We chat with author and musician Peggy Frew.
A&U: Hi Peggy! Thanks so much for chatting with us! Would you mind giving our readers a little introduction to yourself and your awesome catalogue of work?
PF: Thanks for having me! I’ve had a mixed career of music, then writing, and now back to music again. I am usually a bass player and have done most of my music work with Art of Fighting, an indie band from Naarm/Melbourne. Our greatest claim to fame was winning an ARIA for best independent release in 2001 but we were in Germany on tour when it was announced. We found out when our label boss rang on our crappy red mobile phone that we all shared while we were loading out of a venue early afternoon Berlin time and all we could hear was him screaming in joy and surprise – nobody thought we were going to win, including us. Writing-wise, I’ve had four novels published, two with A&U: Islands and most recently Wildflowers, in 2022. And now I’m back to music again with my first solo album, Dial-Up.
A&U: You’ve published a number of amazing novels across your career. Can you tell us a bit about your writing process?
PF: I am not a planner. I usually only have a vague idea of the characters and the set-up and I don’t know what’s going to happen. And I am not efficient. I always write myself into a big mess and go through a despairing phase, before gradually figuring out what the book has actually turned out to be about – which isn’t ever exactly what I thought it was in the beginning.
A&U: How does the process of writing a novel compare to writing music? Do you prefer one over the other?
PF: Both start out (for me anyway) as solitary pursuits, and I think I go into a similar zone of absorption and even obsession with a song or a novel. But with a novel it’s obviously way deeper and broader, and requires a much greater commitment of time and energy. At the moment I much prefer songs, they’re so much lighter, psychically.
A&U: Are there any books or albums you’re loving right now?
PF: I’m currently reading Nova Weetman’s memoir, Love, Death and Other Scenes, which is just so good, one of those books where you can feel the author right there beside you as you read. And album-wise I’m still stuck on Jess Ribeiro’s Summer of Love, divine but also earthy, definitely my album of the year.
A&U: Do you have any projects going on that you’d like to tell us about?
PF: I am very excited (and a little bit nervous) to be playing a couple of shows to launch Dial-Up. It’s going to be me plus a band, including my good friend Marty Brown from Art of Fighting and also my teenage son! They should be pretty special, got some lovely local supports on the nights too. I also have some hand-screen-printed t-shirts I’ll only be selling at the shows. And vinyl!
A&U: What advice would you give our readers who might want to get into writing novels or music?
PF: Follow your obsession. If something is fascinating to you then there will be other people out there who also find it fascinating. Worry about the pitch and the audience and all that stuff later, once you’ve made your thing. Just get lost in the world of your thing and let it consume you for a while.
Peggy's new album Dial-Up is out November 8 through Remote Control and Sad Frog Records.
See Peggy LIVE at:
Naarm/Melbourne launch: Sat November 9 at The Bergy Bandroom.
Eora/Sydney launch: Fri November 15 at The Factory Fusebox.
You can also follow Peggy at @peggy.frew on Instagram.
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