🎙️ Vika & Linda Get Candid About Family, Fame And Their Most Personal Album

We were lucky enough to have Vika & Linda join us live in the studio for a chat ahead of their live performance!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Galt, it's Jonesy Demander driving you home this Friday afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Vicar and Linda Bull have been mesmerising audiences for more
than three decades, and this year their incredible career was
honoured with an induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame
as part of the 40th anniversary celebrations. On top of that,
they are mid-tour. They've been wowing audiences everywhere from Swan
Hill to Ravenswood, but today they have pressed pause on
their tour so they can join us right here, right now.

(00:26):
Vicar and Linda, hello.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Hello. Hello. Hello, Josie and Amanda. Hi.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Look at you guys. Look at the two of you.
I've always loved you and I've loved the way you harmonise.
I know you first started singing, I think, was it
with your mum in church? Is all your family musical?

Speaker 4 (00:43):
Well, yes and no. Mum is a singer. She taught
us how to sing, Amanda. We did go to church
a lot. Our father made us go so we could
listen to the church, the Tongan sing, which is how
we learnt. And our father is just a big fan
of music.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
So did you stop going to church when you learned
how to sing or is that still a big part
of your life?

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Oh, yeah, we did stop. We don't go as much
as we did when we were children, but we've had
no formal singing lessons or any formal musical education. No,
it's just by ear.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Well, I find that amazing. And you have performed for
some of the world's most famous people. I was looking
at the list here. Nelson Mandela, Dalai Lama. What's that
like having people like that in your audience? Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Oh, it's very humbling and– You can't help but think
what they've been through. You know, the incredible legacy they
leave on the world and their presence is quite– you
can feel it. It's palpable. Like, especially the Dalai Lama.
He was like sunshine in the room. He sure was.
And Nelson Mandela was incredibly gracious, very tall and very slender.

(01:50):
And he stood between us and he said, I am
a thorn between two roses. Oh. He was a new charmer.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
And did they ask for any requests?

Speaker 4 (02:00):
No.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
I don't know. Can you play K-San or something like that?

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Jailbreak. Jailbreak.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, maybe. Maybe absolutely jailbreak.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
For Nelson?

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Oh, no.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
No, they didn't do that.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Look, you've got a new album, Where Do You Come From?
And you've described it as a deeply personal album. Why
is that?

Speaker 4 (02:26):
Well, We've written songs from life experience really. It's the
first record we've written since Princess Taboo so we've sort
of really gone deep in the songwriting on this record
and it all started with Linda writing a song with
Mark Seymour about her being a single mother and being
a touring mother, especially a musician and having to leave

(02:47):
your kids when you go off on the road and
it was a very personal story and then From there,
I wanted to write a song with Mark Seymour too
because I wanted to have a songwriting credit on the record.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Of course.

Speaker 4 (02:59):
Yeah, so I wrote Where Do You Come From? And
then Linda and Mark, we all got together and created
that song. And it's all just from very personal experience, yeah,
that most of the album is about. It's about birth,
death and everything in between is what we say.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
And so who comes– so you write the songs and
then you write the lyrics? Is that how it works?

Speaker 3 (03:22):
It's a real collaboration, Jonesy and Amanda. We like that.
We've always done that. So we write for– we probably
come up with the melody first. We respond to melody
and then we try to get the words to slot
it in. But where do you come from? We can
write the lyrics first, other way around. So there's no real–
we don't have a method. It is just a feeling thing. Hmm.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
And do you still do those sisterly things like throw
a hairbrush at each other and complain when you borrow
each other's clothes? Yes.

Speaker 4 (03:49):
Oh, yeah, we do, Amanda. It's like, you know, we
have our moments, put it that way.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Okay, well. Well, don't have one of those moments now
because on the Friday Field Sessions, we're going to take
a break and then you two will come back. What
sort of accompaniment will you have?

Speaker 4 (04:04):
We are with our beautiful guitar player, Ben Edgar. He
plays the stompbox and the guitar.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
Oh, there you go.

Speaker 4 (04:09):
Yeah, and he also, he mixed our record and he
played guitar. He did all the guitar and all the tracks.
So he's a wonderful musician.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Okay, well, what we'll do is we'll take a break
and then we'll come back with the Bulls Sisters. on
Friday for your sessions.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
Can't wait.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Can't wait.