There’s no special treatment for the four members of the new band on the block - the Brotherhood of the Blues.
The musicians, who all live with a disability, three of them Indigenous, recently took the stage at the Blues Festival in Byron Bay, featuring five-time Grammy-award winner Kendrick Lamar and soul sensation D’Angelo, along with homegrowns Sahara Beck, Archie Roach and The Cat Empire.
“[The Blues Festival’s] big concern was: If we reject them [the Brotherhood], how are they going to handle it?” singer-songwriter Zac Paden of the band told NITV News about auditioning for the world-renowned annual event.
“We didn’t want the organisers to feel that way because everyone is a person at the end of the day, and we wouldn’t have got into the music industry if we didn’t expect rejection.”
Singer-songwriters Zac Paden, Luke Murray, John Cieslak and guitarist Harley Bodenham formed their band, influenced by sounds of hip-hop and RnB, in 2013 after collaborating at Red Inc.
Red Inc works to provide equal opportunities to people living with a disability, including aspiring musicians through conducting workshops that build instrumental and songwriting skills.
“The initiative gets young people access to things like main festival stages, ‘cause a lot of the people there don’t have access to the same opportunities,” band manager Matthew Cassels told NITV News.
(Left to right) Zac Paden, Luke Murray and John Cieslak. Source: Facebook
In 2015, they collaborated with producer Anthony Lycenko to record their self-titled Brotherhood of the Blues EP, they've got more performances scheduled after the festival, and they're preparing to compile about seven songs into a new album later in 2016.
“The guys just blew people away,” Cassels says. “The band has just gone from strength to strength, and it's all happened in such a short amount of time.”
