Brendan Maclean


Brendan Maclean is an Australian singer-songwriter and actor.

Music

Brendan Maclean's debut EP, White Canvas, a self-released collection of acoustic pop tracks, was uploaded to iTunes March 2010.
In January 2014 he released a second EP, Population, produced by Paul Mac. The record gained traction with the song's video for the single, "Stupid", being featured by BuzzFeed coupled with a successful crowd funding campaign. In May 2014, "Stupid" was featured as the Weather on Welcome to Night Vale, in episode 47, "Company Picnic," soon after Maclean was signed to the Universal Music Publishing Group.
May 2015 saw the release of Maclean's third independent EP entitled, Thought I'd Cry for You Forever. The EP features an original spoken word piece from author Neil Gaiman and was released exclusively through Bandcamp.
In 2016 Maclean was nominated for an ARIA Award for his work with Marcia Hines and Joe Accaria on the Velvet Original Cast Soundtrack.
Maclean's breakthrough record funbang1 was released on 24 July 2016 featuring the singles "Tectonic", "Free to Love" and "House of Air". It debuted at #2 behind Sia - This Is Acting on the Australian Independent Album Charts and peaked at #14 on iTunes. All three singles were co-written with former Cobra Starship member Alex Suarez. It also features Amanda Palmer in the dance-schtick track "On the Door". A remixed version of the Palmer collaboration was released with cameos from Ben Folds, Sarah Silverman, Eugene Mirman and Reggie Watts. In February 2017, after the release of the controversial music video for "House of Air", the EP entered the iTunes charts in Spain. Three songs from funbang1 can be heard in the third season of Netflix series Eastsiders.
His follow up album, And The Boyfriends, was released March 22, 2019 and entered Australian iTunes the charts at #2 while reaching #9 on the Australian Independent Records charts.

House of Air

On 30 January 2017, Maclean uploaded the sexually explicit video to his single "House of Air" on YouTube, which caused controversy due to its graphic depiction of gay semiotics. The video was mentioned in several major articles including an artist response piece in The Guardian. Although it reached 700,000 views, it was removed from YouTube for breaching its terms of service, but remains on Vimeo where it has over six million views. On 20 May 2017 House of Air directors Karl Eccleston and Brian Fairbairn, a Berlin Music Video Award, it then went on the gain official entry to the Raindance Film Festival 2017 and SXSW as a part of the 2018 Midnight Shorts. Huffington Post and New York included House of Air in their Best Music Videos of 2017, the latter including a warning, "This video should not be viewed in any public setting."

Acting

In 2013 Maclean was cast as Klipspringer in the Baz Luhrmann adaptation of The Great Gatsby. He is credited as Peter in the 2014 film Tracks starring Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver.
2015 saw Maclean star alongside Marcia Hines in the original cabaret, Velvet. Velvets 2015 tour included the Edinburgh Fringe, the Adelaide Fringe, Brisbane Festival and a stand-alone season at the Sydney Opera House.
In his television debut, Brendan plays Eli in the ABC Television produced drama, 'Fucking Adelaide.' Series one premiered at the Adelaide Film Festival, October 2017. The series won Best Ensemble Performance at International Academy of Web Television Awards.

Radio

From 2007 to 2013, Maclean was a regular music presenter for Australian national youth station Triple J.

Discography

Singles