“Our music is like pre-drinking in a warm shower. Spine tingling water trickling over your back as you sip on your beer…”

Young Sydneysiders Andy and Zoe started making folk music when they met at university. After six months in Sweden, Zoe returned with the conviction that drums could exist in “beautiful music” too. Ginger & Drum was born.

Zoe’s voice is sweet and sincere, but the beautiful darkness of Andy’s percussion is what empowers it to take hold of your headspace. Together, Ginger & Drum create landscapes: plotted out in slow steady beats and layers of echoed keys. They take you by the hand and walk you across: starting out quietly, ambling along and drinking in the sights. Before you realise it, you are jogging, skipping, then running full pelt through tall grass and sepia hues – driven by some burning emotion that feels simultaneously adult and childlike.

Like a stripped-back, edgy little sister to The Jezabels, this is top-quality, honest alternative pop that will haunt you in the best possible way.

Also published in Time Out Sydney

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Beth: When, why and how did you first start making music?

Ginger & Drum: Writing music for Ginger & Drum is both a need and a want. It’s a common struggle to express deep emotions whilst they run high. G&D’s music has always been the mechanism to release that pressure valve. Andy and Zoe met at uni and started jamming with folk songs. After a living in Sweden for half a year, Zoe decided that drums could in fact exist in “beautiful music” and so Ginger & Drum they became. Add a brother (James) and a sister (Lauren) and the band is complete.

Where did you grow up? How do you think it’s influenced your sound, if at all?

Zoe and Lauren grew up at Avoca Beach…which didn’t influence much. Family-wise the girls have Celtic heritage (gingervitis) where the melodies in traditional music can go from hauntingly sad to exultant in the one breath. It’s a notion that’s always driven their songwriting. Sydney boys, Andy and James “eff up the beauty” with alternative influences creating both tension and balance.

Say you’ve just met me in a bar… How would you describe your music to me?

Our music is like pre-drinking in a warm shower. Spine tingling water trickling over your back as you sip on your beer. The shower suddenly goes cold and you start jumping and yelling like a possessed daemon-child, all you can do is dance around the icy stream. You realize this is the most fun you’ve ever had. The water goes warm again. Repeat.

Highlight of Ginger & Drum’s musical life so far?

Number 1 is finally releasing the EP. It was like going into labor for a whole year. Lucky it wasn’t an ugly baby, or so we think… but then again everyone thinks their own baby is beautiful. Number 2 is coming to the realization that half the band was essentially missing. Lauren and James then joined which has created a lot of awkward family portraits.

Goals / plans for the future?

In November we are releasing our first official music video for the EP’s second single, Tucson, which we are super excited about. Let’s say a few Glebe residents were shocked and alarmed in the filming process.

We also have a few other plans…. We want to write and record more music, we want less venues closing down, we want to tour, we want to thank Chookas in Wahroonga for being the sole food supplier for band rehearsal, we also want Chookas to sponsor our next EP, we want less day jobs.

Download ‘Cowboy’ by Ginger & Drum on FBi’s The Rip VII:

Ginger & Drum | Past Unsigned Artists