Zan’s life in rhythm
ROWE MAKES MUSIC A DAILY PURSUIT
Zan Rowe says she just doesn’t believe it when people tell her they don’t like music. The versatile TV, radio and podcast presenter has been so enamoured of the art form for so many years that she simply can’t fathom that others don’t share her passion, at least to some degree.
“Wow, that’s a big question,” she says when asked what music means to her.
“It’s my memory bank. It’s the thing that gets me going physically and mentally. It’s the thing that triggers me to have a big old weep when I need to. It’s the way that I formed my identity and the way that I continue to form my identity.”
Although music has been Rowe’s job for more than two decades thanks to stints on Triple J, Double J and as a regular contributor to ABC News Breakfast, she’s never forgotten what it’s like to be a music fan. And where some people find themselves hearkening back to the bands and artists they loved in their formative late teen and early 20s years, Rowe says she’s as curious and hungry as ever to seek out new music.
“I never lose that feeling of listening to a piece of music and hearing something great and just getting tingles and then wanting to share it with everyone.”
Rowe has been doing just that through her radio and TV work, and also through her long-running Take 5 podcast, which assigns guests (from local acts such as Hilltop Hoods and Midnight Oil’s Peter Garrett to international stars Damon Albarn, Kylie Minogue and Paul McCartney) a theme and then invites them to choose five songs that relate to it.
As the guests explain how their selections have affected their lives and careers, they often also open up with some startling revelations.
When Rowe transferred the tried and tested radio and podcast format to TV for a new ABC series that began this week, she knew she and her team would have to work hard to recreate the intimacy and immediacy amid confrontational TV equipment.
“You’re really asking people to step into a zone where they’re quite vulnerable. I wanted to make sure that we still maintained that safe space and also that people could fall into the experience of listening to these songs, which inevitably leads to unlocking something.
“Often in Take 5, the guest doesn’t realise until they’re in it that it’s opening up something and it really is quite an amazing unlocking of a lot of stories.”
But Rowe’s work pays off in spades in the first series. Her first guest, actor and musician Guy Pearce reveals the part that music – his own and others’ – played in helping him come to grips with the premature death of his father.
In Nashville, Keith Urban opens up on the drive, ambition and hard slog that helped him become an international country superstar – and how music both fuelled his addictions and then saved him from them.
Missy Higgins literally breaks down in tears talking for the first time about her recent split from her husband and father of her two children, as well as her mental health issues.
Man of the moment – and the only non-musician interview subject – sports presenter Tony Armstrong explains how becoming a music superfan finally made him comfortable in his own skin. And in a raw and revealing interview in LA’s legendary Sunset Marquis Hotel, that Rowe says would have left her 13-year-old self flabbergasted, singer-songwriter Tori Amos speaks candidly about the shocking sexual assault early in her career and her continuing fight to be heard as a woman in music.
Rowe says that the key to unlocking her guests is to approach the conversations as a fellow music fan. Because they are talking about other people’s music, rather than specifically shilling a new album or concert tour, they often feel more comfortable revealing things about themselves and their experiences.
“It’s still an in-depth interview about someone’s life but through this prism of music, which is something that I think that we can all relate to,” she says.
“These people are icons, and they’re heroes and they make incredible art, but they’re also very human. And I think that these conversations show that we can be on that same level.
“Everyone I spoke to was pretty down to earth and so open and beautiful and generous. There was no ego and there was no bullshit in these conversations.”
Of all the guests this season, Rowe says she was most surprised by the selections of Urban (who knew he was a disco fan?), but audiences might be most surprised – and moved – by the candour of Higgins. Never before had the singer-songwriter been so open about her struggles with mental health, her sexuality and marriage breakdown.
One of Higgins’ selections was her walk down the aisle song, and hearing it again was more than she could bear.
“She’s openly weeping and I just thought ‘this is tough’ and I was crying too and I thought ‘I can’t just leave her out there’. So, I just stepped in and just held on to her and didn’t let go until she physically broke. I held her for the duration of the song and didn’t let go until she pulled away and I just wanted her to feel safe.”