Season 1, Episode 6: Zoë Randell

Welcome to another episode of The Cockatoo!

In this edition, host Adam Burke chats with singer, songwriter Zoe Randall, who together with Steve Hassett make up the folk duo Luluc.  We learn how the duo managed to keep their connections to Australia, while forging a successful US career that has included signing to Sub Pop, sharing stages and studios with American folk rock royalty, and participating in some uniquely American traditions such as playing NPR's Tiny Desk and performing at the Lincoln Center.

Interview Transcript

Adam Burke: Welcome to The Cockatoo, your source for all things Australian music in the US of A. We're coming at you from Hollywood, California, traditionally Tongva and Chumash country, and this is the interview part of our newsletter where we get into musical journeys to the United States. Today I'm very happy to be talking to Zoe Randell, who with Steve Hassett make up the folk duo Luluc. Zoe and Steve grew up in Victoria, Australia, but met in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1999. It wasn't until 2008 that they released their debut album as Luluc. Between now and then they have released five studio albums, moving between Australia and Brooklyn. They've signed to Sub Pop, shared stages and studios with American folk rock and rock royalty and participated in some uniquely American traditions such as playing NPR's Tiny Desk and covering The Grateful Dead.

Let's find out more about how this musical journey has gone down. Welcome, Zoe.

Zoe: Thank you.

Adam: Great to have you on The Cockatoo interview. Let's start by orienting our listeners a little bit about Luluc. As I said in the introduction, you guys met in 1999. Tell us a little bit about that period between, just sort of quickly, between 1999 and then putting out your first album in 2008.

Zoe: Steve and I both went traveling in 1999 after leaving our first bands. We were both fed up. I decided very seriously to quit music, even though I hadn't been doing it for that long. When we met, we actually, I guess the quickest way to say it is that we sang together and both of us were completely gobsmacked by the harmonic blend. We'd been hanging out and I started playing an idea that I'd been writing and Steve started harmonizing to it. Yes, it sounded incredible. But, we then went back to Australia and did all manner of other things.

Both went to university, worked different jobs, and it wasn't until quite a few years later that we decided that actually we should turn our attention to music. The big caveat for that, especially for me, was that my father passed away. After a year or so, I was pretty miserable. I was studying full-time, working. Steve just suggested one day, how about we just piss off overseas and work on music for a while. That's what we did.

Adam: When do you peg that time that Luluc actually started as a band, after 1999 and before 2008?

Zoe: Probably 2008, yes, 2007, 2008. That's when we sort of put our first album together.

Adam: 2008, first album, when do you move to the US?

Zoe: When Steve suggested we go overseas for a little while and focus on music, I think that was 2005. That's when I guess we went to New York for three months and then to Malta for three months. I think that's when I really got my songwriting process together.

Adam: This journey in 2005, you said New York and Malta. How did you choose those two places?

Zoe: New York was always, in my mind, creatively, imaginatively, New York has always been a big figure. I think because I listened to a lot of Simon & Garfunkel records as a kid, as a really young kid, and Paul Simon as well. New York has always played in my mind, even though I grew up actually in the country. I moved to Melbourne as a teenager, but I grew up in Upotipotpon which is near Benalla, Northeast Victoria. That's Upotipotpon for anyone who didn't catch it.

I guess it was a big draw for me on a creative level to go to New York because it was so sort of storied in my imagination. Then Malta, Steve is actually half Maltese. His mum is from there. Yes, it was a really good contrast, actually, because in New York it was so hectic and so much going on that we didn't do a lot of writing work. By the time we got to Malta there was not a lot going on compared to New York. It was really easy to really focus and just be with nature and swim a lot and, yes, get inspired.

Adam: Excellent. A bit of a world trip, loop around the globe in 2005 with New York and Malta. When did you permanently move to the United States?

Zoe: In 2010. We put out Dear Hamlyn. Then as we were starting to work on Passerby, our second album, we started trying to record it in Australia, but it didn't quite-- we couldn't quite find the right way to express the songs. It was really, yes, we really labored over it. Then we decided to go to New York and see what we could do there. We rented a house off some musicians that we knew there. Yes, we ended up making the record in New York.

Adam: What do you think it was about New York versus Australia at that time that helped you with your writing?

Zoe: I think what's become clear, I guess, over the course of the last 10 to 15 years is that travel and being away from your home environment and what's familiar to you is a very good way to deconstruct your preconceptions about things, even your own ideas and your own sense of what's possible for who you are as a person and how you can grow. It feels, yes, I guess travel and being away from all that's familiar really opens that up. I find that very helpful.

