One of Australia’s largest music festivals, Blues on Broadbeach, returns from 16-19 May 2024 with an electrifying line-up set to transform the Gold Coast into a rhythm and blues mecca for four days. Blues-rock genre benders Melissa Etheridge (USA), Samantha Fish & Jesse Dayton (USA), Ana Popovic (USA), fiery bluesman Eric Bibb (USA), and returning favourite Lloyd Spiegel headline the festival’s explosive first drop.
We caught up with Ana Popovic to talk about song writing, touring and her excitement for getting back to Australia for a one-off exclusive show at this year’s Broadbeach Festival.
Sean: Hi, Anna, how are you?
Ana: Great, how are you?
Sean: I’m very well, thank you. Thank you very much for taking the time out to chat to me. It’s Sean from The Rockpit over in Perth, Western Australia.
Ana: Hi Sean. No, thank you.
Sean: It’s fantastic to see your only Australian show this year has been announced, and it’s at Blues at Broadbeach. That must be so exciting.
Ana: It’s so exciting. I’m so happy to be back. It’s been a while since we’ve been to Australia, so I’m just so excited to go back and see all the friendly people again and music lovers. And I just had the best times last time I was there. So, yeah, we’re ready.
Sean: Wonderful. And what’s also so refreshing to see in such a male-dominated industry is to see so many fantastic female musicians on this bill as well. It’s incredibly special. It’s such a strong line-up. It’s great to see.
Ana: Yes, it’s great to see. And women are taking over, which is awesome. At least now we know Australia on the festival. But, yes, they’re just incredible artists and not just female, but just great, great line-up. And I’m very excited to be a part of it.
Sean: Well, I can see you’re in your music room / studio there. Probably a rare time for you to be there because I notice you’ve got such a busy year ahead. And you’re here for live dates, which is great to see as well.
Ana: Rare, exactly. [laughs] Yeah, we got a lot of dates and looking forward to some really great stuff this summer. And, yeah, every now and then I get to be here, chill and write and compose. And I just love it. This is my space. This is where I create. And, yeah, yeah, California is great. The weather is awesome. It’s just a good time of the year to be here. I think I leave on Wednesday again. Off to the East Coast and then Europe after that and then Australia. Yeah, it’s great.
Sean: I see Obviously the last album, Power, was only released last year. With being on the road so much, where do you find time to write or is it something that happens organically on the road while you’re out and about?
Ana: I have to steal time to write. I will tell you that we are so busy and I got a family, two kids. So, I don’t have a lot of time to write, but I have to steal time to write and you can really say it like that because there is no specific moment, okay, now I’m going to, you know, of course, you can set some time, but really writing happens whenever you’re inspired and you can be inspired in any moment of the day. And when that happens, you need to pull up your iPhone or write stuff down or record an audio idea, a melody idea, any lyrics that come to mind. “Okay, this could be a great, great line.” So, I’m going to write for a song, that’s it, you got to do it and then anytime, you know, 4am, 5am, whenever I’m up and, and something’s going through my head, I make some coffee, I come here and I work it out and it’s the same on the road, you know, and you can’t plan those things. I think those things need to be organic, you need to really capture the idea, it needs to be raw, it needs to be real, you’re thinking about things and then you want to put them on the paper. Yeah, you know, you need to capture that moment and the other way around too, like okay, now at 10am, I’m going to write, good luck. If you’re inspired at 10am or whatever, you got time then, but hey, inspiration is the main thing that needs to be there, so I still have time to write.
Sean: Clearly, there’s two things, inspiration and coffee are both equally important by the sounds of it [laughs].
Ana: Yes, yes. [laughs] Oh. I need one right now, because it’s like what, 8am.
Sean: Oh, it’s midnight here in Perth, so it’s either a bit late for coffee or a bit early for me at the moment.
Ana: Oh my goodness, thank you for staying up so late.
Sean: Oh, it’s an absolute pleasure to get to chat to you ahead of the Blues at Broadbeach show. So Ana, so taking you right back, what was your early memories of hearing music? Was it around the house or at school?
Ana: Oh yeah, around the house. I grew up in a music loving family and a lot of jam sessions, guitars in our music room. My dad is a big blues lover and a good music lover, so we would have great music, loud music every day, every day of the week. It was American blues, soul and funk and rock. And I grew up on Delta blues, Chicago blues, Texas blues, all of it. We’ve heard it all. And I was introduced to all these incredible musicians and I have very many influences, you know, not one or two, but I have a lot of influences because I was brought up to listen to all these different genres and from a very early age. So I felt comfortable within the genre later on when I started making my own songs and forming my band, I knew how I would like my show to look like. I had a clear vision how my show would look. And that all came from where I was born in Serbia. And that’s where I grew up. I left long ago, but that’s where the first memories of music are formed for me. Yeah.
Sean: So obviously in Serbia, I’m guessing a lot of music was coming in from America. Was the Blues a very big genre over there at the time in general?
Ana: No, no. There’s been some bands that we’ve done. We used to play blues, but now it’s a completely different music scene over there. So we were definitely an exception. But we would attract a lot of young people and we would attract audiences with my first band Hush and television shows too, which was very unusual for Serbia at that time, singing in English. Yeah, so we had some modest success and then I moved to Amsterdam, started studying guitar and then I moved to the States already, I would think now 12 years ago full time, but I’ve been playing both Europe and the States for almost 20 years.
