While you might hate to admit it, there are times in life when your closest friends know what’s best for your life. In the case of the girls from All Our Exes Live in Texas, they can thank their friend for even existing. “A friend of ours was putting on a gig and he just booked us and said, ‘I think you four should start a band’. So he booked us and we had to think of a name and start learning how to play our instruments,” Hannah says.
“Georgia had never played a mandolin before and she had to go and buy one. So we actually did it for that one gig, then had the best time and decided to keep on doing it.”
Beyond that even the connections within the group before they formed almost seemed as if the world was pushing for Hannah Crofts, Elana Stone, Katie Wighton and Georgia Mooney to form a band. “It’s pretty funny given the turn of events,” Hannah adds with a smile.
What Hannah hints to is her friendship with Georgia after studying together at university in Perth, then Elana being friends with Katie and also Hannah’s singing teacher.
“I used take the train out to Elana’s house and get lessons and I just fell in love with her,” she says.
Fair to say it was the friend in need covering an empty spot at a gig that started the band, but having Elana bring them all together in the first place certainly helped and there surely wouldn’t have been too many signs left to tip them over the edge of starting a band together.
Since forming it seems the universe has been in their favour, with a successful – and extensive – tour completed last year in support of their new single ‘Tell Me’, with fans rocking up to places they could barely point out on a map.
“It was so surprising because it’s the longest tour we’d ever done as a band. I guess we just weren’t even expecting anyone to come because we’d never been to any of these places,” she says.
“We did lots of rural Australia and doing these gigs people were turning up and we were like, ‘Who are you all what are you doing here?’ But that was a really nice surprise, like Adelaide. I’d never been to Adelaide before but all these people showed up which was really exciting to me.”
Keeping with the good vibes of the bands creation and history, they’ve had many established musicians – whether from past friendships or new connections – help them out in their career.
“Megan Washington just came down to one of our gigs, because she’s good friends with Elana, and from that asked us to do that tour with her,” Hannah says.
“So most of our stuff has just been people being like, of course we’ll help you come on tour with us or play at this show, which has been really nice.”
Look up their hit single ‘Tell Me’ on YouTube and you’ll see a similar trend with Phil Jamieson (Grinspoon), Jake Stone (Bluejuice), Lawrence Leung (Offspring) and Jackson Gallagher (Home and Away) starring as the ex-boyfriends of the girls in the clip.
Still new to the music scene Hannah faced an internal challenge when meeting Phil Jamieson for the first time. Being a big fan there were a few blunders and, while she may have felt awkward looking him in the eyes again afterwards, she thoroughly enjoyed working with him and the rest of the group in the clip and was grateful for them even getting on board the idea.
“Ryan is the most amazing one because none of us had met him before and I just sent him a cold email, out of the blue, and said ‘Hey do you want to be in our video clip as one of our ex boyfriends?’ and he just wrote back and said ‘Yeah, my brother lives in Sydney so I’m happy to pay for my flights and everything. You don’t have to worry about doing anything I’m just happy to be in it’. So he just flew up and did it,” she says.
Given they only formed a few years ago the list of musicians they’ve worked with is a highly impressive one, but is there anyone Hannah was wishing to add to the list?
“There’s this guy called Shakey Graves from the US, he’s coming over here this year and I’ve been sending him fan mail for a couple of months. I’m a bit crazy and think we’ll get married if we meet,” Hannah adds before a burst of laughter.
“I’ve been very professionally sending him fan mail. But he is just my dream person to work with, and to marry and have children.”
Even if nothing eventuates from the emails to Shakey, the band can distract themselves with an upcoming performance at Port Fairy Folk Festival over the long weekend in March. With acts like Sinead O’Connor – who Hannah lists as someone she’ll be trying to see – Buffy Sainte-Marie and Marlon Williams there’s plenty of quality acts to get excited about.
When&Where: Port Fairy Folk Festival – March 7,8 & 9
By Amanda Sherring