Adam: In that time from 2010 to the release of Passerby, you guys were signed by Sub Pop?

Zoe: Yes. We rented, we subletted from a guy called Matt Berninger, who's the lead singer from The National, which people might know. He lived upstairs in a two-story house, and downstairs lived Aaron, his bandmate and producer of their records. They had a studio out the back. When we actually subletted from Matt, we met him through a friend, and he heard we were coming back to New York, and he was about to move to LA for a while. He said, do you want to sublet my place? He actually said, you should work with Aaron on your new record.

By this stage, we'd pretty well written the record and needed to start recording. We said to Matt, no, no we produce our own records, we don't need a producer. Which was very cute because it takes a long time to meet the right musicians and all that stuff. Anyway, it turned out that Aaron heard our music, and he said-- we got along with him really well. After a little while, he said, guys, we should do some recording in my studio. It all came about very naturally. Of course, anytime we needed a player for a part, Aaron had his Rolodex of amazing musicians that New York is filled with.

Yes, so we ended up making Passerby in their studio out the back in Brooklyn.

Adam: Tell us, how have you managed logistically, practically, these trips across the Pacific with regard to housing and just continuity of life? How do you go about it?

Zoe: That's a good question. It's very challenging. You have to be very creative. I guess for years in Brooklyn and Manhattan, we did sublets, so a lot of people sublet their apartments in New York, so that's quite easy. Then in Australia, now we rent a place down on the coast because we really need a bit more stability than we've had previously, but in the past, we've stayed with my aunt in Fitzroy. She's been very generous and let us roll-in, and roll-out for a few months every year.

We've basically have to make it up as we go along each year, but in the last couple of years before the pandemic, we got really fed up with that because it is really exhausting as you can imagine. We have an area in Brooklyn, Ditmas Park, which is where we lived with Aaron Dessner from The National guys. My cousin actually has a house in that neighborhood as well. Now he lives back in Australia, but he had a fallen-down garage out the back. After The National guys moved out of that neighborhood, we said to my cousin, any chance we could fix up your fallen-down garage and work in it?

He was happy for us to do that, so that's what we did a couple of years before the pandemic. We've been working out of there ever since.

Adam: Throughout your careers, you've ended up working with some really amazing American musicians and deep into the musical scene. Tell us how you went about that networking and becoming part of the fabric of the American folk rock scene?

Zoe: It's not very deliberately. It all happened very, I guess we've got a couple of really good friends in New York, and most of them we met very early on. One of them is a film producer, and he knew The National guys. He actually showed us their music, and I hadn't heard it before. I said, "Oh, I think they'd probably get what we do." Sure enough, he introduced us to Matt. He brought Matt along to a farewell drinks we were having for one of our trips home. Matt came along and we hit it off really quickly. I guess they were just fortuitous meetings.

Fortuitous in the sense that we've met lots of amazing musicians, but when you have a connection with people-- same thing with Aaron. When we met him, our connection was very immediate. Actually, the idea of working with a producer was something we really weren't going there for, wasn't something we thought we'd do, but when we connected so well with Aaron and we started I guess working in the studio with him, it became pretty apparent that he had something that he could really offer to our sound, and he really enjoyed it.

We'd finished all the songs, so it was a different, I think sometimes when producers come on, they're very involved, even in the creation and writing of the songs, but we'd written and recorded all of my bed tracks, so Aaron came in and layered ideas. It just worked really well, and we were very happy because we were very, very reticent to get anyone else involved.

Adam: Are there seminal moments that you recall where you felt part of the US/American music scene?

Zoe: It's a strange thing. I think when you go to a country where English is dominant language, you expect things to be the same, but they're really not. It is a very different culture, but at the same time, those differences, once you get adjusted to them it's not-- I guess I've always felt musically and imaginatively very much like just a part of the globe, if that makes sense.

Music's so fantastic because it can be from anywhere, and you can connect with the human or the ideas behind it. Like I mean growing up in Upotipotpon on a farm, and listening to Simon & Garfunkel records, and they're talking about New York, and city streets, and touring around America. Those ideas were completely relatable even though I'd never been there. I think I've always felt pretty at ease traveling and being in different countries.

The hardest adjustment probably for me more than Steve was just that, in Australia, it's very difficult to talk about what you're doing in positive terms, is a real inclination to talk things down and not one up yourself or something like that. Especially, in the country, where I'm from, it's just not done. Whereas in America, if you meet people and you don't talk very forwardly about what's happening in a confident way, they really quickly tune out because they're too busy. Thankfully Steve's pretty happy to talk confidently about what we do, and I just stay quiet in the background.

