Some people slave night and day to perfect their various talents. They emerge after a lifetime with but one masterpiece, leaving behind trails of smudged pencil marks and collapsed prototypes, all scented in incense and melted in candle wax. Some people, on the other hand, are effortlessly creative, scattering countless gems behind them as they quietly go on their merry way. Carly Whittaker is a card-carrying member of the latter group.
Sure, she may spend her days cataloguing books in a public library. But in her spare time, she is unstoppable: blogger, zinester, photographer, collector, poet, singer. And somehow, she's able to do all this while spending hours and hours in bed.
Humble Bee is her band. It all started a long time ago now, putting songs together with her (now ex-)fiancé. Time moved on, and an almost-endless suite of song lyrics lay dormant in an unused blog. But life, as always, has a way of making cycles repeat. And so, in mid-2007, after a period of heartbreak, new songs emerged.
Perfect On Paper was the first of these new Humble Bee songs. She then e-mailed the words to friend and cheerleader Ben Revi, who threw a melody behind it and convinced her to sing, twice, in harmony. It seemed like a one-off, but after spending a few months backpacking around Europe, Revi returned home to find two more songs sitting in his inbox. Many of the songs that would follow were written while Whittaker was half-asleep; they were typed into her phone, then rediscovered upon waking the next day. Quietly, more melodies were crafted, and more bedrooms were turned into studios. Beer garden conversations led to offers of gigs. Humble Bee joined the now-defunct Popsicle collective, and started to find themselves in demand around their hometown of Adelaide, Australia. Gradually, Ms Whittaker spent so much time making music, she stopped spending so much time in bed.
The band's first full-length album, When I Should Be Sleeping, will be released in June 2009. It is available for your listening pleasure right now at http://www.humblebee.com.au .
Contact:
Carly Whittaker
[email protected]
