Tash Sultana: On busking, touring, and why music keeps her going

Natasha Sultana – an extraordinary one-woman-band with a legion of followers from across the world – is a difficult person to reach. Delayed by the Dublin traffic because of a Green Day concert happening across town, Tash is only midway through her soundcheck when I arrive at Vicar Street to interview her before her show.

I’m not complaining about this. It’s an interesting experience to be given access to a musician at their most focused – when all the artifice of a performance is taken away. From the side of the stage, I can hear Tash confidently directing her sound-crew and perfecting each individual song. But apart from her bare feet moving across a section of carpet, I can barely see her amidst the forest of instruments and computers.

I do eventually get to speak to her in the plush backstage surroundings. She’s flanked by a tour manager, a few staff members, and some other administrative people whose roles I’m not sure of (maybe Tash isn’t either). She looks slightly exhausted by the whole affair, and I’m suddenly very apologetic for my presence.

“Nah, don’t sweat it, I appreciate you waiting!” she says, her cheery Melbourne inflection heartening me. “I’ve pretty much been touring since April 2016, so yeah, I guess I do get pretty tired. I also got really drunk in London last night too!”

No judgement here, of course. Whatever semblance of a hangover Sultana has, it’s clearly not affecting her ability to perform. But noting that she’s come a long way from Melbourne to Dublin, I wonder how much of a toll touring can take on a person?

“The music keeps me going,” she responds. “It’s whenever people tour that they realise why they’re doing it all, or why they shouldn’t be doing it. Some people go on tour and realise that they just like to be studio artists – that’s fine – then others go on tour and realise they need it. I need it – I don’t know what the fuck would be happening if I didn’t have music.”

We don’t explicitly talk about it, but Tash’s chequered past has been well-documented. After touring nationwide in Australia a few years ago with her band MindPilot, the singer entered a drug-induced psychosis, caused by eating hallucinogenic mushrooms. She claims that she was unable to distinguish reality from imagination for nearly nine months, and that it was only through music therapy and a commitment to busking that the effects wore off. So whenever she talks about the “power of music”, I don’t take it as trite.

Did she ever dream that busking would take her this far?

“I suppose I didn’t really have a projection when I started,” she says. “It’s better if you just stop thinking about it. I mean I always knew I was going to play music, but whether it was going to be on a massive scale or not, I didn’t know. If I’d tried every avenue possible and still wasn’t making it as an artist, I wouldn’t have stopped playing.”

Years performing on the street have shaped Tash’s live performances. Her sets are impressive, not only because of the quality of the songs, but because of her multi-tasking style, where a cache of various instruments are utilised throughout. I mention that Grafton Street is only down the road, and ask the singer if she has any advice for buskers trying to make a name for themselves.

“Don’t do it for money,” she laughs. “I started out with no money. And I still have no money now. Seriously though, if you really want to make it from playing in the streets, don’t get into it with false intentions. Don’t look at things through rose-coloured lenses. You should understand the reality of how tough it is to make it in music.”

Tash appears to have her live set locked down (although she insists that she “fucks up all the time”), but are there plans to get into the studio and produce her debut album?

“I’ll definitely be dropping an album next year,” she says. “I have all the songs written, although I haven’t brought them into the recording studio yet. I’ve been sitting on a few of them for some time now – trying different versions of them and stirring them up in a massive pot. But at the end of the year I’ll be heading to the studio to record them.”

Tash Sultana’s Notion EP is out now.