Rebecca Barnard


Rebecca Barnard is an Australian singer, songwriter, producer and musician. She was the lead singer of the band Rebecca's Empire from 1993 to 2000, and has forged a solo career since her debut album, Fortified, was released in 2006. Her second solo album, Everlasting, was released in 2010. After a lengthy break of just under seven years, Barnard released her third solo album in 2017, called Music for Listening and Relaxation. Barnard is a Melbourne based musician.
Barnard has a versatile musical range, delving into rock, pop, and jazz genres, and has been a constant fixture in the Australian music scene for over three decades.
Barnard has appeared on recordings by other Australian artists such as Paul Kelly, Tim Rogers, Renée Geyer, Deborah Conway, The Meanies, Warped, Stephen Cummings, TISM, You Am I, The Black Sorrows, The Fauves, Kutcha Edwards, The Audreys, Guy Pearce, plus many others.

Early Years

Barnard comes from a rich musical family history. In the 1920s her grandparents Jim and Kath Barnard ran The Kath Barnard Jazz Band. Rebecca Barnard is the daughter of acclaimed Australian jazz drummer Len Barnard AM and Jane Chirnside. In 1952 The Len Barnard Jazz Band recorded Australia's first microgroove LP record and toured extensively in Australia and overseas until his death in 2005. Her uncle is Bob Barnard, who is an accomplished Australian jazz trumpet and cornet stylist. Barnard is inherently a jazz singer, and has said "I’ve always sung jazz, that’s sort of like my first love, you know, it’s like breathing. It’s sort of effortless." Barnard begun singing jazz in Melbourne venues when she was just 16.
Barnard was born in Melbourne, and grew up in the outer-eastern Melbourne suburb of Mooroolbark in an estate designed by Edna Walling. During her childhood, Barnard listened to Gladys Moncrieff, Fats Waller, Pinetop Smith, Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong. Barnard started playing music at 10, when her father gave her a guitar, and she started writing songs at 12. At 14, she became acquainted with Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan.
Barnard featured in the following Australian bands, Daktari, The Escalators, Black Coffee , Way Back Five, Romance Without Finance, Peaceful Anticipation Social Aid and Pleasure Club, Stephen Cummings Band, The Trees , Triple Peaks, and the Rebecca Barnard Band. The band Way Back Five was a "super group" that played funk and reggae covers, and consisted of Barnard, Kate Ceberano, Phil Ceberano, James Reyne and Steve Kearney. Barnard has indicated that Michael Hutchence sang with the band at one of the gigs.
During this time, Rebecca spent many years in refining her live performance and vocal skills, and was an in-demand session singer, providing vocals and backing vocals on many Australian albums. She went on to record and tour with Stephen Cummings, where she met Shane O’Mara. They were married in 1989 and amicably separated in 2009.
In the late 1980s, Barnard featured on Tonight Live with Steve Vizard and The Big Gig, as part of the in-house band for the respective shows. The band Swinging Sidewalks featured on The Big Gig, was a jazz band that featured singers Kerri Simpson and Shelley Scown.
Barnard has credited the journalist Jill Singer in giving her the confidence to sing her own songs.
When songwriting became a focus, she founded the band Rebecca's Empire in 1993, initially as a duo with O'Mara. In 1994, the band included Peter Luscombe, and Bill McDonald. Michael den Elzen joined the band in 1995, when Bill McDonald left Rebecca's Empire to play with the band Frente!. The band toured extensively, supported acts such as Billy Bragg and Paul Kelly on their respective Australian tours, released three EPs and two albums and appeared on the Triple J Hottest 100 albums three years in a row. The track "Way of All Things" was featured on the soundtrack to the Australian film Blackrock and featured on the hit television series, Good Guys Bad Guys. At this height of popularity, Barnard had her own cooking segment on Triple J called Pot of Rock. Barnard has since said of her popularity at this time, that she had "wasted a real good opportunity to do more with the momentum that we had".
Rebecca’s Empire formally disbanded in June 2000 when the duties of being a mother took priority and due to conflict between herself and Shane O'Mara. During this time and post 2000, many Australian bands recorded their albums in O'Mara and Barnard's home studio called "Yikesville".
Barnard indicated that she suffered writer's block from 2000 to 2005, and hence the hiatus between Rebecca's Empire ending and her solo career commencing.
Barnard has been credited in providing the means for singer Vika Bull, in starting her musical career, when one of the backing vocalists in Barnard's band lost her voice, Vika Bull, volunteered to fill the space.

