Getting to know Ginger & Drum

Ginger & Drum are a Sydney-based two-piece who are playing at Oxford Art Factory in their home city tonight. So somethingyousaid.com thought we’d discover more about them, in their own words:

Ginger & Drum are simply a guy and a girl, one ginger, one drummer who met at uni and are exploring the potential effect a song can have on an individual. We aspire to make that effect as big as possible. After years of writing emotional “debby-downer music” we decided to challenge ourselves to write emotionally moving music and sneakily disguise it in a cloak of upbeat pop.

We take inspiration from a melting pot. Not literally. We take inspiration (but probably sound nothing like) Bon Iver, Lykke Li, Chopin, Grimmes, Passion Pit, The Naked and Famous, Phoenix, The Strokes, Florence and the Machine. We would also like to pay homage to perhaps our biggest creative motivator in the form of the best chicken burger in Sydney – Chookas in Mosman or Wahroonga. Without them we would not have had the energy to add the last five synth layers to our new single Backstreets, nor the energy to listen to the song another 30 times, then get rid of the last five synth layers… they were shite.

Our show at Sydney’s Oxford Art Factory tonight will be a big party. We enjoy a good brew or 12 with our mates and the crowd after the show. We have an awesome group of dedicated peeps that always come along and have a solid dance session! It’s like a giant friendly house party if you ignore the scary club bouncers.

We’re currently listening to Grimes, Lykke Li, and The Khanz. We actually have a band crush on The Khanz at the moment. We played a gig with them and have both decided that they deserve to be very famous. That is all.

We spend too much time debating over whether to get a salad or a Charlies Chargrilled Chomper Burger at Chookas. We are both conscious of the fact that the indie scene is becoming rather crowded so in order to squeeze onto the radio roster, and into our super skinny jeans we must both look into this silly tofu salad craze. We also spend a lot of time debating over how we will mastermind someone to drive our car home after a gig so we can join the party. So far we have been successful for 100% of gigs due to meticulous scheming and greasing up our families. Both our siblings have now joined our live show though so the pool of designated drivers has just halved… nooooooooooo

It might surprise people to learn that we both study accounting and work in finance…. Awks. At least no venue can rip us off when it comes to money however hard some try.

In five years time we both plan to not be studying accounting! We plan to be in Berlin/Stockholm/Brooklyn/San Diego all at once. Playing at a big festival would be our dream come true as well so hopefully in five years we’ll be able to tick that one of the extensive wish list of additional life perks.

You can see Ginger & Drum at Sydney’s Oxford Art Factory tonight (Thursday November 22), along with a bunch of other awesome bands. It’s FREE and you even get a FREE DRINK on arrival. Details here

Interview by Bobby Townsend