Alisha Todd

In conversation with Alisha Todd one of our “Artist in Residence” from September through to February. Click here to check out her latest releases.

Image Credit: Alisha Todd

How has your four year hiatus from performing influenced your latest work?

To be honest, the 4 year hiatus was a little while ago now. Just after the hiatus, I became very free in my music and just created from what felt like my soul. After moving to the Gold Coast, I became caught up in the 'industry' side of music, which I guess was phase 2 after the hiatus. There's always the stigma for musicians that you have to 'make it', and if you don't 'make it' then you've wasted your time, so I travelled the road of trying to do that. Then I turned 30. Now I feel like I'm in phase 3 after hiatus, taking another hiatus from the 'industry'/hustle side of things and instead coming back to the roots of why I make and play music in the first place - which is more to escape reality I think and to connect with people in this other reality.

Can you describe the inspiration for your latest single, “Don’t Wanna Go Home”?

This song began during the hiatus actually. I was living in England and I'm pretty sure it was just about crushing on an English boy and not wanting to come back to Australia. The first verse is more about the weight of the world though, maybe some matters of materialism and marketing moguls, not at all related to the boy part... maybe it was a shared outlook.

I’ve seen that your accompanying music video for “Generations” has been released. This is a truly beautiful song and the video is a brilliant visual for the piece. The idea of meeting expectations and feeling as though you have to act a certain way in order to appease the people around you can be exhausting. Was there a moment that sparked the concept for this song?

Thank you! I wrote this one with a small bunch of legends at an APRA Songhubs songwriting camp. I brought this idea/the line 'I've got growing pains, generational stains, breaking mumma's expectations' to the table, and I think it was sparked by the Black Lives Matter movement. I often think about old family values and grudges that get passed down generations, old wars between groups of people where no one even remembers what they're fighting for or just passing blame onto innocent people. It's such a human thing to do and I believe the only thing keeping us back from evolving into a peaceful species is this. I've just read that Elon Musk is literally mass producing robots... I feel like our inability to heal our family traumas and thus get along with each other will be the one reason we'll be obliterated by robots.. haha. Where's Will Smith when you need him?

For more details and updates on Alisha’s residency head to the Facebook event here