Solo career

She has recorded three solo albums, namely Fortified, Everlasting, and after a lengthy hiatus, the album Music for Listening and Relaxation. Barnard is known for her personal and heartfelt lyrics. Her first two albums are on her own record label, Ladybird and distributed by Shock Records.
None of Rebecca's solo albums have charted on the Australian ARIA charts - it has been difficult for a performer like Rebecca Barnard to gain exposure for her original work, due to limitations of promotional budgets and lack of airplay. She also cites agism in the music industry as a factor for the lack of exposure "It is an ageist industry especially if you’re a woman. I’m doing the best stuff I’ve ever done now but you just do it because it feels good and that’s what you do.”

Fortified (2006)

Fortified was co-produced by Barnard and her then partner, Shane O'Mara, and recorded at their home studio Yikesville. Barnard commenced writing material for the album in 2003. Fortified featured various Melbourne musicians such as Lisa Miller, Tim Rogers, Peter Jones, Michael Barker of the John Butler Trio and Snout’s Ross McLennan. The album contains tracks penned by Barnard and co-writers including Dr. Rosemary Milne, who created the lyrics to the theme of Play School, on the song called I Hurt. Fortified features one cover song, the Bob Dylan song Boots of Spanish Leather. The album is led with the exuberant track, Keep Smiling - a song that deals with a long-standing relationship and the feeling of being so close, disassociated, and feeling out of control as you get older.
Track listing
  1. "Keep Smiling" – 5:06
  2. "Little Boy" – 4:11
  3. "Fortified" – 4:31
  4. "Nobody Breaks This Heart" – 3:53
  5. "Sirens" – 3:33
  6. "Such A Bore" – 3:58
  7. "The Moon" – 3:05
  8. "I Hurt" – 4:42
  9. "As Free As You Can Be"– 4:50
  10. "Husbands"– 4:05
  11. "Boots of Spanish Leather"– 5:57

    Everlasting (2010)

The emotive Everlasting was recorded in New York City, and mixed at Tony Bennett's studio in Englewood New Jersey, during a two-week stint of recording in 2008, with the help of jazz pianist Barney McAll, a long-time friend of Barnard and the first album without the assistance of Shane O'Mara. Rebecca Barnard co-produced this album with Barney McAll, which deals with issues of loss and love. The track Everlasting deals with the death of her father, jazz musician, Len Barnard. Everlasting includes some mature pop songs infused with jazz, such as Born In A Shirt. The tracks were all written by Barnard, except the track Seasong which is cover of a track by Robert Wyatt. The album was predominantly promoted by Barnard herself due to the lack of a promotional budget. Everlasting was made with the assistance of a VicARTS grant. Rebecca has said "How incredible that we live in a society, where most of us are to be free to be. The government giving a 49-year-old woman money to write and record music. There are thousands of women out there deserving of this. Women that struggle with the constant dilemma of creativity versus motherhood, hormonal weirdness, ageing parents, trying to be everything to everyone." The album received favourable reviews upon its release.
Everlasting was also the ABC Radio "disc of the week", where the album received some airplay. The ABC Radio review of the album indicated that Everlasting was "sultry, sassy and even a little bit sexy, Rebecca captures the sound of a woman on top of her game."
The musicians on the album include Matt Darriau, drummer Dan Rieser, jazz musician Jonathan Maron on bass, and cellist Rufus Cappadocia.
Track listing
  1. "Born In A Shirt" – 4:58
  2. "Age 14" – 5:37
  3. "Everlasting" – 4:51
  4. "Fall and Walk" – 4:35
  5. "Give Way" – 5:25
  6. "Own Time" – 4:27
  7. "Closer to You" – 3:14
  8. "Seasong" – 3:09
  9. "Little Ruffy"– 3:16
  10. "You Are Loved"– 4:30

