Clare Bowditch (born 1975) is an Australian musician, actress, radio presenter and business entrepreneur.
At the ARIA Music Awards of 2006, Bowditch won the ARIA Award for Best Female Artist and was nominated for a Logie Award for her work on the TV series Offspring in 2012. She has toured with Gotye and Leonard Cohen, written for Harpers Bazaar, Rolling Stone and Drum. She currently hosts an Australian music program on a Qantas airlines in-flight audio channel.
Bowditch is currently an ambassador for the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), Pirate Party of Canada (PPCA) and Smiling Mind. She is also a member of the Victorian state government's Live Music Round Table Panel. She was the secretary of the Music Victoria board until 2012.
Life and career
1975-1997: Early life
Bowditch was born in Melbourne and raised in the suburb of Sandringham.
She graduated from the University of Melbourne's School of Creative Arts with a Bachelor of Creative Arts (BCA), a now-defunct degree.
1998-2002: Red Raku
Bowditch began writing songs at the age of three and continued writing them in private until 1998 when she met John Hedigan and, on the same night, formed a band called themselves Red Raku. Red Raku self-released two albums, Sweetly Sedated (1998) and Roda Leisis May (2002). Producer and drummer Marty Brown collaborated with the band and in 2002 Bowditch and Brown had a daughter, Asha.
2003-2008: The Feeding Set
In 2003, Libby Chow and Warren Bloomer joined and the band changed their name to Clare Bowditch & The Feeding Set. The band released Autumn Bone. Later in 2003, they signed with Capitol Records which rereleased the album.
In 2005, Bowditch was invited by Deborah Conway to take part in the Broad Festival project with three other Australian female artists at which they performed their own and each other's songs. With Bowditch and Conway were Sara Storer, Katie Noonan and Ruby Hunter.
In October 2005, Bowditch and The Feeding Set released their second album, What Was Left, on EMI. The album peaked at number 35 on the ARIA Chart. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2006, Bowditch won the ARIA Award for Best Female Artist.
In October 2007, Melbourne guitarist Tim Harvey (Jade Imagine)joined the band and Bowditch and the Feeding Set released their third album, The Moon Looked On. The album peaked at number 29 on the ARIA Chart. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2008, the album was nominated for two awards.
In late 2008, Bowditch completed a twenty-five date sold out date solo tour through major and regional venues in Australia, during which time she was supported by Australian band Hot Little Hands.
2009-2010: The New Slang
In 2009, Bowditch and her family temporarily relocated to Berlin, Germany, where she wrote the album Modern Day Addiction. The album was partly recorded with producer Mocky (who has also worked with Feist, Gonzales, Jamie Lidell and Peaches) at the Hansa studios in Berlin and completed in Australia with her newly expanded eight-piece band the New Slang. The album marked a change in direction for Bowditch, having been written on a Casio keyboard and piano.
In October 2009, she released her first single, "The Start of War". The song also features Bowditch's partner, Marty Brown, and Mick Harvey, formerly of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The album became both 3RRR's and ABC Radio National's Album of the Week. The album peaked at number 10 on the ARIA Charts. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2010, the album was nominated for three awards.
Bowditch supported Leonard Cohen on his 2010 Australian tour after being handpicked by the Canadian singer-songwriter. Bowditch was joined by fellow Australian musician Deborah Conway, who was the support act for the second show of the Melbourne stop of the tour. Bowditch revealed in a 2012 interview that she received a marriage proposal from Cohen during the tour, which also involved a shared journey in Cohen's private tour jet—Bowditch turned down the proposal and explained, "I got to spend all that time with him. Most of the time I just sat there watching and smiling and being amazed at the theatre of it all. He was absolutely charming."
2011-present: solo work
In 2011, Bowditch co-wrote and performed a successful musical stage show based on the life and music of Eva Cassidy. The show, entitled Tales from the Life of Eva Cassidy, featured Bowditch singing Cassidy's songs in the style of Cassidy, in addition to telling stories behind the songs and life of the late singer. The sold-out show was performed consecutively over two weeks at the Atheneum Theatre in Melbourne.