{"id":584435,"date":"2026-08-05T23:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T23:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/584435\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T23:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T23:32:08","slug":"if-you-yell-at-everything-no-ones-gonna-listen-kelly-dawn-hellmrich-on-the-australian-musicians-rewriting-the-rules-australian-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/584435\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018If you yell at everything, no one\u2019s gonna listen\u2019: Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich on the Australian musicians rewriting the rules | Australian music"},"content":{"rendered":"

When she was 17, Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich flew to Alice Springs to stay with her mother. Hellmrich had been living independently for a year, but a boy she was seeing had screamed at her and shoved her into a door. So her mother bought her a flight.<\/p>\n

In Alice, she meandered the town by day and sat with her mother outside the duplex at night, sipping Cruisers. Already the veteran of a few bands, Hellmrich was confronted by the idea that her mother\u2019s ambitions had been thwarted. \u201cI was so scared at the time of ever being a mum and having to lose myself that way,\u201d she writes in her first book, It\u2019s Not For You \u2013 part memoir, part missive to the music industry. \u201cScared of what motherhood would take from me.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she speaks to Guardian Australia, Hellmrich \u2013 who spent eight years as the bassist of Melbourne band Camp Cope<\/a> \u2013 is wearing a necklace that says \u201cMother\u201d and is pregnant with her second child. \u201cI had this conversation with my partner: \u2018Oh my gosh, is this the end of my creative career?\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cHe was like, \u2018I\u2019ve got this feeling that it\u2019s just the beginning.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Hellmrich (R) plays on stage at Camp Cope\u2019s final show at the Sydney Opera House in 2023. Photograph: The Mood Lab\/Jess Gleeson<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Not For You contains 18 interviews with women and gender-diverse artists who have changed the Australian music<\/a> industry on their own terms, including Courtney Barnett, Vika and Linda Bull, Julia Jacklin, Barkaa and Amyl and the Sniffers\u2019 Amy Taylor. It\u2019s named after a line in a Camp Cope song, and as Hellmrich writes, is \u201cfor every artist who felt pushed away, or talked over, or told that their place was somewhere else\u201d.<\/p>\n

Camp Cope were both lauded and critiqued for their fierce activism, which included calling out festivals for booking too few women and spearheading the It Takes One campaign<\/a> to encourage people to call out abusive behaviour and make festivals safer. Years of inflammatory headlines made Hellmrich apprehensive about sharing so much of her life, she says, but on the flipside she\u2019s the perfect person for her peers to open up to.<\/p>\n

One theme is parenting as a musician. \u201cI couldn\u2019t escape it,\u201d she says. \u201cI thought, I can\u2019t just talk about motherhood to these women because they\u2019ve got so much else going on, but I really wanted to because we all approach it in such different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018For a long time I felt lesser because I was from western Sydney\u2019 \u2026 Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich. Photograph: The Guardian<\/p>\n

As a child, Hellmrich vividly remembers seeing Yumi Stynes interviewing bands for Channel V with a pregnant belly, and thinking how cool that was. In the book, DJ Anna Lunoe reveals that even though she performed at festivals while visibly, gloriously pregnant, she kept her nausea hidden and was worried she\u2019d lose relevance. Similarly, producer Anna Laverty hid her family status on social media at first, having Googled \u201cfemale music producers with children\u201d and only finding one. Laverty, who founded the Music Producers and Engineers\u2019 Guild of Australia, also describes being hired by male bands, but being able to sense if one member might not respect her authority.<\/p>\n

Sarah Blasko performing at Womadelaide in 2021. Photograph: Kelly Barnes\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The idea that men have more trustworthy musical knowledge can be deeply ingrained. When Sarah Blasko split up with her romantic and creative partner before making her third album, she realised she had to let go of the feeling that she needed a second opinion \u2013 and upon its release won an Aria award. Journalist Sosefina Fuamoli describes older male critics congratulating her for getting spots on panels: \u201cOh, it\u2019s great you\u2019re booked. I wasn\u2019t available, but good for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Camp Cope<\/a> split in 2023, Hellmrich moved to Penrith with her partner, Lekii, to raise their kids. Western Sydney looms large over her beautifully observed memoir sections, and as it seems to sit on the outskirts of power and influence, despite the wealth of talent there, is a good metaphor for the book.<\/p>\n

\u2018It absolutely demolished my mental health,\u2019 says Hellmrich of the post-#MeToo period in Australian music. Photograph: Bec Lorrimer\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

The perfume of her nan Dawn \u2013 who always wore her hair sprayed high and could throw a solid punch, she writes \u2013 still seems to linger at the Penrith Leagues Club where Hellmrich interviews Marcia Hines. And dirt bikes become a motif. As a youngster, Hellmrich hooned around on the back of her brother\u2019s Yamaha PeeWee 50, then decades later finds herself on a video shoot for Barkaa, who \u2013 being a western Sydney woman herself \u2013 requested PeeWees for the occasion.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a long time I felt lesser because I was from here, and then as I grew up, I understood that it really shaped my art and it shaped my personality,\u201d Hellmrich says.<\/p>\n

I tell Hellmrich that reading It\u2019s Not For You has been a personal reckoning. In the mid-2010s, when Camp Cope released their self-titled debut album, there was an upswell of activism. Among the initiatives, the Melbourne-based grassroots group Listen was formed to promote equality in the Australian music scene; and #MeToo went global. I reported on sexual harassment at live events, spoke on panels about inclusion and safe spaces. I had experienced many of the issues first-hand, but my participation was also fuelled by fear \u2013 of not being seen to do enough, of getting it wrong. The call-out culture could be furiously unforgiving. But reading the more nuanced thoughts of Hellmrich and her peers has been a salve.<\/p>\n

In an ideal world, Hellmrich would have been \u2018making music about aliens and being a loser\u2019 \u2013 instead, Camp Cope felt obliged to speak up. Photograph: Bec Lorrimer\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a really unforgiving period,\u201d Hellmrich agrees. \u201cAs women, we get criticised on so many different aspects, and so much of that is beyond the art. It\u2019s really scary, having everything you say be scrutinised, and it absolutely demolished my mental health. A lot of us went through that.\u201d<\/p>\n

She gives the example of Sampa the Great, another voice in the book. \u201cShe didn\u2019t get the joyous career that she should have had in Australia because she had to take on being a teacher and representation for her community,\u201d Hellmrich says. \u201cShe loves to celebrate her community, but if you\u2019re constantly having to be the spokesperson for Botswana or black women in that genre, it\u2019s exhausting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sampa the Great pictured performing at Glastonbury festival in 2022. Photograph: David Levene\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

In an ideal world, Hellmrich would have been \u201cmaking music about aliens and being a loser\u201d, but instead Camp Cope felt obliged to speak up on behalf of any damage they were seeing to the community that supported them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can be a lot,\u201d she reflects of the trio\u2019s time together. \u201cYou can\u2019t be the Ghostbusters of every bad man in the industry. If you fight everything, you only beat yourself. If you yell at everything, no one\u2019s gonna listen any more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then again, in the chapter in which she interviews her former bandmates, drummer Sarah \u201cThomo\u201d Thompson gets the last word. \u201cNah,\u201d Thomo says. \u201cI actually wish I\u2019d been more of a cunt.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When she was 17, Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich flew to Alice Springs to stay with her mother. Hellmrich had been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-584435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}