WA groove ensemble Blue Child Collective have been nominated for Best Regional Act in this year's coveted WAMAwards.
Blue Child Collective is the creative pursuit of Margaret River-based musician Dan White, who established the group in 2014 as a way to bring people together with his music in what he calls a 'culture of connection'.
“The idea was to bring people together through music, so the idea is a lot of these songs are about connection and highlighting the common things that we share as humans with each other.
"It's all about breaking down barriers and differences, and bringing people together as a whole; I noticed life is usually better when we're together.”
Growing from a solo project into a musical movement with several revolving line-ups, Blue Child Collective will face off against Grand Casual, Kris Nelson, Tanya Ransom and Tracey Barnett for the Best Regional Act WAM Award.
“It'll be nice and a great opportunity to reconnect with all the musos up in the city for the WAM Awards and tap into how we can be further connecting the state,” Dan says.
“I'm going to see if I can attend the regional roundtable, and for me it's a lot about connecting the state and the state's musos as much as recognising how great we are, because obviously WA is a hotspot for some pretty great musos but it will be great to have the opportunity to get up to the city and be a part of it this year.”
Blue Child Collective will release their fourth album 'Wake Up To the Sound' later in the year, along with a documentary film early next year to accompany their album tour.
“There's going to be a short documentary coming out the week we go on tour... in the first week of January,” Dan says.
“It's meant to flesh out some of the ideas within the album, which is about sound, energy and vibration, and recognising the fact that everything is made of the same energy and is malleable based on our thoughts, our words and our actions.”
Born in Safety Bay (Perth suburb) and having spent the past five years in Margaret River, Dan says he puts a lot of weight on bringing live music to regional WA believing it to be another form of connecting people.
“Not many artists make the effort to go the extra mile and navigate the financial waters especially of travelling long distances just to play one show, because it's tough,” he says.
“That's why not many artists do it, but it can be really rewarding in all sense of the word if you're committed to it and you go about it in the right way.
“One of my favourite runs each year is to do our regional tour from Margaret River to Broome and back, which is about 25 hours driving just to get up there and we stop at a dozen paces along the way.
“It's so important; living in a regional area it's easy to stay regional – I could just stay around here and play wineries and breweries – but it's really important to get out of town.”
