Bob Marlette has been making records quite literally for decades, performing, producing and writing with acts like Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, Shinedown, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Rob Zombie and more. You might look at a resume like Bob’s and assume he’s always been a rock guy, but some of his earliest credits as a session musician include artists such as Laura Branigan and Tracy Chapman. In this interview we talk about the long, winding path Bob’s career has taken over the years, packed with many of his killer stories and anecdotes.

Humans of Music

Bob Marlette

James Vincent McMorrow recently released Grapefruit Season, his fifth album. It features contributions from producers and writers like Kenny Beats and Adele collaborator Paul Epworth, and sees him embracing the synths and hip-hop production elements he first started utilising on his second record, 2014's Post Tropical. When he released that album it shocked quite a lot of people, who were expecting him to continue down the nu-folk path of his debut LP, Early In The Morning. But as with contemporaries like Bon Iver, James has evolved beyond his first album, and we talk about that journey in this interview. We also discuss his upbringing in Ireland, his path to success, and the mental health issues he’s dealt with along the way.  

James Vincent McMorrow

Off the back of her hit single "Torn", Natalie Imbruglia’s 1997 debut album sold more than seven million copies and earned her three GRAMMY nominations.  After that initial burst of success, things got a little rocky. While Natalie’s third album, Counting Down The Days, debuted at Number 1 in the UK, her fourth album, Come To Life, was only released in Australia and New Zealand. After that disappointment she took time away from music before launching a comeback in 2015 with a covers album called Male, but even that wasn’t the record she’d originally hoped to make, and was one of the reasons she spent the next few years battling writer’s block. Eventually she overcame it and she’s just released her new album Firebird, which is her first LP of original material in 12 years. We talk about all the ups and downs of Natalie’s life and career in this interview.

Natalie Imbruglia

When Amyl and the Sniffers came together in 2016, they didn’t so much form as they did fall together. They were sharing a house in Melbourne and had a jam one afternoon, and ended up writing and recording four songs in the space of a few hours. They uploaded them to Bandcamp the next day, called the EP Giddy Up, and just like that, Amyl and the Sniffers were born. Since then the band’s mix of raw punk and fiery rock’n’roll has earned rave reviews, they’ve played some of the world’s biggest festival stages, and they’ve achieved all this without changing or doing anything to court the mainstream. Vocalist Amy Taylor talks about her upbringing in this interview, as well as Amyl and the Sniffers’ unlikely success, the steep learning curve that came with it, their latest album 'Comfort To Me', and more!

Amy Taylor (Amyl and the Sniffers)

Matthew E. White's new album, K Bay, is a wildly diverse record that has no regard for current trends. But then that’s how Matthew has run his career from day one. Not only is he a musician, he is also the founder of the Spacebomb music company, which has released albums by artists like Natalie Prass, Bedouine and Nadia Reid, and become one of the most well regarded independent music companies around. We talk about that whole ride in this interview, as well as Matthew’s upbringing in the Philippines and Japan, his path into music, and much, much more.

Matthew E. White

Ilan Rubin has established himself as one of the top session musicians in the world, playing with artists such as Paramore, Beck and Angels & Airwaves, the project founded by former blink-182 guitarist/vocalist Tom DeLonge. In 2020 he became the youngest person ever inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame for his work with Nine Inch Nails. It’s testament to the drive and talent of a man who started playing drums as a young child, and by 11 had already played the Warped Tour and the 1999 Woodstock Festival with the band F.O.N. But Ilan plays more than just drums – as a solo artist he plays every instrument, as well as singing. We explore Ilan's entire career in this interview.

Ilan Rubin (Nine Inch Nails, Angels & Airwaves)

Nick Murphy recently released a new Chet Faker album called Hotel Surrender. It’s the first Chet Faker record since 2014’s Built On Glass, although Nick has released a couple of albums under his own name in between, most recently the instrumental album Music For Silence. As Nick explains in this interview, he surprised even himself by making another Chet Faker album – in his eyes he’d effectively killed that project several years earlier as he struggled to deal with the success of Built On Glass and his first EP, Thinking In Textures, which featured a cover of Blackstreet’s "No Diggity". While taking time away to re-evaluate his place in the world and release music under his own name, he learned tools that helped him find joy in the concept of Chet Faker, instead of dread. We talk about that whole journey.

Nick Murphy (Chet Faker)

2021 marks the 30th anniversary of Soundgarden’s landmark album, Badmotorfinger. When they released that record the band were on the verge of exploding, with Seattle quickly becoming the epicentre of the music universe, with Pearl Jam releasing Ten and Nirvana releasing Nevermind that same year. But as Kim explains in this interview, from the day in 1984 when he formed Soundgarden with bassist Hiro Yamamoto and vocalist Chris Cornell, who was also playing drums at that point, they were never willing to bend towards the mainstream – instead they’d make it come to them. And come it did. We talk about the band’s formation and rise in this interview, what life was like in Seattle as the scene was exploding, the tragic moment Kim heard of Kurt Cobain’s passing, and Kim’s memories of Chris Cornell, who we lost in 2017.

