Q&A with Rudely Interrupted

Arts Access Australia (AAA): It’s been two years since Meeting Place in Berlin. How did the experience of attending Meeting Place in Berlin change, influence or inspire Rudely Interrupted?

Rohan: Rudely Interrupted started from nothing and gained a worldwide following from a lot of hard work and relentless creation of our own opportunities to further our careers. Having Meeting Place as an opportunity to further our international profile, we used the opportunity to catapult a tour for our record ‘Love You Till I Die’ across Germany, Sweden, Poland and Denmark. I guess this is a good example of using opportunities in place to further the band’s profile internationally. Not resting on ones laurels, perhaps. The key in the arts, as a band, is to create more from the opportunities afforded to you where you can. Before you know it, it’s 13 years later and 12 international tours, 5 studio records and a whole heap of incredible experiences together.

I recently had an aneurysm and brain operation late last year. When I came to, my family was showing me all about Rudely Interrupted and what we’d achieved over the 12 past years. I can’t tell you how incredible I thought it was that we’d achieved all that and how cool the band was – I was sooo proud of myself and who I was, it really put a fire in my belly. I want to start a school of music and offer it to as many folks as I can, because the personal and professional growth for the members of Rudely Interrupted is the evidence that music and performance is an incredible vehicle to connect people to each other and importantly, to ourselves.

Caption: Official Video Clip: Love you ’til I die by Rudely Interrupted.

AAA: Would you have been able to attend Meeting Place if you hadn’t received a travel grant?

Rohan: Huh, no way, the grants are paramount for the bands opportunities, we always reflect on how lucky we are to live in Australia and be afforded the opportunity to apply for grants to further our art. I recall performing years ago at the United Nations in NYC and came across the saying ‘intangible heritage’ and how important that is to a nation’s reflection of its citizens. It’s the intangible conversation and expression of these relationships expressed through the artists in the country that offers the citizens around the country, and the world, a greater understanding of each other. It’s so important for people to express themselves and so very important for the governments to offer financial assistance to further these works for its country’s citizens. Travelling the world, we’re so pleased to be Australians when there’s so many countries who don’t have these opportunities through government support for its artists.

AAA: Do you think other artists should attend Meeting Place if they get the chance?

Rohan: Yes, gaining a worldly perspective as an artist helps connect us with our worldly environment. It helps create opportunity to engage with different cultures and different disability culture. We see it as a real honour to be offered these opportunities and we use it to further our bands future. After Meeting Place we went on and toured across Europe.

Rory: Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Poland.

Rohan: Without Meeting Place we probably wouldn’t have been able to build the opportunity as far and wide as we did. So using these opportunities to build from is a great way to further your art, experience and in our case, our rock n roll dreams.

Sam Beke from Rudely Interrupted performs on stage during a show

AAA: What motivates you as a band, and as individual artists?

Rohan: We try to motivate each other, and I try to lead by example with Rudely Interrupted. From activity comes further activity and growth, hopefully the songs reflect our experiences and the better they become the better our songs should be. Ha!

Rory: A lot of our songs have grown from personal experiences and conversations we share. In 2004 my favourite teacher passed; in 2006 I had a conversation with Rohan “Can you die from a broken heart” which lead to our first musical collaboration ‘don’t Break My Heart’. We choose to use our experiences to write about, and that’s why many of our songs are a little inspirational, or a little crazy. Like the Lizard song. Rohan ran over a lizard on the way to rehearsal once and so that was the topic of the day, and we turn some of those conversations into song. We still play the Lizard song, it’s quirky, but that’s us too.

Rohan: Playing, writing, recording and touring with Rudely Interrupted I see as a privilege, and the work ethics behind the motivation I try to convey to everyone involved in the band, we all take very seriously.

AAA: What does the future hold for Rudely Interrupted?

Rory: To quote one of our songs, ‘The Future’s Ours’. We’re currently writing a new record. We had a little fork in the road late last year with Rohan’s health, but we’re back writing.

Rohan: We find opportunities usually come to the activity around the bands activity. So we work as hard as we get, so to speak. We’ve got a great bunch of songs and a great work ethic so we’re looking forward to seeing what comes from the songs we’re writing.
We have worked hard on our song writing, at the end of the day, that’s our key to reaching people and satisfying ourselves with our talents, we don’t take it lightly and push ourselves to write the best songs we can.

Find out more about the band by visiting their website: http://rudelyinterrupted.com/

You can also follow them on Facebook, or visit their YouTube channel.

Rudely Interrupted on tour

You can support an artist to attend Australia’s annual arts Meeting Place forum, giving them the chance to engage with industry and take their career to the next level. Artists with disability earn 42% less than artists without disability, and often cannot afford the cost of travelling to attend important industry forums such as Meeting Place. Each year, Arts Access Australia raises money to support a number of exceptional artists to attend Meeting Place. Donations will go towards the cost of flights, accommodation and access support for these artists. Please donate now to help support these artists. Thank you for your support.