High School Musical: Snakadaktal’s Phoebe Talks Grade 12 And Touring

Since winning triple j Unearthed High last year Snakadaktal have released acclaimed EP Chimera, landed a spot in Triple J’s Hottest 100 and toured with the Jezabels. And they’re all one year out of school, with the exception of the singer, Phoebe, who is currently completing Year 12. When we were that young we were probably still eating Play Dough and peeing our pants? The point is: these teenagers are an overachieving group. With the release of the single “Dance Bear” and a national tour coming up (dates below) we talked to Phoebe about being influenced by Avril Lavigne, how fans can win her heart (with unicorn drawings) and the surreal experience of success…

PEDESTRIAN: Hi Phoebe how’s your day going? PHOEBE: Oh, very well, doing some homework…

Yeah, I heard you’re on school holidays at the moment? You’re still in Year 12, is that right? Yeah, the rest of the boys have finished but I’m still soldiering on.

That’s pretty full on, how are you finding balancing all of that. Are you less concerned with your final results because of everything you’ve got going on with your music? I don’t think the music has affected my concern of a result, but I’m certainly not aiming to be a rocket scientist, so I’m not too stressed out. I’m still trying to find a good a balance in terms of finding time for each part of my schedule.

If you weren’t going to continue with the band what path would you go down? Hypothetically, there are a lot of things I’m interested in but I’m not sure what I want to do yet.

Have you always considered music to be a really prominent career path for you or is it just since the band’s taken off that it’s become something that could actually be viable? It’s always been a very prominent part of my life but I never imagined that it would be a career path so I’ve just been taking it as it comes.

Prior to winning Unearthed High did you find that your age was a barrier to people taking you seriously? Did you have issues with performing in licensed venues when you were underage? That was definitely a struggle. We were playing shows just in Melbourne for quite a few months prior to Unearthed. We would often be sneaking into these places and planning out ways to play some music. A few older siblings would pass on their ID’s to use, just quietly. We weren’t allowed into a venue at one stage, but that might have had something to do with the fact that we were all wearing bare feet and drinking Slurpee’s at the time.

I know a lot of young bands are concerned with what happens to their creative control once they sign to a label. What’s been your experience of that? We’ve been really lucky, I’m not very experienced with labels and all of that business but the people I’m working with are really supportive of what we’re doing and always open to discuss everything. There haven’t been any troubles in terms of creative control yet. It’s working really nicely.

In terms of your film clips and the way that you perform, do you have full control over that? You’re quite a visual and performance based band, where does that theatrical element come from? I was actually asking the boys about this the other day because I read a few things where they’d said that. I think it’s just a matter of opinion, I don’t think we’re a very live focused band but they certainly do. It’s all just what happens on the night and how we’re feeling, we do tend to have a lot of fun though.

Do you get nervous when you perform and how do you handle that? I don’t know if I’m not nervous because of the fact that we’ve been performing for a while or just that I don’t know what’s going on half the time. I don’t tend to get too nervous, which I guess is a positive thing.

Do you have any exciting collaborations that the public and your fans might not know about? Not that I know about! I’d love to do a collaboration soon. We were going to do something with San Cisco a little while ago but we didn’t have time and it didn’t end up happening, so hopefully we’ll be able to do that in the future.

So you’ve got your tour coming up and we’re sure there are a lot of fans hoping to get your attention. Can we give them any tips on how? Any gifts that you’d like to receive? Oh no! I’m not a gift person. I once received a letter from a fan and it had a picture of a unicorn on it. That was very nice.

Since you’re still in high school, I’m assuming a lot of your peers would have Beyonce and Carly Rae Jepsen heavy Ipods going on. Do you have any guilty musical pleasures? I think my music taste is probably a bit different to what a lot of people might think. I listen to a lot of jazz, there’s not a lot of Carly Rae on there – but I definitely don’t mind a bit of that! The first CD I ever bought…it could have been Jet or Avril Lavigne.

I can’t hear the Avril Lavigne influence coming through in Snakadaktal…. Maybe just subtly!

Is there something that you’re most excited about coming up? The most exciting thing is writing and recording for this album, that’s my favourite par.

When song writing do you all draw on personal experiences or is it more fictional than that? There’s a mixture of the really personal, just little joke stories that we tell each other and fictional things we create. There’s no real formula with the song writing, it just tends to happen. We never really decide what we’re aiming for, it just comes out.

If you’re a Snakadaktal fan you should “just come out” to their national tour presented by Pedestrian! Check out all the dates below and mark your diaries.


THE DANCE BEAR TOUR – w/ guests Sures

FRI 3 AUGUST – The Gov, Adelaide – LIC AA
Tickets $18 +BF from www.moshtix.com.au
With Sures and The Salvadors

SAT 4 AUGUST – Astor Theatre, Perth – LIC AA
Tickets $18 +BF from www.bocsticketing.com.au
With Sures and Bastian’s Happy Flight

FRI 10 AUGUST – Hi Fi, Brisbane
Tickets $18 +BF from www.moshtix.com.au
With Sures and Palindromes

SAT 11 AUGUST – Metro Theatre, Sydney – LIC AA
Tickets $18 +BF from www.ticketek.com.au / www.metrotheatre.com.au
With Sures and Fishing

FRI 17 AUGUST – Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Tickets $18 +BF from www.cornerhotel.com
With Sures and City Calm Down

SAT 18 AUGUST – Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Tickets $18 +BF from www.cornerhotel.com
With Sures and City Calm Down

FRI 24 AUGUST – Republic Bar, Hobart
Tickets $18 +BF from www.moshtix.com.au
With Sures and Ben Wells & the Middle Names

By Tara Kenny


Title Image Provided by Snakadaktal

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