DAVID BRIDIE’S WANTOK

In 2006 David Bridie founded the Wantok Musik Foundation, “a not-for-profit music label that records, releases and promotes culturally infused music from Indigenous Australia, Melanesia and Oceania. Wantok Musik raises the local and international profile of Indigenous and world music groups based in the region, and provides greater economic opportunity for artists and long-term career sustainability.”  

Here is an edited transcript of a recent interview - David Bridie with Hot To Trot podcaster, Stephen Norwood. 

SN: I’d like to talk about your interest and support for First Nations musicians in Australia and throughout Melanesia in the Pacific. How did you start off with that? 

DB: Music is an area where indigenous Australian musicians and white fellahs… tend to congregate and hear each other’s songs. Even for me right back in the early days I was hearing the stuff that Bart Willoughby was doing with No Fixed Address and Mixed Relations, then there was The Mills Sisters and acts that were around in the ’80s. Obviously Tiddas, Archie Roach and Yothu Yindi. So there was an awareness and a swapping of songs. You saw them at the same festivals so there was interest there. The best musicians do have (understanding of) the issues that First Nations are writing about; they do connect. There was a band from Papua New Guinea called Sanguma, that was formed out of the Art School in Port Morseby. They were artists from all around PNG who melded… there was a bit of Osibisa and artists like that that had influenced them; some of those South American artists that were using percussion instruments and traditional songs in different ways. They toured Australia (in 1980s) so I saw them at The Venue in Saint Kilda and I interviewed them. I had a program on Triple R at the time and so I got them into the studio. There’s a guy who was doing our visuals for Not Drowing Waving by the name of Mark Woods. Sadly he’s departed now. Mark was born in PNG, and his father was in the navy at a place on Manus Island called Lombrum, which is where the detainees, the asylum seekers were placed for a such draconian period of time just of late. But Mark would regale us with stories about growing up in PNG. How wonderful and broad and diverse the music was and culture was in general. The number of languages. All those things combined to having an interest in there. Not Drowning Waving went up to Rabaul in 1988. I’d been there before in 1986 travelling as a tourist. It was the first country I’d been to outside of Australia. With NDW I went back in 1988 to record a record at Pacific Gold Studios. So the interest in all those things I’ve just talked about was just a little bit more; this is fascinating music. And the important part for Australia, because this is our part of the world, this is where we reside. 

I loved collaborating with those (indigenous) musicians. I’ve met some wonderful people over the years and I’ve had many opportunities that I was pinching myself. Producing Archie Roach and Christine Anu being a couple of those. Working with George Telek, the singer from Rabaul in PNG was certainly another one of those. 

SN: There’s a connection - music and politics obviously, music and revolution. You started off talking about Bart Willoughby, who was a prime mover in that, one of the pioneers. But you’ve also worked with some of the different people from the West Papuan Freedom Movement. 

DB: Well, music and the liberation movement is intertwined in West Papua. They sing for their freedom. The songs sing about issues that are important to them. i think you’ll find this in a lot of countries where the people have been oppressed. For the Timorese, the Timor Leste people it was exactly the same. In fact we did a record on Wantok with some older, ex-resistance fighters singing the songs that they used to sing in the hills, hiding with FRETLIN (Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor). The West Papuans are the same. It’s so close to Australia - West Papua. It’s a movement, like with Timor, that Australia is probably one of the first ports of call. One of the closest nations to get behind it. There have been some musicians and filmmakers and theatre people who have said the West Papua issue is rightful. One of the important ones for Australian artists and politicians and social justice people to be involved with. 

SN: You’ve also worked quite extensively with one of my favourite artists, Frank Yamma. 

DB: Yeah, we’ve done four records with Frank. ‘Countryman’, ‘Uncle’, ’Tjukurpa: The Story’ and the ‘The Kulila Project’. Frank is quite an amazing Pitjantjatjara singer. He’s got a real bite to his lyrics and he’s an amazing musician. Great guitarist. And that’s been a wonderful association for Wanton Musik and for myself, producing and sometimes going on tour with Frank both here and overseas, with some other musicians as well. 

SN: I love that he gets into a groove too with his playing. 

DB: Oh yeah. He’s got a pretty dynamic right hand. When he plays guitar he shreds well. 

Stephen Norwood’s Hot To Trot March 2021 Podcast: 

mixcloud.com/H2Tcmaine/hot-to-trot-march-2021/ 

Includes the full interview with David Bridie plus several of the tracks he has recorded and some produced for other artists. 

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wantokmusik.org

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davidbridie.com