Meg Washington on Making a GEM and Gravy

She's one of Australia's most illustrious and humble creative minds, playing part in shaping multiple iconic projects.

Since the moment Meg Washington dropped the album I Believe You Liar in 2010 with belters ‘Sunday Best’ and ‘Rich Kids’ her creative career in Australia was cemented. Little did she know that 25 years later when gearing up for a new album release, her portfolio would also include voice acting as a beloved character Calypso on award-winning kids show (and wholesome adult entertainment) Bluey, and screenwriter for the feature film adaptation of an iconic Australian anthem How To Make Gravy.

When asked about how she is, Washington responds with a laughed, “I’m doing good now this last month is done!”

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On Friday 8 August, Meg Washington released GEM, her fifth studio album and first album as a completely independent artist, all self-managed and self-released. 

The concept album saw Washington wonder what she would do if she were stranded on an island and the simple answer was sing. The album focuses on nature and the natural beauty of the world and how Washington coexists with it. The result is a stunning nine tracks, running for a snappy 34 minutes.

“This is my first independent album, so it didn’t matter what happened, it would have felt like a success,” she explains.

Thankfully the leap into self-managed territory comes with a dedicated over two decade forged fanbase to continue the creative journey with her. The timing was also right as Washington had found a renewed confidence in her ability to drive the project from her many years as an active artist.

“I just got to the end of a thirteen year relationship with a major label. It just came to the end of that relationship and I guess when you grow up in the business because I’ve been doing this for 20 years now – I know I don’t look old enough but it is true – when I was on my first record it took me all of my juice just to get ten songs finished and everything else that had to happen was beyond my capacity to understand, but I think now that I have gotten older and my creativity has become a habit that if I get out of, I start getting cranky – it’s just part of my regulation of life to make music so you just learn how to upskill time after time. This album is my fifth album of original music, and then there are the two I wrote and scrapped, and the cover album and the live album so she’s getting up to eight, nine, ten albums in. There are things I know how to do now,” Washington says.

“I think as well, Nick (Waterman) and I had the experience of producing a feature film which, compared to a record, has infinitely more layers of the lasagne of just all of the things you have to consider. Just doing my small part of the production of the movIe was a lot more complex than putting a record together. It seemed like I had expanded enough to have the capacity to do it myself.” 

Taking on Australia’s own Christmas carol as a feature film is no small task. Not to mention the monumental weight that comes with the song’s status and the Paul Kelly name, the scheduling of the shoot was also a mammoth undertaking.

“It was really gnarly – the whole process of making a movie. We shot the whole film in 25 days. We had six weeks of pre and then we had four shooting weeks. It was a blur and having to be at 11 on the treadmill for a marathon amount of time, sprinting a marathon, that’s what it felt like.”

From the set to the studio and onto the stage undertaking a mammoth national tour in celebration of GEM, and appearing at the upcoming Town Folk Festival taking over Castlemaine, Washington manoeuvres seamlessly from project to project.

“The way I think about creativity, and the way I see life in general, is that I see almost everything as composition – not musical composition but physical composition of what exists, what is missing, so what do I need to be to create what’s missing. We have a few creative idioms that I like to live by,” Washington says. 

“For me I think that’s how I’m able to move from medium to medium quite easily. I just kind of fuck around and make stuff up until it feels good. I never thought I would be a screenwriter but it turns out the invisible beats of screenwriting are pretty much the same invisible beats of songwriting, it’s just creating structure that is underneath what is what the audience can perceive at a first blush.”

You can witness Washington in full swing at the Geelong, Belgrave and Meeniyan shows of the national tour on Wednesday 12, Thursday 13, and Friday 14 November respectively, and catch her slot at Town Folk Festival on Saturday 15 November.

Grab tickets to see Meg Washington on tour and at Castlemaine Town Folk Festival here.

Words by Tammy Walters