TANIA DOKO
Singer Tania Doko met songwriter James Roche in December 1992. He was pitching songs to pop band Girlfriend and needed a female vocalist. The pair spent five years crafting their own sound as Bachelor Girl, before being signed to John Farnham’s own label in 1997. The following year “Buses and Trains” was a global hit and they were championed by US record label boss Clive Davis.
The duo split amicably in 2004, reuniting in 2018 for new music and regular touring. Now based in Australia with her husband and son after a decade in Sweden, Doko will release her first solo album in 2023, including a duet with friend and songwriting partner Tina Arena.
Bachelor Girl were fortunate to come up in the ’90s. No-one knew what was coming – the internet and all these TV talent shows. The record industry changed dramatically – we were there for the last frontier of all that money. In 2002 we had a $200,000 budget for the video for “I’m Just a Girl”. That was one of the most expensive videos in Australian music history. We trusted the marketing people. You think, “If they’re gonna spend that much money on us, OK, let’s go!” The truth is, we are still recouping the cost of that from our royalties. All that money doesn’t guarantee success – it was a moderate hit. “Buses and Trains” had a video that cost $10,000 and people still talk about it 25 years on.
I was so lucky to work with James; the chemistry was undeniable. We did something right. No matter what I do now as a solo artist or with songwriting, those Bachelor Girl songs I have in my back pocket completely define me.
After we split, I was o ered a solo deal but it fell through. So I went to Sweden and worked as a songwriter. One of my first songs was a No.1 for
Samantha Jade [“What You’ve Done To Me”]. As a songwriter I can write from K-pop to R&B to rock. It was a beautiful rest from the machinery around being an artist. It’s still about creativity but following a brief. It’s wonderful to sing your own songs but there’s a lot of steps to get to that.
A few weeks ago I ran into an old flame and we laughed that if we had stayed together James would never have written “Buses and Trains” because my life would have been so smooth. I had so many train-wreck relationships in my late teens and early 20s and James saw me going through them and wrote about them. I was the muse for “Buses and Trains”. If I didn’t have those songs I probably wouldn’t be where I am now.
I wrote my first solo album during Covid in Sweden; I had to shed a lot of cobwebs. It’s so easy with Bachelor Girl, it just works. We still tour, we do a 40-minute set at festivals and there’s no filler. That’s a privilege. James and I kept Bachelor Girl special, and we still try to. We needed to do our own things and we still do. It’s lucky we never slept together because that’s probably why we can still make music together!
“THE TRUTH IS, WE ARE STILL RECOUPING THE COST OF THE ‘I’M JUST A GIRL’ MUSIC VIDEO FROM OUR ROYALTIES” – Tania Doko