Angie Hart
Singer-songwriter Angie Hart rose to fame with the ARIA award winning, Melbourne-based alt-pop band Frente!. Forming in 1989 when Hart was still under 18, the band sold more than a million records worldwide in 8 years. Like The Sundays and Everything But The Girl, they were one of the first “alternative” bands to truly crossover to mainstream commercial success. Frente! toured internationally throughout the 90s, covering substantial ground garnering them support slots with Crowded House through Europe on their debut Woodface tour, Alanis Morissette through Canada and the US on her Jagged Little Pill tour, Everything But The Girl, Violent Femmes, They Might Be Giants, Beautiful South, US radio festivals and live broadcasts with stations such as KCRW, KROQ in Los Angeles, Mountain Stage in West Virginia, the end in Seattle, and WFMU in New York.
Post-Frente!, Angie relocated to Los Angeles where she lived for nearly a decade. She enjoyed a fruitful period as a performer and songwriter there, dipping her toes in a number of musical projects; working with artists ranging in diversity from Anna Waronker (That Dog) to Shelly Peiken (Christina Aguilera). She collaborated with cult screenwriter/director (and sometime composer) Joss Whedon, writing songs for, and even appearing in his hit television shows Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Firefly, where she memorably performed an a cappella of ‘Amazing Grace’. She also performed vocal duties alongside Miho Hatori (Cibo Matto) for Chicago duo The Baldwin Brothers on their renowned album ‘Cooking With Lasers’.
Fast forward to 2005, re-settled back in Australia, Hart had become a solo artist in her own right. All the years and many experiences had shaped her both as a songwriter and a performer, leading her to create her debut solo offering ‘Grounded Bird’ released in 2007, followed by ARIA-nominated sophomore album ‘Eat My Shadow’ in 2009. In 2010, she released stand-alone single, ‘Loving Hating It’, in an EP containing remixes by Geoff O’Connor/Crayon Fields, Seja and Adrian Deutsch. She toured both albums throughout Australia and returned to Asia to deliver the album, including China.
In 2008 Angie participated in a TAC ad campaign, covering The Cure’s 'Pictures of You'. The song was subsequently released as a single, all proceeds being donated to Compassionate Friends Victoria (a grief support group for bereaved parents and siblings). Angie became an ambassador for CFV, performing every year from 2009-2015 at their Compassionate Employers Awards, workshops and fundraisers.
Having established herself in her own right, Hart returned with confidence and a friendship that never dies to write and record a new EP with Frente!, titled ‘Try to Think Less’. The icing on the cake - a joyous re-issue of an anniversary release of their debut album, ‘Marvin The Album’ in 2014, which saw them once again grace the stages of grand theatres and performing arts centres across the country for very unique sold out shows.
With permanent guest status on indie supergroup side-projects ‘Holidays On Ice’ and ‘Four Hours Sleep’ as vocalist and co-writer, Hart has spent her ‘downtime’ keeping busy, releasing three albums respectively with each project in the last decade.
Angie is a regular guest on 3RRR Radio’s JVG Radio Method, where she is known as “Our Only Other Poet’. She has performed her spoken word at Adelaide Fringe as well as the Melbourne Spiegeltent, and has read her poems and short pieces on air for Radio 774 and ABC Melbourne. Her written works have been published in the ‘Women Of Letters’ collections, ‘A Song For The Road’ edited by Kate Morgan, and pieces commissioned by ‘Going Down Swinging’,’ Lifted Brow’ and ‘Ampersand’ magazine.
After thirty years wielding the pen and the microphone, Hart shows no sign of downing tools. She is known for her unfiltered honesty, both in her music and words and subsequently in her interviews. She is here for the truth; the rest is a waste of time.