SOCIAL media these days is littered with countless people building massive followings with limited or no actual talent.
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Grace Aberhart is certainly not one of them. The 23-year-old Newcastle musician is brimming with talent.
Since last November she's built an Instagram following of more than 82,000 people on Instagram and 44,000 on TikTok through her series of bass guitar videos where she performs and sings covers from acts like Stevie Wonder, Yes, Paul McCartney and Jamiroquai.
Aberhart's dexterity and soulful playing has even caught the attention of the globally-read Bass Magazine and rock'n'roll bad boy Tommy Lee.
"I hadn't done much bass playing over the last two years, the EP was the only thing I did, because I wasn't feeling motivated to play music much," Aberhart said.
"Then suddenly something just clicked and I wanted to play bass again and I started practising bass and recording these videos and stockpiled them and kept posting every three days on TikTok.
"First it was TikTok that started blowing up a bit. I don't know how it happened. It went really crazy on Instagram and then Bass Magazine shared [my Stevie Wonder cover of] I Wish, and the momentum from that pushed it."
That cover of I Wish has since been viewed 475,000 times on TikTok.
Aberhart grew up in a musical household, learning guitar at 12 and bass at 14. Her father Daryl Aberhart is a well known Newcastle jazz musician and performed with her in the video for Best Of My Love by The Emotions.
Aberhart's first gig at 14 was at Lizotte's playing bass in her father's jazz band.
The former Hunter School Of Performing Arts student played in a series of jazz bands as a teenager, fronted the indie-rock act GEL and had several of her solo tracks featured on Triple J Unearthed in 2017 while in year 12.
In 2021 Aberhart released the crunchy power-pop single Ex Again and on Thursday she unveiled the first single off her forthcoming debut EP.
Letterbox is mix of shoe gaze and indie-pop and was co-produced by Aberhart and her partner and drummer, Healey Olsen, in their bedroom studio.
"It's about going through the motions of heartbreak and how those feelings will fluctuate from day to day, wrestling with yourself to be stronger than you feel," she said.
"I wanted the chorus to represent when you are at your weakest and make the music match that, by not having a big chorus.
"The lyrics in that section are just about trying to reason with yourself when you know your brain is not in a reasonable state and coming to terms with that."
Letterbox will be followed by a second single and four-track EP in the coming months.
"It's been a long-time in the making," she said.
"It's really given me a starting point of, 'Yeah this is my sound', or where I want to be heading."
Aberhart hopes she can convert many of her Instagram and TikTok followers into fans of her original music. She already has a video of herself playing along to an acoustic version Letterbox recorded for Instagram.
"It's a hard thing to do because I don't want to come out and be like, 'I know you guys are loving all the covers, but here's my stuff now'," she said.
"I'm trying to not abruptly do it. It's obviously a big switch. I'm still gonna do the bass covers, I'm just going inject a bit of my own stuff."
TASTE OF RUBENS
FANS lucky enough to have secured a ticket to Cambridge Hotel's Farewell Festival next month will be the first Australian audience to hear The Rubens' latest single performed live.
On Wednesday the Hoops hit-makers released the single Pets and Drugs, the first taste of their follow-up to their 2021 No.1-charting fourth album 0202.
The Rubens perform at the Cambridge on June 24, the second day of the farewell street party.
SUPER SNOOPER
THE country mecca of Nashville is generally the last place you'd expect to find a band of DIY punks.
However, trashy five-piece Snooper is slowly changing that perception. Snooper have released several lo-fi EPs to acclaim from online taste-master Pitchfork, by mixing '80s punk with psych influences.
In June Snooper will visit Australia on their eight-date tour which includes a June 25 show at the Hamilton Station Hotel.
Newcastle psych-punk band Busted Head Racket are the support.
POST-WAR LAUGHS
READING your mother's diary about her romantic exploits probably isn't something most sons would cherish doing.
But for comedian Damian Callinan it's proved worth his while. After reading his mother's 1946 diary he was inspired to write a romantic and cinematic comedy romp about post-war Australia.
Callinan, who is best known for the Netflix film The Merger, is bringing his "Double Feature" show to Dungog's Royal Hotel on Thursday.
