Darwin Muso Series is a string of an indeterminate number of mini to medium to mega interviews with Darwin-based musicians and performing artists. Starting in September 2019, and we’ll see how many we can cover over the next weeks/months/years.
Alice Cotton
The Darwin Railway Club played host to the Darwin regional final of the Passport To Airlie competition in mid-September 2019.
Airlie Beach Festival of Music is held in November, however, in the lead-up, the organisers stage what is arguably* Australia’s biggest battle of the bands competition.
* You’d be doing very well to beat 12-13 major locations across half the continent.
Alice Cotton is an emerging artist who has returned to Darwin to ply her musical trade(s). Alice has a unique twist on folk-country music with original songs steeped in warmth and humour. Her songs draw influence from old-time American music, with a nod to growing up in humid climes amongst a tight-knit community in the Northern Territory. Alice is recording her first EP in late 2019.
Bill Quinn: What’s the Alice Cotton story? With music!
Alice Cotton: I was actually studying classical music; I used to play classical flute, but I just found it a bit of an elitist culture.
And then I really got into music therapy. It was through that I started song-writing and doing my own stuff.
I found it gave me more space to be more creative and do what I wanted to do and do gigs more easily.
BQ: Is that your ‘rent gig’? Do you do music therapy during the day?
AC: Yeah.
BQ: That seems to be a bit of a theme!
AC: Yeah, Crystal [Robins] as well! We actually studied together through University of Melbourne [Alice in Melbourne, Crystal in Sydney].
Overheard Productions 