GRACE WOODROOFE

The Roofe Is On Fire

After releasing her debut album last year, Grace Woodroofe has kept busy in 2011 with a highly successful return trip to the USA. She chats to MATTHEW HOGAN ahead of her homecoming headline slot at Norfolk Lanes this Saturday, December 3.

It was daily newspaper news when Grace Woodroofe released her debut album Always Want a year ago. The reason why this local songstress was making headlines is because her album was recorded with Ben Harper, and the two were introduced through a mutual friend, the late Heath Ledger.
But it’s not her celebrity connections that make Woodroofe stand-out, it’s her songs and voice that got her to America to record and landed her a contract with Modular. This year she returned to the USA.
“I had been trying to make it back over to the States since we finished the album in 2009,” she begins, “And finally all the pieces of my puzzle came together this year where I could go, actually afford it, have opportunities available for me, and be welcomed back with open arms. I left Perth in July and travelled Europe with my brother Tom, before flying over to America to immediately begin the USA tour in September.”
Woodroofe says the tour itself was the time of her life. “I have never had so much fun and enjoyed every single aspect of it,” she boasts. “I absolutely loved playing a show every night, jumping on the tour bus afterwards, hanging out with Ben [Harper] and the band in our pyjamas watching movies, going to sleep and then waking up in a new city only to do it all over again. I had never been to the east coast before either, so there was so much wonder and new discoveries. The best part about the tour is how we are all like a big travelling family. Playing music is such an emotional thing, that you can’t help but be brought closer to the people who share your journey.”
To make matters more awesome, Woodroofe picked up a talented backing band for the shows. “For the Ben Harper tour I had my own band made up of killer musicians who were handpicked by the members of Relentless 7, having played with all of them before in their previous bands,” she says. “We also did some showcases at the CMJ Festival in New York, where I was highlighted as a standout performer by the New York Times and Time Out New York!”
The tour culminated with a show in Atlanta, which Woodroofe described as a “pivotal moment” in her life. “It was the last show of the Ben Harper tour, and from the second I stepped out on stage this incredibly overwhelming feeling of joy and emotion overcame me,” she says. “The lights were so warm across my face, the crowd were entirely attentive, and my band were on fire from the first note. Ben, Relentless 7 and the whole crew sat on the side of the stage watching and beaming. It was a culmination of sentimentality with it being the last show, appreciation for the experience, and total satisfaction I had challenged myself and delivered the best I could. It was possibly the greatest and most fun show I have ever played in my life. I cried afterwards.”
While it will be hard for Woodroofe to top the big couple of years she’s just had, she’ll give it her best shot in 2012. “In the new year I will hopefully manage an Australian tour before I leave to return to the US for another few months, where the album will be released in January,” she reveals. “I’m playing at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas in March and after that am planning another US tour. I’ll also be working on and releasing the next album.