The late ’90s would seem like an eternity ago for any mere mortal, let alone Macy Gray.

Gray turned the world on its head with her debut longplayer, ‘How Life Is’. ‘I Try’ – the lead single from that album – still receives high rotation on commercial radio; just the mere mention of the title and it’s probably started jingling away in your brain.

But the world has changed since 1999 and the music industry’s no exception. An artist as distinctive as Gray is a rarity in modern pop, and the singer-songwriter isn’t so sure she’d receive the kind of label support that was so important to her early success if she’d appeared 13 years later. “It’s a different time, especially for girls,” Gray says over the phone from a tour stop in Edinburgh. “It’s very ‘Stepford Wives’, with all the girls wearing the same clothes and you could interchange them: one girl could sing a song that another girl is singing. There are definitely still a few amazing artists coming through, and I don’t mean to put anyone down, but it’s just a lot more homogenised than it used to be. It’s just different; I don’t know how they’d react to me now.

“The recession hit the record industry hard and a lot of people closed down and it just came down to practicalities – they went with music that they thought could make money for them … I just think the industry as a whole made a lot of mistakes, business-wise, and it really has affected music and the kind of artists that you see. But now that the economy is picking up a little I think you’ll start seeing different things again. Like Adele: she definitely wouldn’t have happened five years ago. So things are changing for the better, for sure.”

It’s tempting to think Gray herself would have changed a lot in those 13 years. She’s moved into middle age, her kids have grown into teenagers, and she can look back on a discography – ‘The Id’ (2001), ‘The Trouble With Being Myself’ (2003), ‘Big’ (2007), and ‘The Sellout’ (2010) – that seems to chart the undulations in her own personality. But ask and the 44-year-old gives a thoughtful response. “I don’t know. I’m probably really different, though,” Gray says. “I believe that people change everyday and I haven’t ever really sat down and calculated [how different I am to the early days]. As far as music goes, I see things a lot differently to how I used to.

“A lot of other elements come into my music these days. The reason everyone’s first record is so brilliant is because you don’t have all those people in your ear telling you what you should do; you’re not really affected yet by the money or you don’t have people telling you that you’re great all the time, or of course hating on you publicly. You go in and you’re completely free from all that, and completely free to make music, because at that point that’s the only thing that matters. But then as you go on, especially if you get really successful, all these other things come into play and they definitely affect the music that you make. But I’ve been growing into getting away from all that again. I’m actually going backwards,” she laughs.

For her latest record Gray has in some respects quite literally gone backwards – to music that influenced her early career. ‘Covered’ features re-interpretations of classic Eurythmics, Metallica, and Radiohead songs, as well as a selection of hits by more contemporary artists such as Arcade Fire and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The inspiration for such a collection came early in Gray’s career, when she heard Nina Simone reinventing the work of artists such as Frank Sinatra and The Beatles.

“[Simone] did this really interesting thing of taking songs of different genres that were really far away from what she did, so I thought that was really cool to take those songs and make them your own songs, or see if you could do it. So it was a really creative challenge for me but I finally got around to it. It was fun, like me and Nina Simone going into battle to see who could make the best covers,” Gray says with a laugh. “But that’s obviously not going to happen.”

With such a broad range of music represented on the album it’s interesting to wonder how Gray went about selecting the artists she wanted to cover. As it turns out, it was all about doing something unexpected. “I knew I wanted to do rock songs – something really far away from what I do. Because if I did a soul covers record or an R&B covers record, that would be totally expected. I wanted to do something that people wouldn’t expect me to do and I’m a big rock & roll fan, so that made sense … It’s interesting: we tried to do a couple of Prince songs and some Fiona Apple songs, but they didn’t seem to work out. So these are the songs that felt immediate and came around really naturally.

“It was a creative thing for me: I wanted to get it out of my system and I thought now was a good time and I wasn’t worried about the sales and stuff. I just wanted to do it and see if I could pull it off, and we did it fast so that it wouldn’t take away from my next album. It was cool.”

When Scene catches up with Gray she’s barely three shows into a world tour that will see her come to Australian shores in September. It will be Gray’s first visit in over 12 years, and she can’t wait to get back. “The tour’s been excellent,” Gray says. “We’re only a few shows in but it’s been a good time. I can’t wait for Australia. We haven’t been there in so long and I really want go out there and just have a ball and play a lot of music.

“We have a whole show on ‘Covered’ that we do. I don’t know if I’m going to do that but there’ll be a lot of ‘Covered’ and a lot of the first album because everyone knows that.”

MACY GRAY PLAYS THE JUPITERS THEATRE WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 19 AND QPAC CONCERT HALL THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 20. ‘UNCOVERED’ IS AVAILABLE NOW.

Doing Fine

Where did Mayer Hawthorne come from? It’s a question worth asking, given that in a little over two years neo-soul music’s great white hope seems to have taken over the entire genre.

The short answer is of course Ann Arbor, Michigan. The middle class city is the sixth largest in the state and makes up part of the wider Detroit metropolitan area. Just a few years ago, Andrew Mayer Hawthorne was a producer and MC known as Haircut, rolling with a couple of the region’s mid-level crews – Athletic Mic League and Now On.

It was a creative attempt to circumvent the high prices paid for soul samples that gave birth to the Mayer Hawthorne project. But soon enough, Stones Throw Records’ Peanut Butter Wolf had discovered Hawthorne’s experiments and convinced him to both apply them to record and perform them live.

“It was a tough adjustment for me,” Hawthorne admits candidly during a break from live rehearsals. “I’ve always been the DJ or the bass player, somebody who’s in the background. I had never been the frontman of any band that I was a part of. It took a lot of getting used to, and I’m still getting used to it.

“That on top of trying to learn how to sing, which I’ve never done professionally either – I mean, it was a lot at first. But I feel like I’ve got the hang of it now. Singing is still a very new thing for me, and I’m always learning every time I hit the stage, learning to be a better singer.”

Many dismissed Hawthorne’s debut album ‘A Strange Arrangement’ as vapid hype. But the record became one of the great growers of 2009, helped in no small measure by Hawthorne’s penchant for self-effacement; he possesses the rare knack of making anybody feel like they could be up on stage doing what he’s doing. Soon, a bunch of major labels were trying to break down Hawthorne’s door and tie him to lucrative deals. Indeed, he’d made such a habit out of saying no that many pundits were surprised when a month before the release of his new album ‘How Do You Do’ he bid farewell to Stones Throw and signed a contract with Universal Republic.

“I just felt like they really understood my vision and they wanted me to make the record that I wanted to make, and they didn’t want to turn me into the male Amy Winehouse, or whatever,” he laughs. “They didn’t want to change my music; they just wanted to help make it bigger, which is what it’s supposed to be. I’ve been really happy over there. But I was absolutely terrified of signing to a major label. It was the most difficult decision I’ve ever made in my life.

“I still talk to Peanut Butter Wolf everyday, and I just DJd the Stones Throw 15 year anniversary party. Stones Throw is still a big part of what I do, and that vibe will always be there.”

Now, with a new record contract in his pocket and the dust settling after a stellar reception for ‘How Do You Do’, Hawthorne is preparing to hit the road for almost the entirety of 2012. “I live in a tour bus. Home is where the bus parks,” he chuckles.

Still, Hawthorne will have to switch up buses when he returns to Australia in March. It’ll mark the third time in two years that he’s made it to these shores. “We keep coming back because you guys keep asking for it. It’s always crazy for me to come all the way to the other side of the world and have people know your music there.

“I’m having so much fun. I’m just really happy to have some new material to do! It’s so great for us, because we’ve done so many shows since ‘A Strange Arrangement’ came out. We probably did close to 200 shows last year, or more. And it’s really a breath of fresh air to have a new album of material to play.”

Those who are yet to witness Hawthorne’s fitness live should think twice about missing this latest opportunity, and the many who are familiar with his form will be happy to learn that he’s not leaving his band, The County, behind. “They’re the best band in the world and we’re definitely bringing the show, man,” he says. “It’s going to be even better than last time. We’re the hardest working band in show business, so come ready to party. It’s gonna be a party, we don’t do concerts!”

MAYER HAWTHORNE PLAYS THE HI-FI MARCH 1.

Money For Nothing

While they may be known as the Bankrupt Billionaires, the new Brisbane-based soul/ hip hop group have a wealth of experience to draw from.

The trio of Sammsonite and DATS (both from The Optimen) and vocalist Kel on Earth (from The Kelly Gang) have been together for four years – but only played their first live show together a few weeks ago. “It is so exciting, it is really amazing that we are here playing (together),” Kel says of the act’s development. “We had our debut live performance only a few weeks ago, but it went really well … it was received really well and we had a full house, it was a really amazing reception.

In another first for the band, they’re aiming to release their debut EP early next year. Seen more as a sampler, Kel says they’re thinking of giving it away at their live shows. However, the EP is set to be followed quickly with a full-length album, the band having produced a healthy collection of songs in their time together. “We have been writing together for four years and we have a repertoire of around 25 original songs,” Kel says. “But we are all crazy perfectionists ... We wanted to create something quality.”

This is the same attitude the group have taken to performing, with a number of support slots coming up to fine tune their live show. They’re slated to support Jurassic 5’s Chali 2na next week, and for this performance, they will have the whole crew together, presenting a seven-piece live beast, including the vocal services of local Laneous Macklin.

Not backward in coming forward, the group used their experience in the Brisbane music scene to their advantage, with Kel admitting they pushed that fact in snaring the Chali slot. “We definitely used the fact we are cast from all different groups, and let them know we’ve paid our dues,” she laughs. “But we also promoted ourselves as a hot new act whose sound is really good!”

Bankrupt Billionaires support Chali 2na at the Hi-Fi December 10.

In The Driver's Seat

There's the idea in American hip hop that the southern scene's separation from the east and west coasts is what allowed it to innovate and become the genre's dominant force.