Tassie artists get their big break

YOU may have heard of Tasmanian pop queen and singer songwriter Asta, melodic punk rockers Luca Brasi and indie pop artist Maddy Jane.

That is at least in part because they were given their leg-up on to the national stage by Australia’s youth broadcaster, Triple J.

Bruny Island export Maddy Jane had her first ever song release, People, picked up by the national youth broadcaster in 2015.

But she said she would never forget receiving the Unearthed spot on the Falls Festival stage after her 2016 track Drown It Out earned her the title of Triple J feature artist.

“That just literally started things off for me … from that moment on, I was pretty much touring non-stop,” Jane said.

“Getting that exposure brings you into the community, and I’m so thankful to feel a part of the Australian music scene.”

Maddy Jane’s debut album, Not All Bad or Good, was featured by the station for a week in May, with the poignant issues it raised, such as on the song Femme, discussed in depth.

“[Triple J is] always at the forefront of amazing political stances that I admire,” Jane said.

Hobart-based four-piece Luca Brasi were about to release their second album, By a Thread, in 2014 when Triple J gave one of their tracks a whirl. A public relations company had been pushing to get one of their songs on radio, though the band didn’t understand the impact it would have.

“It was exposure that we’d never experienced before and you can’t really get elsewhere,” frontman Tyler Richardson said. “We were getting out there to people we never could [reach].”

The band had already started touring and saw new fans start flocking to shows, which Richardson largely attributes to the radio play.

In 2018, Richardson’s home town on Tasmania’s East Coast played host to a Triple J event that would “go down in history”.

Triple J’s One Night Stand enticed more than 20,000 music lovers to St Helens — a town with a population of just more than 2000 people.

It featured a line-up of artists who would typically fill arenas and headline the nation’s biggest festivals, such as Vance Joy and Peking Duk, and fans tuned in from around the globe.

Break O’Day Mayor Mick Tucker said One Night Stand gave the region a “shot in the arm” economically.

“But nobody could ever pay for that type of exposure,” he said.

“As far as I know, we still hold the record for the biggest ever One Night Stand held anywhere in Australia.

“Without having that radio station … allowing little regional places like our community in Australia the opportunity to step on the world stage, in a lot of cases it would never happen.”

Mr Tucker said the impact the event had on the community could not be measured in dollars.

“It’s about mental health, good will, exposure and the sense of pride that came to our community,” he said.

patrick.gee@news.com.au