In partnership with JMC Academy
2023’s Laneway line-up is one of the biggest in the touring festival’s 18-year history, boasting exclusive sets from Haim and Joji, as well as appearances from Phoebe Bridgers, Finneas, Slowthai, Girl In Red, Turnstile, 100 Gecs and more. On the local front, punters will have their minds blown by the likes of Mallrat, Harvey Sutherland, Sycco and Tasman Keith – and exclusively in Sydney, thanks to JMC Academy, up-and-coming indie singer-songwriter Ruby Cannon.
The Philip Island-native, Melbourne-based artist, who plays live with a four-piece backing band, scored her spot at Laneway by applying via JMC. As she tells NME, “I’ve been gigging with my band quite a lot lately, so we put together some live videos, sent them off and hoped for the best.”
Upon learning that she’d wowed the judging panel, Cannon “thought [she] was in a dream”. Still stunned by the outcome, she beams: “I just went, ‘There’s no way this can be happening. This is not real life.’ I just feel so grateful to even be among the other artists on the line-up.”
Of the 28 other acts hitting stages at Sydney Showgrounds on Sunday February 5, Cannon is most excited to share line-up space with Joji and Bridgers, the latter being “such an inspiration” to Cannon and a “total icon”. Her recent single, ‘Gypsy Magic’, draws from Bridgers’ sound an element of effervescent folkiness, tucked amid a heady rush of psych-tinged retro-rock.
That influence, Cannon says, comes from her enduring love of ’60s pop and rock. It’s a gift from her father. Every car ride Cannon took with him as a child “was a new lesson on a different band” from the era – “first The Beatles, then The Rolling Stones, then Fleetwood Mac… And I just became obsessed.”
Thus far, Cannon has released just three singles – ‘I Don’t’ and ‘Lollipop’ in August and November of 2020, respectively, and ‘Gypsy Magic’ in 2021. She explains that each of those show her “trying to find [her] feet” in real-time, “experimenting and learning how to put a song together” – a journey she embarked on over two years at JMC.
“They were two of the best years of my life,” Cannon gushes, adding firmly that if she hadn’t pursued her Bachelor of Music (which she studied with a specialisation in songwriting) at JMC, she “would be nowhere near where [she is] now as a musician”. She continues: “They give you the industry experience you need, and you really learn how to do a lot of things for yourself as a musician.”
Of particular note, Cannon says, was her time spent with Chris Pickering, the singer-songwriter and head of music at JMC in Melbourne who “was there every step of the way” on her journey through the academy – including her audition. “Just to see the difference between the song I showed him in my audition and my final submission at the very end of the course – it was a huge leap,” she says. “He was so instrumental in how I was able to progress. Even the songs I write now, I still think to myself, ‘How would Chris improve this?’”
As for those songs themselves, Cannon says some will receive their live debuts at Laneway, with 2023 as a whole primed to be “a big year for releases”. As for exactly what we can expect, she teases slyly: “There is definitely a single on the way, which may or may not be part of something like an EP.”
See Ruby Cannon at Laneway Festival in Sydney on February 5, 2023. The festival coincides with JMC’s next intake of students. The college – which has campuses in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane – offers both Diploma and Bachelor courses in the musical fields of performance, songwriting and production, as well as audio engineering and sound production, and a range of short courses and workshops in Film, Acting, Game Design, Animation, Entertainment Business and Design. Find out more here