And Then There Was Natalie Henry.
I’m realising there’s almost no way for me to pen a blog so that it isn’t just an extensive love letter. What other outcome can I expect when I continue to work with extremely talented and hard-working folks; I simply can’t and wouldn’t want to lose the sparkly gratitude that overcomes me after a hard days night. And then there was Natalie Henry…
The Americana Alt-Country songbird that is Natalie Henry came to me in January of 2021, totally strung out with the weight of building a Pozible campaign on her back. I was on graphics… and then I was on guiding the rollout... and after some time I was on Melody Moko’s loungechair soothing a hyperventilating Henry, donning nothing but borrowed pink undies and a ‘Truth Hurts’ tee, in the minutes before her Album-make-or-break Pozible campaign ended.
The intensity throughout this first collaboration was something I’d not been expecting in my then-fledgling business; I’d left a world of it behind in the previous year executing a regional music festival. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get off on the chaotic energy that comes when the pressure’s really on. Since the Pozible campaign, and all the way through til now, Henry offers me an ever-fruitful pool of this chaotic energy; something like the Fountain of Youth but in a definite opposite direction of rapid ageing. Kidding… but, She’s not branded the wild woman for nothing…
For the week following the campaigns’ end, I found myself in Byron Bay at Rocking Horse Studios filming the Behind the Scenes of recording the successfully-funded-record in the company of these outrageously talented musicians. It was the middle of summer and the aircon in the studio was out. If anything, this only served to amplify the tense moments alongside making electric absolutely epic ones that come with laying down a fully live-recorded record.
That week gave me such deepened respect, love and admiration for what being a musician is, which has added a really profound layer to my work within this industry ever since. I’ll also never forget my first witnessing of a purpose-built-into-the-cabinetry coke + weed drawer, divided down the middle so as to keep it all respectable and tidy, of course. In between the cigarettes and the takeout coffees, Henry also handed me her phone: "Can you do my socials?” and so it went on.
Melody Moko, Jazmyn Bowman, Natalie Henry and Catherine Britt.
Home from Rockinghorse, proud of and grateful for the new feats I’d gathered over that chapter, I found myself dead wrong in assuming it was but a chapter. It might’ve been only a week or two before Henry asked me onboard as Manager. “I’d be totally green to that; I’d have no idea how to do it!” to which Henry answers “It’s just what you’ve been doing already.” I closed my eyes and jumped.
Mutual friends with good intentions asked me how I’d gotten on with Henry in the beginning; knowing me as relatively meek and mild-mannered, they’d perhaps wondered whether my skin was thick enough for a Woman like Henry who speaks her mind and wears her heart, fears and tears on her sleeve, is less politically correct then my generation, and doesn’t have time for feigning the patience of a saint. But the work ethic in this Woman is one to match my own, and the way she rides her highs and anguishes through her lows feels so familiar.
Working in such an intimate way forces you to back someone real fast, and I couldn’t do that if I didn’t trust her all the way. The new role of Manager was a skin to grow into, for sure. I’ve already learnt a lifetime’s worth, and there are still aeons more to grasp. From February ‘til now, end of June, rarely has a day gone by where I haven’t fielded half a dozen phone calls from Henry, and that’s outside of the never-ending email threads with publicists and venues and media.
With Nat’s full album due for release in just a few months (September) there’s no slowing down. Nat’s touring nationally with Catherine Britt’s Bush Pubs Tour, she’s raising three young kids, and she’s working a full-time day job. 5 to 9. 9 to 5. The work behind the scenes in putting an album-baby (even singles at that) out into the world is enormous, it really does take so many hands and so many unseen hours and so much unseen grit.
Today, I delivered Nat’s next film clip to her, which we’d shot recently in Byron, while back at Rockinghorse Studios to celebrate her birthday. Shooting that clip provoked my sanity - in true Henry style we had 40 minutes to shoot before the sun went down. She was buzzed and ready to party. I couldn’t make sense of trying to bring it all together under those conditions. It’s a reoccurring theme in our relationship. Then, today, after calling me in happy tears when first seeing the finished clip, Nat proceeded to watch it literally 46 more times (I got updates every dozen or so views). Once that was all done, I got this text:
”I love all of you.
You are a brilliant woman.
Stick with me kid.
We gonna do some flyin’ “
Six months ago I’d no inkling I’d be managing a Gay, Country Singing, Crass-Joke Slingin’ Whirlwind Woman. This new record is genuinely my favourite music that’s come out this year - and that makes this journey all the more bloody thrilling. I’m so proud to be representing this gun of an artist. It’s a little bit magic with more than a little bit of an exciting future ahead.
Do follow Natalie Henry on socials to get front row seats to the rest.