    Music for Listening and Relaxation (2017)

The album was released on iTunes on 9 April 2017, and available on music streaming websites such as Tidal and Spotify, with the album being officially launched in Melbourne on 8 July 2017.
For this album, Barnard collaborated with Michael den Elzen,. The album was recorded in den Elzen's studio in Central Victoria, called Waldemar's Studio. The album was a true collaboration between Rebecca and Michael, as they play all the instruments on the album. Rebecca on vocals, guitar, kalimba, percussion and keyboards, whilst Michael plays guitars, bass, drums, percussion, cello, double bass, keyboard, banjo, mandolin, tzoura, chimes vocal, and also undertook the field recording of the Australian bush, which features heavily on the album.
Barnard has indicated that the album was inspired by "the power of nature, love, the fragile beauty of planet Earth", and that this is reflected in the lyrics.
The title Music for Listening and Relaxation was inspired by an old record cover Barnard found in an opportunity shop in the Blue Mountains. Barnard indicated that the title "seemed to encapsulate the mood of the songs we were writing at the time, and our obsession with nature photographer Michael K Morcombe."
Barnard has indicated that in retrospect she should have called the album ‘Music for Listening’, "because some people seriously have thought it’s a new age meditation record. Or I should have called it ‘Music for Listening while Driving."
Barnard indicated that many of the tracks on the album focused on the fate of the world, where “Golden Hour” is about nature, “Black Coral” about aging and young girls, and “Crash and Burn” being inspired by Australian Greens founder Bob Brown – where Barnard was inspired by a quote of his “If it goes, it’s gone forever” – Barnard said, " just stuck in my mind, so you know, it is a bit negative.".
Track listing
  1. "Everything We Knew" – 5:56
  2. "Golden Hour" – 8:29
  3. "Crash and Burn" – 5:34
  4. "Sound Your Heart Makes" – 5:20
  5. "All At Sea" – 4:24
  6. "Black Coral" – 7:24
  7. "Generations" – 2:32
  8. "Smoking Gun" – 4:42
  9. "Flash A New Love" – 4:46
  10. "Melancholia"– 6:49

    Soundtracks and Other Appearances

In 1986, Rebecca Barnard provided vocals to the songs "The Moon" and "Detective Love" on the motion picture soundtrack to Jamezee's Changing Name – Do You "Speak My Language?"album.
In 1995, Rebcca's Empire contributed to a compilation jazz and blues album called "Up All Night", with a song written by O'Mara and Stephen Cummings called "One Step".
In 2002, Rebecca Barnard contributed to the album "The Women at the Well" - an album featuring Australian female artists covering Paul Kelly songs. Rebecca's contribution was the song "She's Rare".
In 2013, Rebecca Barnard contributed to "The Boy Castaways" movie soundtrack with the song "I Know Where You're Going". The film featured Paul Capsis, Tim Rogers and Megan Washington. The film was directed by Michael Kantor.
In 2016, Rebecca Barnard featured on the tracks "Now That Our Babies Have Grown" a duet with Paul Kelly and on the track "The Children" as part of the Pesky Bones project. This project features different Australian artists singing in diverse styles. The project was established by the Boom Crash Opera founder Peter Farnan.