Sean: You touched on the fact you have to steal time with having two children, but are there any budding future musicians in the family?
Ana: Oh, yeah. They are. My son is a great drummer and great songwriter and my daughter sings and dances and oh, yeah, they’re great. They’re extremely talented, way more than I was at their age, that’s for sure. I had to work hard, but when I hear them, they just sing it all, they can play it all and they dance amazing. So yeah, we’ll see. I want them to enjoy whatever it is that they’re going to choose and that needs to be their passion and I am not the parent that’s going to push it onto them. So they have options here. They got instruments. But down the line, they have to make a choice. What is the real thing that they want to do? But they are very multi-talented in many things.
Sean: That’s wonderful to hear because I remember speaking to Kenny Wayne Shepherd a few years ago and he’s got six children and he said very much the same. He’s got instruments littered around the house and if they pick something up, they pick it up. There’s nothing forced on them. All organic.
Ana: Yes, absolutely. I’m very much the same.
Sean: That’s a lovely guitar you have on the wall. Is there a little story about that one? Is that something special?
Ana: Oh, this is Hamilton. They made some sort of a signature. All my guitars are on the bus, so they’re not here. My main guitars. But this is a fun one that Hamilton made for me long ago. And Steve Ray Vaughan has the same with his logo and played it in a few places and a few music videos and I always loved it. And it was nice that they came and surprised me with that. But my favourite one. My main guitars are on the road and I got a ’64 Strat that’s been with me for 12 years. And I got a Foggy that I made with Fender last year. It’s a Foggy Mirror Chrome Strat and my ’57 Reissue that I’ve been having with me for more than 20 years that I got from my parents. And it’s a great guitar. It’s a very dear guitar to me. So, yeah, those are my road warriors.
Sean: Having such an extensive back catalogue now, when you come to do a festival show like Broadbeach, is it difficult to work on a set list? There must be some wonderful songs you have that you have to leave out over the years as you produce new music. Trying to squeeze songs into the set list must be very difficult.
Ana: It is difficult because I got a lot of my favourite songs throughout the years on every record. And, of course, then you’ve got also band favourite songs. Like, why can’t we do this? Can’t we pull this up? Like, even before their time, you know, they’re like, wow, I heard that from your second record. Can we do that? And then you’ve got to kind of feel the audience, too. So not every night is the same set list. I kind of like to feel the crowd. And try something out. And then, of course, you have to play your favourites or your new ones that you’re really excited about, which, in my case, would be songs of ‘Power’ and a few songs of ‘Oblivion for Live’, our live record that came out during pandemic. So it’s a difficult tack, for sure. But no matter what, when you front a great band like I do, those musicians are so capable of playing anything. And you can throw things at them, and they’re just going to pick it up. And even songs that we haven’t heard before. And I haven’t touched in a long time. I can do that. I’m comfortable with them. They have their homework done, and they’re ready, whichever direction I go. So it’s always fun. It’s always fun to put together a set list and just go with it.
Sean: Well, it’s a long way to come. So we really appreciate you making the effort to get to Australia for just one show this year. And I’m sure fans are itching for you to come back, hopefully in 2025.
Ana: Yes, I’m hoping. Because I love it. I love Australia. I love the optimism and positivity. I can’t wait. It’s going to be great.
Sean: I’ve just got a few fun questions, if that’s OK, Anna, just to wind up things with. And the first is my restaurant question. If you could invite three musicians, dead or alive, to join you for a bit of dinner one evening, who would you have sat at the table with you?
Ana: Oh, my goodness. I don’t know. You know, it’s so hard to choose, right? I’m not a big fan of this kind of crazy questions. I find them so difficult. Jaco Pastorius, Jimi Hendrix, and Robert Johnson.
Sean: Great table. We sometimes get sucked into listening to playlists in this day and age so what was the last album you listened to?
Ana: Oh, my goodness. Gee. I mean, I don’t really listen to albums anymore, because it’s all part of some sort of playlist, just as you said. But recently, it was something with Michael McDonald, Roberta Flack, Stevie Wonder, if you ask me. What was the last, you know, last jams I’ve been listening to, but my playlist are all over the track.
Sean: What a great group of artists that is in one answer.
Ana: Yeah. That was just last night before I went to bed.
Sean: The very final question. I know you just said you don’t like these ones, but last one, if you could be credited with any song ever written, what song would you choose?
Ana: Oh my goodness. Sorry, I’m so sorry [laughs] Okay. ‘Third Stone From the Sun’ by Jimi Hendrix
Sean: Nice. I shall add that to my list.
Ana: There’s just so many, you know, how can you pick one? Right. There’s just so but yeah, Stevie Wonder had… you know. Hendrix had so many… And everybody has a great song that defines their career.
Sean: I just want to say a huge thank you for your time chatting to us at The Rockpit. We wish you a hugely successful year on the road, which is looking enormous. I’m looking down the list now. It’s incredible.
Ana: Not everything is in the calendar. Trust me. There’s more to it. But we will make it work and we’ll have fun while doing it.
Sean: Thanks again for your time. And I really appreciate it.
Ana: No problem at all. Thanks Sean. See you soon. Bye bye.