Kim Thayil (Soundgarden)

How many interviews have you listened to where an artist has said they picked up an instrument as a kid, and they knew from that moment that they wanted a career in music? Well, that is not Joshua Radin’s story. Joshua didn’t pick up a guitar until he was 30, having spent his 20s trying to make a living as a painter and scriptwriter. But from the moment he started strumming on a guitar, things started to happen very quickly. Within a few months he’d written his first song, “Winter”, and not long after it was used in a key scene in an episode of the TV show Scrubs. And just like that, Joshua’s music career was off and running. Fast forward to 2021 and Joshua’s just released his ninth studio album, The Ghost and the Wall, and has spent the past 15 years touring the world and racking up more than one billion streams. We talk about his life and career in this interview.

Joshua Radin

 Gary Kemp was the driving force behind Spandau Ballet's rise in the '80s, penning their biggest hits such as 'True', 'Gold', 'To Cut A Long Story Short', 'Through The Barricades' and more. He's just released his first solo album in 26 years, INSOLO, which mixes the classic pop melodies you’d expect of Gary while flirting with elements of progressive rock.  We talk about the creation of that record in this interview, as well as Gary's upbringing and path into music, the rise of Spandau Ballet and his experiences with fame and success, and much more.

Gary Kemp (Spandau Ballet)

When Nick Littlemore was a teenager, his life changed when he discovered Sydney’s underground dance scene.  Alongside school friend Peter Mayes he formed the electronic band PNAU, who’ve gone on to become one of Australia’s biggest acts. But he’s a man of many interests – in addition to founding his record label, Lab78, he’s also a prodigious collaborator, working with everyone from Beyoncé to Sir Elton John.  In the mid-2000s he co-founded Empire Of The Sun with Luke Steele. But instead of going on the road with the band when they had a big hit with “Walking on A Dream”, Nick opted to move to Montreal and spend years composing the music for the Cirque Du Soleil production of Zarkana. We talk about all these experiences and more.

Nick Littlemore (PNAU, Empire of the Sun)

Since forming The Cult with vocalist Ian Astbury in 1983, Billy Duffy has proven himself to be one of those guitarists who can shapeshift musically, yet still sound like Billy Duffy. So whether you’re listening to the more indie leaning sounds of 1985’s Love, the AC/DC-styled rock of 1987’s Electric or the arena rock bombast of 1989’s Sonic Temple, it all sounds like the work of one guitarist. When The Cult went on hiatus in 1995, Billy founded Coloursøund with Mike Peters from The Alarm. They released one self-titled album in 1999 before Billy returned to The Cult – but now, 22 years later, they’ve just released their new album, Coloursøund II! We talk about the record in this interview, as well as Billy’s upbringing in Northern England, his earliest experiences playing music with Johnny Marr and Morrissey before they went off to form The Smiths, the birth of The Cult and their late '80s success, and loads more. 

Billy Duffy (The Cult)

In 2020, Australian singer-songwriter Emma Swift released an album of Bob Dylan covers called Blonde On The Tracks. She never intended to release the covers when she started recording them a few years ago, and only started to entertain the idea when COVID hit and her touring income dried up. The fact that the album has garnered Emma worldwide acclaim is just another twist in a career full of them. In some ways that career began when she was a music-loving kid growing up in rural Australia, before she moved to Sydney and started played in pubs and clubs. In 2013 she moved again, this time to Nashville to pursue music full time, and she's been there ever since. We talk about that journey in this interview, as well as Emma's love of Bob Dylan, her earliest musical memories and much more.

Emma Swift

There was a time in the late '80s and early '90s when you couldn't turn on the radio without hearing Richard Marx. Songs like Satisfied, Endless Summer Nights, Right Here Waiting, Angelia and Hazard – to name only a few – were bonafide radio staples. But there had been years of struggle before those hits. When Richard moved to LA from Chicago at the age of 18, he spent years getting rejected by label after label, and told time and again he should give up. Then when fame hit, it was a whirlwind that left him questioning the success he'd worked so hard to achieve. He writes about it all in his new memoir, Stories To Tell, and shares many of those stories in this interview.

Richard Marx

 The Wiggles are one of the most successful children’s entertainment groups in history. Guiding them for 24 years was Paul Field, brother of founder and blue Wiggle, Anthony Field. What you may not know about Paul and Anthony is that prior to The Wiggles they were pop stars in Australia with the band The Cockroaches, alongside their brother John as well as future purple Wiggle, Jeff Fatt. Last year Paul retired from managing The Wiggles and he’s just released his first ever solo album called Love Songs For Lonely People. Featuring guests such as Jimmy Barnes and Australian country musician Kasey Chambers, it’s a collection of originals and covers of songs Paul has always loved. We talk about that album in this interview, as well as Paul's days in The Cockroaches playing alongside bands like INXS, and how those experiences helped inform the way The Wiggles operated as they climbed to global stardom.

Paul Field (The Wiggles)

Former Rolling Stone editor Rod Yates sits down with some of music’s biggest stars and behind-the-scenes players and asks: How did they get where they are today? What made them who they are? How have they navigated the ups and downs of life and their career, and what have they learned along the way? The results are frequently funny, occasionally heartbreaking, often educational and always very, very revealing. Come behind the scenes and discover what makes these music-makers human.

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Humans of Music

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