BIGSOUND 2025 is now only just a week away.
Ahead of the annual Brisbane music industry conference and festival, Australian songwriters and BIGSOUND 2025 acts Wafia and Azure Ryder have sat down for an artist-on-artist interview.
Check out the full conversation below.
WAFIA ASKS, AZURE RYDER ANSWERS:
Azure Ryder
What was the impetus for swapping Australia for London, and likewise for moving back?
Like all wonderful workings of life, the reason I left also became the reason I came back. I originally moved to London for my music, and I moved back home for my music, but in two entirely different ways, the second was a choice solely for me. The funny thing about your mind, your dreams, and your heart, is it all travels with you. A change of scene doesn’t always heal your state of belief. My state of belief actually changed when I moved home to the comfort of my natural habitat and looked inside. Evidently I was in there all along.
What were the ways you found yourself missing Australia and how did you go about finding those things in London?
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I missed the things that nurtured me. My family, nature, softness. I tried my best to walk my day through a park, find spaces to breathe, and bless my Mum, I would call her at all times of the day and she would always pick up. Just as everything you love and know in your bones, the distance from them can’t last forever. In fact when I returned to Australia, it was the beginning of summer and after my first night back in my childhood bed I was awoken by something I hadn’t realised how deeply I’d been missing until they sang.. the birds outside my window. I cried.
How did you go about staying connected to your loved ones in Aus? What about your fans?
A day didn’t go by that I wasn’t on the phone with my family. I’d walk them on my way to coffee, or on the way back from a session or show. This way going about my daily life there if I needed to hear their voice, I felt like they were there with me. The most beautiful thing my time in London gave me were my best friends. They were the joy, the support, and the love I feel so grateful to have found (for life), and on the other side of the world when I was feeling separated, they became family. My fans, I’m not sure I can speak on this largely as my experience is surely different to a possible perception. I honestly wasn’t sure I truly had a community around my music, I did all I knew to keep a presence, but as I was losing connection to myself, I became so unsure on how to connect and if I even should. In retrospect, it’s now lovely to know that even in a chapter I was a mere glimmer of myself, there were sweet souls who still did connect and waited for me to return.
If there was one scent that reminds you of home (wherever that may be) that you could bottle and carry in your pocket on your travels, what would it be?
The scent is more of a moment I would bottle – there is this lake walk I love to do near the home I grew up in Sydney. The breeze through my chest, the path weaving beneath trees, the way the sunlight stars on the water in gentle kisses, and at my favourite time of the day nearing night the pastel pinks, purples and blues that blush the sky and melt into the lake, it is pure romance.
Lastly, I read that you’re Lebanese! I’m Syrian-Iraqi so we share borders and so much food. Personally I gotta know – what’s your favourite Lebanese dish and what was your relationship to cooking any of that food for yourself when you were in London?
Aw, wonderful to share in vibrant backgrounds. I am a creature of simple comfort, Vine Leaves (Warak enab) forever. I have a lot I would love to learn in cooking plant based Lebanese food for myself, one thing I was super excited to have baked whilst living in London was a vegan version of Sesame Biscuits (Kaak). Crunchy salty outside and melty cloudy insides, heaven in a cookie.
AZURE RYDER ASKS, WAFIA ANSWERS:
Wafia
I feel like we resonate in coming to an understanding that finding a home is when your instinct becomes to dig your heels in rather than keep running. Was there a turning point in which you felt that true sense of home and how did that steer your music ?
Honestly, no and still I am unsure. Part of me indulges in the narrative that maybe I’m supposed to be nomadic and that’s what my bones/ancestry knows so I’m ‘doomed’ to replicate that forever. So underneath this front is a sense of unsettledness that I’ve accepted is a part of me and essential to my music/curiosity of the world.
I have such a deep love for Nashville and I definitely carry it via heart home. I understand you’ve recently moved to LA. What’s your experience with creativity and community there as opposed to Australia and do you think finding a harmony with yourself on a road well worn has reflected and flavoured your current songwriting and soundscape ?
There’s so much value to me in living in LA at this point of my career/life stage right now for a few reasons. One being I love being able to jump into a session at any hour of the day. And secondly, I think the inverse of that is nice too, where everyone is freelance to some degree which means I can see my friends at random hours of the day because the city doesn’t run on a traditional 9-5. And lastly, everyone I work with is either living here or passing through at some point during the year. It’s nice being a little more central compared to growing up in Brisbane where musically in some ways I felt isolated.
Do you feel the music you are arriving at now couldn’t have existed if not for the earlier years travelled ?
That’s an interesting thought. Yes. My whole life I’ve travelled a lot – my parents moved me around a lot from continent to continent so a lot of that informs the music I was exposed to at an early age. Hard to imagine any other way but also hard to imagine that not having influenced me so deeply.
There is so much incredible art birthed in Australia that the world deserves to experience but is still wildly overlooked. In retrospect of your journey to now and how other countries may celebrate their own, is there one thing you wish to change in the landscape of the Australian music industry that would make artists feel more supported to seek home growth?
I know we have way better infrastructure to support artists than say, the US, but I don’t think that’s a good enough metric anymore. The globalisation of the internet has really impacted music, it’s harder to find homegrown music – you have to be pretty deliberate in seeking it out. I don’t have the answers but I think if I could change anything right now is the culture in people going to Australian artists’ shows. People want to feel like they are watching a show that the rest of the world has seen, instead of seeing something that maybe you could only see in Australia and I really wish attitudes around that could change.
I noticed you love to bake goods, do you have a favourite potion, brew, bake that no matter where you are in the world, feels instantly like home ?
Probably this salad I make that I top with roasted salmon! Travelling means there isn’t always access to fresh food so whenever I can get my hands on ingredients that feel nourishing, it really makes me feel cozy.
See the full lineup and more at bigsound.org.au.
