If there is one thing certain about music careers, it’s that they rarely evolve in a straight line – there are always creative detours and diversions. The best artists know just to roll with it. To open their minds and try something new. And there are few finer examples of that in Australian music today than Roz Pappalardo.
For the best part of two decades, Roz has been shaking things up, challenging perceptions and very much forging her own direction through the music landscape. There have been rock records, folk tunes, country albums, and more recently a successful move into musical theatre.
In total, she has released more than 10 records in various guises, perhaps the best known though with her much-loved duo, women in docs. It was ‘The Docs’ that brought Roz’s incredible voice and song-writing smarts into the spotlight and a band that has seen her tour the country and the globe more times than she can remember.
Now based in Cairns, Far North Queensland, the one constant through Roz’s career has been a drive to do her own thing and consequences be damned. Nowhere is that more apparent than on her striking new solo album, Won’t Be Quiet, due out Friday 14 May 2021, after four lead up singles spanning rock, alternative and country genres.
Honest doesn’t come close. Writing, recording and leading the production of the album was a deeply personal process driven by a simple desire to hold nothing back, to be brave and put out the record that she’s always dreamed of.
Over the past couple of years she has continued to perform with women in docs, but much of her attention has been grabbed by the stage and community storytelling projects through song, with the development and touring of her own one woman productions ‘Rosa’, telling a generational story of immigration and the hilariously heartbreaking taboo story of fertility and IVF, ‘Banging on the Door’.
Her commitment to arts in her community has also been evident in her production work on ‘Beginnings’ a major music theatre work about the town of Cairns, ‘Woven’ an all-woman First Nations musical theatre work based on the female experience and ‘The Soldier’s Wife’ – a major ongoing song-writing project that supports military families. COVID-19 also saw Roz launch a live-stream show called The Kitchen Sessions, which activated a team of regional technicians and artists across multiple genres to present a weekly variety show, spotlighting regional arts and arts businesses.
It has been exciting work for Roz that not only takes her out of her comfort zone, but reinforces her deep commitment to the power of music and the arts to create change.
As she returns to venues to perform her new solo record, Roz’s legion of loyal fans will find an artist full of the gutsy passion she is known for – but with a sense of confidence and a willingness to lay it all bare.
