INTERVIEW: Ixaras on her upcoming performance at Sweet Relief! festival: "I'm doing it out of pure passion. I just wanted to do this, and that's why I do it."
Interview: Jett Tattersall
Published: 28 August 2024
17 year old Ixaras is quickly becoming one of the most exciting new talents to emerge from Brisbane, Australia in recent years.
First appearing on the 2021 single ‘Waste My Time’ with josh nxrth, last year she released her first solo single ‘lately’. Her buzzy, indie-rock-pop sound has brought her attention from Triple J and streams in the hundreds of thousands as well as sold out shows, a Queensland Music Awards nomination and appearances at SXSW Sydney. This September she will also launch her own festival, Happy Feet Fest, in Bardon, Brisbane which will feature nine acts, including Ixaras.
On September 7, Ixaras will also perform at the Sweet Relief! Festival at Ballymore Stadium in Brisbane. Headlined by US superstar Kelis, the festival will also feature The Presets, Electric Fields, Haiku Hands and Dameeeela.
Although she is only a teenager, Ixaras’s music is assured and authentic, with her lyrics detailing the uncertainties of love and relationship with a maturity beyond her years. An artist that can easily become your favourite new discovery, we recently caught up with Ixaras to chat about her music career to date and her upcoming performance at Sweet Relief!
Hi Ixaras, so lovely to meet you. You are going headlong into your career, encompassing not just the making of music, but the celebration of music, and getting all young artists on board, which is phenomenal. Before I get diving into your music, I want to know, has this always been a part of who you are, to keep chasing beyond the art?
I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't be doing very well if I was a lawyer or something. I'm not very good academically, so I think this was always my plan from the beginning. I was always just really into the music in general, before I even knew anything about the industry. I always just wanted to be on stage and make music and just perform and stuff.
What was the music that you were listening to that made you want to get on stage?
Probably Hendrix. When I first came on board I was just like, ‘I want to be a rock star.’ The Nirvana Bleach album specifically, really made the gears of my brain turn and activate. It made me want to start doing stuff, because it was really powerful when I came across it for the first time. I grew up in a religious household, and the music I was being exposed to was hymns and stuff, so being able to discover [Nirvana] was insane.
How fantastic. And you basically went from discovering the Bleach album and wanting to be Hendrix, and then within a year, you were playing in our ears. How did your career get started?
I moved schools to MIC, which is a music school, and I met people who were into music and we formed a heavy alt rock band. We wanted to start gigging, I was about 14 at the time, and we started emailing venues trying to get gigs. We got gigs, but the venues didn't let me in for sound check, they kicked me out right after we played because I was underage. It sucked! I was like\, what can we do? I'll just put on my own show. So I got public liability insurance, I started booking out community halls, and got my friends’ bands to start playing. My friend was telling me about The Saints and how they started booking out shows in their living room and calling it Club 76 and every Friday, all these punk kids would just go and rock out in this living room. And they popped off because of that, and got signed to EMI. So I was just like, I want to do this.
That’s incredible that you have gone if I can't fit here, I'll just make my own. How has the reaction from your younger fans been? They must just be loving it, because they've now got somewhere to go.
It's really cool seeing these kids come to the shows. Sometimes they come up to me after a gig, and they're like, ‘I just wanted to let you know this was the first experience of live music I've ever had and I just want to thank you for making the space for everyone to feel like they can just be themselves’. And I was like, what? You never know, that kid who just came to a show could be the next big thing. It makes kids want to do things and pursue their creative endeavours. I have kids coming in with their dingy old camera or camcorder, and then they end up being ‘I want to be a videographer, I want to be a photographer, I want to create zines’. It's really, really awesome to see these kids being so passionate and it just makes me want to do more and just give more. I'm addicted to dopamine and when I get dopamine, it's like a drug in a way. I get so much dopamine seeing all these people wanting to pursue their creative endeavours. It just makes me so happy.
Your music starts with you and your guitarist in your bedroom, it's very insular, and then you're suddenly out playing these beautiful stages. I know that's what you've always wanted to do, but does the playing live fact of it really drive how you write music as well?
Yeah, I only recently realised how important the live act and making that first impression for an audience who doesn't know who you are is. I’ve only recently been figuring that out. I love being on stage, but I'm not the best singer, I wouldn't classify myself as a singer, I just classify myself as a writer. I haven't really written a song to be played live, not with that as the first thing my mind. I use writing as an outlet and almost like a time capsule for what I am, how I am, and what I'm feeling at the time.
You've got some quite big shows coming up with Sweet Relief! You're going to be there with Kelis, The Presets, Haiku Hands, this is an insane show that's happening. And then Bigsound, where you're also part of the workshop and panel. Talk to me a little bit about these shows that are coming up.
Yeah, actually on September 1, we're running our first festival, so it's gonna be kind of a crazy week, doing that festival, doing the panels, attending all the workshops, attending all the showcases, and then playing the massive Sweet Relief! festival, and then the next week we kick off the tour. It’s pretty hectic in my brain to be able to do that, and I'm really grateful. I'm so excited, you just reminded me that I'm excited!
Do you think that sometimes, because you're so busy just getting ready for it, you forget what it's going to be like?
I'm just scared that I'm not going to pass my diploma! That's all I'm scared about. But it's true. Business and creativity is really, really hard to balance. I always get caught up and then when it's actually happening, and you're performing, it's cool, because you feel really validated for all of the hard work.
On the business and the creativity working hand in hand, it's very easy to just get sidetracked by thinking you’re just going to write music and make music, but it's still a business, and there are so many things to it. Where does that come from within you to be so grounded in the industry?
I don't know. At the end of the day, I just want to make music and sing my heart out. That’s all I wanted to do. But I realised to do that, I do have to build a foundation to that. And that's why the youth and targeting the all ages audience, is really, really important to me because I was excluded and I wasn't able to see some of my favourite artists because I was under 18. And not only that, I was also restricted when I was trying to play events. Why don't we just create the space for kids to just come in and be able to balance the business part? Really, I'm doing it out of pure passion. I just wanted to do this, and that's kind of why I do it.
I think that’s the best business model as well, you just wanted to do it so you're doing it to your best ability. Can I ask you one last thing, with regards to your songwriting, it is phenomenal. You're taking me across decades, you're blending. There’s some 60s here, there's a little bit of 80s synth here, it's really amazing. Does that come from a place of just loving all the music and just wanting to put it all in your own music?
Yeah, honestly I used to write awful songs, my songs were not up to what I would consider good. But the only way like to improve was to listen and learn. I don't know any music theory, I base everything off what I'm hearing and melody placement and how I can make all of the frequencies in the song balance. I just listened to as much music as I could so I could absolutely just consume everything and then be influenced by everything, because you are the product of everything you've been exposed to in the environment you've been in. You can't be original because everything's been done before, but you can be yourself from everything you have been influenced by. And I think just listening to music makes you a better writer by just consuming all the time.
Sweet Relief! Festival is on 7 September at Ballymore Stadium. Tickets are on sale now.
Follow Ixaras on Instagram and TikTok.
