Brisbane singer-songwriter Georgia Potter recently won the inaugural Carol Lloyd Award, securing a $15,000 grant to produce and tour her next EP.
Presented as part of the official launch for this year's Queensland Music Festival, the newly-minted award pays homage to Carol Lloyd who is considered Australia's first frontwoman of rock for her work with 1970s band Railroad Gin. “I'm absolutely thrilled,” Georgia says of her win, “and I'm a big Carol Lloyd fan so I feel very privileged to be the inaugural recipient of the award.
“Also my hopes were really high; when it comes to good news when you've got high hopes is the sweetest feeling.”
“I was trying to hold my tongue about approaching the Queensland Premier without ripping into some 'Stop Adani' stuff.”
Georgia began making musical waves as a solo artist with her single 'Reckless', which was released in 2013 and attracted international attention via airplay on LA radio station KCRW. More recently, she's teamed up with a drummer and bassist to form indie rock trio Moreton. “What I'm doing at the moment is a three-piece band called Moreton,” she explains.
“It's named after Moreton Bay which is where I spent a bunch of time when I was a kid. I also really like the mood of those strange, kind of creepy, kind of beautiful sand islands in that whole region... we've got our first EP out, which came out at the end of last year.
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“It's the first band I've fronted playing electric guitar and I'm having a ball and trying to hone in on what it means to be the frontwoman of a band. It's very dark, moody music which highlights the melancholia, but I hope it also highlights the beauty in that.”
With the prize money from the award, Georgia intends to complete the EP Moreton are currently working on with a view to take their music on the road for a tour.
Georgia was one of five artists shortlisted for the Carol Lloyd Award from seventy-plus applications. “I don't want to say too much, but I'll definitely be recording and ultimately taking that stuff on the road as well,” she says. “At the moment I'm bunkering down and writing more and finishing off the work I've been writing, which I was very close to finishing anyway.
"So this award is a massive relief to know that I can go ahead with a project that was very much happening regardless. It's definitely an enabler for a project that was already off the ground.”
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A fierce opponent of the proposed and highly-controversial Adani mine project, Georgia found herself caught between her music and voicing her very strong environmental beliefs when she was presented the award personally by Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.
“I was trying to hold my tongue about approaching the Premier without ripping into some 'Stop Adani' stuff, that was really difficult,” Georgia says.
“I was saying my 'thank yous' and biting my tongue, trying to have respect for the judges and make it about Carol Lloyd in that moment and not about dirty coal.”
Entries for the 2018 Carol Lloyd Award re-open October 2017. Moreton performs a solo, acoustic set as part of Queensland Music Festival's Immersion series at The Johnson Hotel (Brisbane) 14 July.
