Brisbane’s Americana sweetheart, Ruby Gilbert will return to the Sunshine State after 13 shows in NSW and Victoria.
From Surry Hills to Yackandandah, the bubbly singer-songwriter is treating both city and regional venues to her offbeat alt-country musings alongside the folk stylings of Ramblin’ Ash.
On Facebook, Ruby promoted the shows with a selfie of her and a “gorgeous cat” she met at her AirBnb for the Tamworth Country Music Festival. “I could make an Instagram full of other people’s cats - I just love them,” she says.
A regular on the Brisbane live scene, the singer is enjoying the interstate escape. She likes doing “these sorts of shows”; mostly originals, with one or two covers added in, in towns that are a little outside Australia’s usual country music hot spots.
One of her favourite performances so far was at the Bright Brewery. “The town was absolutely beautiful,” Ruby says. “It’s in Victoria, and [it] looked kind of like a town from a soap opera. It was just so perfect and pretty, and everyone was so lovely. It didn’t even seem real.”
Ruby has been singing her own songs since she was 15, and has performed at the Caloundra Music Festival and the Gympie Music Muster. Understandably, she can hardly wait for the release of her long-awaited debut EP this May.
Working on the record with Sunday (Aaron Shanahan, formerly of Miami Horror) “has been a dream,” Ruby says. “He’s become one of my good friends now; it’s been great.”
The EP has been in the works since early 2017, the same time that most of its songs were written. “I tend to write all on my own [songs]. I take a long time to write my own songs,” Ruby admits.
She layers lyrics on top of guitar riffs and sometimes mulls over them for months. The ones that made the cut for the EP aren’t linked in any overt way and certainly aren’t love songs, but “there’s sort of sad theme to the whole EP,” the singer says.
“There’s a lot of unresolved stories in there.”
Not all of the stories come from Ruby’s own personal experiences. Often, she writes from a third-person perspective addressing events and ideas that evoke her response. “There’s a song on the EP which is about a friend of mine [and] her relationship with someone else,” Ruby says.
“The song is my advice to her. I’ve never been good at giving advice, so the song is my piece of advice.”
While Brisbane is not immediately synonymous with Americana, Ruby has always gravitated to the roots sound popular in the United States. “It’s very lyric based, and I’m a very lyric-based songwriter. So I guess it’s natural to be drawn to the genre,” she says.
Influences include the brutal honesty of Lindi Ortega, “dark and moody” Marlon Williams and Father John Misty - “I love him,” Ruby says.
With the east-coast tour wrapped up, the singer will head home to perform some new songs at the Brisbane Powerhouse this weekend as part of a three-piece band. “I love playing with bands, it’s probably my favourite thing to do,” she says.
“I really appreciate doing stripped back, acoustic sets, but I think my songs translate well with a band... with the release of the EP, I’ll hopefully do more [shows with] them.”
Ruby Gilbert plays the Live Spark series at Brisbane Powerhouse 18 March (from 3.30pm).
Update: 20 March, 2018: Ruby has been added to the 2018 Groundwater Country Music Festival (which is a free event) at Broadbeach precinct 27-29 July.
