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Singer Holly Throsby is a woman of many talents. She can sing, she can draw comics, she can ride a unicycle, she can juggle fireclubs. She’s also a woman of many loves – her dog Jones, duets, 20th century literature, small towns in Alaska, films about small towns (in Alaska and elsewhere), the New South Wales mountains… And her brand new album, A Loud Call, she loves her new album, and seeing as it brings together a few of her talents, namely singing, unicycles (she rides one in the album’s first music video) and comics (she creates ‘hand-drawn companions’), so do her fans.
But before we go any further with what could be a bad personal ad for a great singer, let’s back up and explain just what comics and unicycles have to do with folk music. The comics joined forces with Throsby’s music on her second album Under the Town, when she sold a comic book album companion at the merch desk for $5.
‘It’s not like they are an amazing artistic feat or anything,’ says Throsby. ‘Charmingly naïve is the way I would describe them… I just drew this really weird comic book and then people turned out to love it. We sold hundreds on that tour and had to keep going back to Officeworks to copy more.’
On Throsby’s third album A Loud Call, the comic book tradition continues (Throsby is working on the next installment now). But there’s more, and by more, we mean a unicycle. The unicycle appears in the music video for the album’s first single – the delightfully understated poppy folk song (or folky pop) song ‘A Heart Divided’. And riding it is Throsby herself in a dress – credit for that idea goes to the video’s director Yanni Kronenberg.
‘It was the old teenage broken heart story,’ explains Throsby of how she learned to ride a unicycle. ‘When I was in high school I had this crush on a boy who wanted to be in the circus. He really didn’t know I was alive, so I taught myself to ride a unicycle and to juggle fireclubs in an attempt to win his affections. Of course, it didn’t work and he didn’t really pay me much attention and I was left with this kind of redundant skill that I didn’t really have any use for until we were talking about that film clip.’
Now, that she’s ridden her one-wheeled wonder in a music video, is there any chance Holly Throsby and her trio of musicians will be incorporating unicycling into the live show?
‘We have a three-piece band – me, Bree [van Reyk] my drummer and Jens [Berchall] who plays bass and cello and stuff. Strangely, Jens can ride a unicycle as well. One day perhaps the two of us could do something strange with that on stage. We just need to be more famous first so we can play on a bigger stage. That’s the aim basically to get to stadiums so we can incorporate a unicycle into the show.’
In the meantime, though, Australia’s finest female folk unicyclist had a few tips for fans keen to switch from two-wheels to one.
‘You get your unicycle and you get into somewhere like a corridor where you have two walls you can touch on either side. You get some help getting on to the unicycle then you just hold on to the walls on either side. After practicing that for some weeks, you pop out the end and ride completely solo. It’s a great feeling.’
Holly Throsby’s new album A Loud Call is in stores now. She will play The Bakery in Northbridge on September 20 and Mojo’s in Fremantle on September 21. To find out if unicycles will be involved or just to sneak a listen to some of her new tracks, visit www.myspace.com/hollythrosby.