Adam: It's great cultural advice for people. Are there any memories that you want to share about your experience in the US that have been, I guess, "wow" moments for you creatively and personally in your experience on this side of the Pacific?

Zoe: Gosh, there's been a lot of pretty fun adventures.

Adam: Give us a couple or handful of your favorites.

Zoe: Playing clubs, dirty clubs I guess, like Pianos and Arlene's Grocery, and being in that area that's really storied in my-- I used to listen to a lot of Ramones. I still listen to a lot of Ramones. Kicking around those neighborhoods and going over that stomping ground and playing gigs to audiences in a city like New York, it's pretty fun. A special night was when we played the Lincoln Center. They do American Songbook, and so they invited us to do that, which is pretty huge honor-

Adam: Absolutely.

Zoe: -to be considered in that framework is lovely. I don't know. The most satisfying and exciting thing really is finishing work and then getting to go out and actually, a really big highlight happened just last year. At the end of the year, we played seven nights with Dinosaur Junior at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, which is an amazing venue, and probably our favorite room in New York. I grew up on Dinosaur Junior records, and we are really close with Jay. We've toured with him a lot, he's taken us out on every record.

I'd say he's probably the sort of single biggest, advocate in that, I guess that's not-- I think it's not a very romantic word, but he's really put his weight behind us and taken us out on every record that we've been in America for. To play with Dino at the Music Hall of Williamsburg for seven nights was amazing and it was for the 30th anniversary of Where You Been, which is my favorite Dino album. Yes, we just did that in December and it was amazing because the crowds were, you think in New York in a sold out room, a Dinosaur Jr crowd that it's going to be--

It could have been anything, but they were dead quiet from the first line to the last and they, yes, it was amazing. We had a really great time.

Adam: Incredible. Would have been quite an experience at a very legendary New York venue for sure. Heritage aside, just professionally, do you guys consider yourself an Australian band, American band, a Trans-Pacific band? How do you feel about yourselves in that sense as of 2024?

Zoe: I still definitely, think of myself as Australian and I don't feel like an American citizen or anything like that. I haven't made that change, although we have been there for more of the last 15 years and we've been in Australia much more. I think we've both always felt that what we could do musically was broad and open so that it didn't need to be-- we didn't need to be here or anywhere in particular, but we really like the idea of being able to reach bigger audiences that are available where, and not having to be--

Like in Australia, if you're a big name, you have to be really famous, and I don't really like that side of it. In America, you can be successful, but you don't have to be a household name. And yeah, I prefer that.

Adam: If you could go back to that time in 2008, even maybe 2005, when you first started your adventures out of Australia and musically connecting into the United States, what advice would you give yourself?

Zoe: It's tricky, right, hindsight? Because if I advise myself on some of the things that I know now, then I wouldn't have learned them. Yes, but exercise is a really good thing. I have always done that as part of my practice, but I probably could have upped it, get some muscle work in there. I think partly when you work on your own and it's creative work, it's hard. It's not easy work. I enjoy it, but it's challenging. I really like how exercise helps manage your mental energy and anxieties because it's like physical energy that builds up in your body.

If you let it out in an exercise form, then my head is much clearer. I've always done it as part of my work, but I would say just up it a bit.

Adam: A little bit more.

Zoe: Yes.

Adam: There we go. That's great advice. Don't forget to do a little exercise every now and then. It's good for the heart and soul.

Zoe: African dance. Yes, I recommend African dance.

Adam: Yes. All right. Good recommendation. It's an incredible story because you guys really have been able to cross the Pacific and become a band that exists and connects and creates just as much in the United States as you do in Australia. It's not easy to do. It's an incredibly physically long distance to go. I think that it's a great inspiration for those who want to hold on to both realities. Thank you very much for talking to us today, Zoe.

Zoe: Oh, my pleasure. Thanks so much, Adam.

Adam: We've been talking to Zoe Randall. She is one half of Luluc, who are a truly trans-Pacific Australian folk band who are deep into the Brooklyn, New York scene, as well as being semi-residents of the Mornington Peninsula. You have been listening to The Cockatoo. This is the interview part of our newsletter. We are the Australian Music Alliance, which sits under the Pitchhiker Foundation, a 501(c)(3). Please feel free to support us in any way that you support non-profits, but in particular, tune in, listen to these stories, share it with your friends and family, and we will catch you on an upcoming edition.