo of torrential rain and blistering days. Any true belief in the weather report, any ‘okay, let’s schedule the camping trip for this weekend’, invites 50mm’s pooled up in the driveway and puddle-glutenous toads greedily waiting for you to step out the door in bare feet. I had an aunt who I don’t remember ever opening a bible but I do recall her liking to say, “tell God your plans and he will laugh”. I am the first to burn the to-do list and find a large chunk of freedom in the belief that I don’t have much control over any of this anyways.
But I speak with the leading lady of the jazz band Casey May and the Lovers, and I get a look into the benefit of unwavering conviction. It’s Casey, who I met with on a Wednesday afternoon this past October—who I saw perform at the Northern back in January, who has since played at two music festivals and recorded three new EP’s. All which followed on the coattails of her arrival in Byron five years ago, hell-bent on pursuing music. So who’s to say setting out with an intention—or a this is sure-as-shit how it’s gonna go—does not take you to where you want to be?
“I knew I was going to do music. I would be on the school bus looking out the window thinking about performing on stage. I knew it was definitely gonna happen”, Casey says.
We sit in her and her partner Billie’s living room on comfy couches and blankets, while Miica sits on the floor and gets humped by Wally, the small adolescent eight-month old dachshund.
Miica chimes in. “How cool is envisioning things as a kid. Seeing yourself as a twenty-something. Maybe not what you looked like, but what you were trying to do, what you were trying to achieve. Quite glorious, that time of life. ‘Ooh I might be there! Or I might be there!”
Wally! Stop humping.
She tells us a bit about her “sports-oriented” family’s influence, her history in reluctantly practicing ballet at her nan’s encouragement—‘Casey, you gotta keep dancing’ (“I did ballet for ten years”). As well as her grandfather, a jazz guitarist, whose DNA she evidently shares a significant part of.
“I’ve always known that this is what I’m meant to do. This is where my strength is. But it was a confidence thing. When I have an idea, write it down. Instead of being like ‘oh that’s shit’. You know what I mean? But I think I’m slowly getting over that,” Casey explains. And a bit more of: “ok this is what I want to do, so I’m going to do it”.
If you’ve seen Casey and her band on stage, all seven of them commanding the audience in belting vocals or shining brass instruments, you wouldn’t think anything other than spotlight-confidence. But perhaps that’s how it goes. If we think the road is a steady bolt of upward trajectory, and are not prepared for the potholed path riddled in self-doubt, then we might as well throw down the stage-prop pearls. There’s always still a ways to go.
Casey’s journey started those five years ago when she arrived from Adelaide to study music production at SAE in Byron, where she promptly realized there were other routes better suited to her. Like belting it out for her housemates. No, scratch that—it started with the SoundCloud account at age thirteen and the microphone her nana bought her that plugged into her laptop.
“And then I went to a party one night. Someone was playing the piano and I just started belting it out”. This is when Luda (of Couch Wizard) invited her to the house to jam. “It was pretty magic,” says Casey.
After her time in Couch Wizard, she diverted to concentrating on her surf brand, Lady Lords. Until a well-meaning friend brought her back. “Is that what you really want to do?” he asked.
“No, it’s not”, she said. And so she set about bringing us Casey May and the Lovers.
Wally! Stop. Does he ever get tired?
A seven piece Jazz band. Trumpets, trombones (soon).
Do you have to go outside for a wee?
Extravagant colours. A bit of blues, a bit of soul. Think Judy Garland, Nina Simone.
Wally, you’re hurting mum.
“Our sound is probably something that doesn’t happen here. And that’s what I want to bring back. Big band, it’s all about the instruments. Old school rockstar vibe that just doesn’t exist anymore. It can’t die. People want it. We just have to keep it going”.
Members include the likes of Sasha and Kelly, incredibly talented, trained jazz and orchestra musicians, many of whom are fresh out of the Lismore Conservatorium, their first time in a touring band.
“But they’re all seriously so good. I definitely think I like collaborating more than anything,” Casey says. She wants a band that takes up the stage. “And I can’t do that on my own”.
She brings out the speaker and plays us a new song, Certified Cool, created over a three-day recording session in Clunes.
If you weren’t doing this, what would you be doing? What’s Plan B?
“There is no plan b.”
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