Nearly a year after The Preatures released their sophomore album 'Girlhood', frontwoman Izzi Manfredi says the cracks are beginning to show in the industry facade.
'Girlhood' is a definitive album for The Preatures and particularly Izzi, who poured so much of herself into the record's themes of growing up as a woman under the full glare of the music industry's bright and dazzling lights.
Since its release in August last year (click here to read our August 2017 interview with the band), Izzi says the public response has only strengthened in the aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein scandal and ensuing #MeToo movement.
“It's been really interesting and obviously there were themes that the record was talking about that I found difficult to talk about honestly pre-#MeToo,” Izzi says.
“I felt like the conversations I would have had if the record had come out just a few months later would have been entirely different.
"At the time I found it difficult to really be honest about what the record was, the kind of themes it was talking about so I guess it's been interesting to see the story being picked up again since October and people starting to see the record in a more dimensional light.”
As the leading hand in The Preatures, Izzi has often bore the brunt of any backlash thrown against the band. She has also had to grow and mature as a person and artist in an industry with a myopic view of beauty.
“It's not the first record to talk about the themes of growing up, and being allowed to grow up as a woman in the music industry is a conversation we're starting to have now post-#MeToo,” she says.
“Not just being confined in this sense of budding youthful beauty, which is something that I think is difficult for a lot of girls when they try to grow up, and they grow up in public and they grow up musically it doesn't always look seamless.
“It can be awkward and I think we're really taught a lot of bullshit that we're not allowed to look old or mature as artists or women. Hopefully I feel like [the album's] blown the lid off a lot of that crap because we just don't need it.
"It's redundant and it's something that we've internalised as well and spat back at ourselves. To be able to throw off that shackle was very liberating for me.”
With 'Girlhood' retaining impact, The Preatures are set for what will be their biggest tour yet, playing 40+ shows across metropolitan and regional Australia throughout June to September, including headlining the Adelaide Beer & BBQ Festival, which expands to Sydney for the first time this year.
“Originally it was 50 dates and I think it was scaled back because the band is going to be dead if we did that with no breaks, but this is what we live for, this is what we do,” Izzi says.
“We're a live band and we're writing at the moment, so we're going to put some of the new songs in the set and test them out. We're going to do our full set every night, an hour and twenty minutes, so it will be a really great opportunity for us to get tight as a band.”
The Preatures national tour commences 16 June in Geraldton and runs till 8 September in Alice Springs. Click here to view full list of dates.