Touring

Rebecca Barnard is known for her warm personality and humour, and she couples this with her emotive performances. She tours frequently, but also takes part in various music festivals and gigs throughout Australia.
Due to her jazz background, Rebecca Barnard also performs jazz - both solo and with various bands, singing a selection of jazz standards.
During 2011 and 2012, Barnard teamed with up with fellow Australian singers Monique Brumby and Kerri Simpson, performing the show "Sheilas of the '70s", where the show included comic dialogue and songs by Kate Bush, Donna Summer, Suzi Quatro, Melanie, Blondie and Fleetwood Mac.
On September 26, 2017, Rebecca Barnard whilst being interviewed by Jon Faine, indicated that it was difficult to "get bums on seats" in touring and promoting her own original work. Consequently, Rebecca has been touring, doing jazz shows, and dedicated shows singing songs by Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. Due to the lack of exposure and promotional budgets, it has been difficult for Barnard to inform the Australian public of her current original work, despite the early success she had with her band, Rebecca's Empire.
Throughout 2017, Rebecca Barnard and Monique Di Mattina toured their "Dao of Dylan" show. In this collaboration, Monique and Rebecca draw from their blues/jazz/rock roots to interpret and discuss the mystic resonance of Bob Dylan’s work in their lives and music.
In April 2018, Barnard announced that she would be doing a series of shows with Jodi Phillis.

Television Appearances and Radio

Rebecca Barnard has appeared on RocKwiz in 2005, 2006 and 2009. She has also appeared on another music oriented music quiz show, Spicks and Specks in 2009. In 1998, Barnard appeared on the Good News Week show, hosted by Paul McDermott.
Barnard has appeared regularly on radio station 774 ABC Melbourne co-hosting with Derek Guille, and up until the end of 2013 was a regular on another 3RRR’s The Word with Tracee Hutchison.
Barnard sings the theme song to the ABC TV series Back Roads.

Literature

In 2015, Barnard submitted a piece of writing to the book From the Heart: A Collection from Women of Letters, as part of Women of Letters series curated by Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire. The book was published on 18 November 2015.

Philanthropy

In 1992, Barnard contributed to an album with a group of other musicians called P.R.I.C.S, on the album called "Covered". Barnard contributed with a Bob Dylan penned song called "Serve Somebody". In 1994, she provided two tracks with P.R.I.C.S on the album "If You Do It Do It Safe" - the two tracks contributed were Pearl Jam's "Alive", and Prince's "Sign O' The Times". Barnard also contributed bass on a David Hosking penned song called "Simply Survivors" which was sung by Shelly Scown.
Barnard has been a much loved figure of the Melbourne music community, where she runs songwriting workshops for girls in the Melbourne western suburbs.
She is a founding member of the Mirabel Foundation, which works to assist children who have been orphaned and abandoned due to parental drug use.
Barnard also conducts songwriting workshops with intellectually disabled adults in Ballarat and at the Footscray Community Arts Centre with a Sudanese Choir.
Rebecca Barnard is a regular performer at the annual Sacred Heart Mission of St Kilda fundraiser concert in Melbourne.
In 2011, Rebecca Barnard released a CD and download single called "A Mother Weeps", featuring Cal McAlpine, Mark Ferrie, Billy Miller, Sean Kelly, Andrew Duffield and Jack Howard. All profits of the single went to Cancer research. The motivation of the single, was a tribute to Gabby Larkin who died at the age of 16 from an extremely rare and aggressive form of cancer.

Teaching

Barnard is a part-time music teacher at Northern College of The Arts and Technology in Melbourne, in 2015 some of the participants have the opportunity with performing live gigs with Barnard. The hands on course promises to develop skills in songwriting, recording, rehearsal techniques, performance, stagecraft, vocal techniques and more - all under the guidance of Barnard.
Barnard also has a residence at Melbourne's Caravan Club with the "Rebecca Barnard & Billy Millers Sing-a-long", where participants are encouraged to sing, both for fun and therapeutic purposes.

Discography

Solo albums

AlbumRelease DateCatalogue NumberProducerAUS Chart
Fortified3 April 2006LADYBIRD1Rebecca Barnard & Shane O'Mara-
Everlasting7 May 2010LADYBIRD2Rebecca Barnard & Barney McAll-
Music for Listening and Relaxation9 April 2017WILDFLOWER1Rebecca Barnard & Michael den Elzen-

Albums with Rebecca's Empire

AlbumYearRecord Company and Catalogue NumberProducerAUS Chart
Way of All Things1996Eternity Recordings/Polydor 5279802Shane O'Mara-
Welcome1999Festival B0000506O4Shane O'Mara-

Collaborations

Rebecca Barnard has appeared on the following artists/various albums: