Blue Shaddy, the name congers up many things, tell us where it came from, who you are and what you are all about.

The band was named by Sandy’s dad Joe. Shaddy is a local slang in that area of the wheat belt where Sandy grew up and it means cat. The band comprises of singer/songwriter Jim McClelland (guitarist), his brother Belly (harmonica) and Sandra (bass guitarist and wife of Jim). The three were born and bred in WA ‘s remote wheat belt and are the founding members of Blue Shaddy. Malaysian born Arun Satgunasingam plays drums and percussion (myself), and Kanchana Karunaratna plays percussion. Our sound at the moment is a unique mix of world drumming and percussion, groove bass, acoustic and lapside guitars, rhythmic harmonica and heartfelt vocals. Quite simply, we play because we love music and we love making people happy and hopefully they relate to our music and enjoy themselves.
On a deeper level, we are quite excited about the mix of culture (Aussie roots and Indian street beats) that is bringing about a totally new and exciting sound to the band.

Blue Shaddy have invested a lot of time performing at festivals in WA, the east coast of Australia and even some abroad. What would be your most memorable festival performed at and why?

It is difficult to pick, they were all fantastic. But a definite favourite would have to be Bridgetown Blues festival. We have received so much support from them throughout the years and a massive amount of WA fans come out to watch us there. The Big day out 07’ was great. It was such a massive event, and we came away with a whole bunch of new fans and a great response to our performance.

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Your 4th Album “Bury My Ghost” has just been released nationally through MGM, although only just being released last month how is the feedback going so far?

Great. We are already on to our second pressing with them. It has all been positive reports so far.

Over the last year your band has received a lot of positive national attention, tell us about the major things that have occurred.

Well, for starters, we won the Music Oz awards for best blues and roots act. Belly, won best instrumentalist award at 2007 Blues at Broadbeach Awards. And we also reached number 1 on the Perth Indie charts in May. We played at a lot of major festivals over east such as the East Coast Blues and Roots. But the main thing that happened was the making of the album. We went back to our roots. Up to Jim and Belly’s farmhouse in the wheat belt town of Kellerberrin and pushed our musical boundaries.

As West Australians what do you think about the live talent that is around our state, we produce a lot of very fine artists, how do our live entertainers compare to the eastern states?

There certainly is a huge amount of local talent. And WA has a distinct musical sound to it.  Every where we go though, we always come into contact with great, gifted Australian artists. This country is brimming with talent.

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As professional and successful musicians what advise would you give to those who are trying to “make it” in the industry?

Play hard. Make sure you are really enjoying what you are doing. Make no mistake, it’s a tough and long road. But work hard and believe in yourself.

We can see that Blue Shaddy are going onward and upward; what is in store for you for the rest of 2008?

We are hoping to bring our sound to more and more festivals. Promote our new album of course. At the same time we are writing and producing more material. Hopefully we can lift our profile to a much higher level, locally and globally.

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© 2008 - WA Gig Guide/Blue Shaddy