Emma & The Hungry Truth

Social media is not only a place for cute cat photos and endless status updates any longer, it can now be the birth place of bands and music.

Emma Dean the front woman for the band Emma And The Hungry Truth had a blooming solo career growing both locally and abroad in New York City, before Facebook would lead to a drastic change in direction. For the past four years Emma was splitting her time between Australia and New York City where she spent her days performing in a kids band known as the Appleseeds and her nights entertaining “drag queens and other fabulous creatures of the underworld” in venues just off Broadway. Emma described her time New York by saying “I have a complicated love affair with New York City, it’s so fabulous but also challenging in that it is a city of eight million plus and yet somehow it is very easy to feel isolated.”

This sense of isolation would lead Emma to explore this subject matter in her songwriting before taking the ultimate step in posting a Facebook status in the hopes of finding a band to perform the new tracks with. “I didn’t know what type of band I wanted but I knew I didn’t want to be a solo performer anymore. So I posted on Facebook and had all of these random people contacting me. I saw all of them and auditioned them in a really informal way with all of them eventually ending up in the band.” she said.

Now that the band had been formed they set about recording their first EP Feast. When asked how the collaborative effort on tracks she had written was Emma said “All of the band members brought really interesting and elaborate ideas to the rehearsal room.” Now that they have finished with that they have started writing their own songs and bringing them to the band, which is a really exciting process to be exploring this new phase.”

Before heading back to the United States with her new six piece band Emma and her brother Tony, also a member of the band, will strip the show back to a more intimate duo show for a showcase event in Sydney. “I’ve done lots of shows there myself as a solo performer but The Hungry Truth have never been there with this new material, so of course we’re very excited” Emma said. The show is set to be a rather theatrical performance of their unique pop-rock and tribal world music fusion sound, “I will be telling lots of stories and because we’re in duo mode we will be using loop pedals, drum machines and switching between instruments. So I think it will be a really exciting experience and show for the audience. (JA)

Mar 5, Venue 505, 280 Cleveland St, Surry Hills, $16+b.f, venue505.com