Help People And Listen To Collarbones

Imagine having to come up with $200,000 a year to get medication to keep yourself alive. That’s the issue currently facing Collarbones’ good friend Baby Riss since being diagnosed aHUS, an incredibly rare and life threatening blood disease. To help out with the exorbitant cost of the treatment Collarbones are getting together with a bunch of other do-gooders for a fundraiser gig with a line up to rival any show this year. We chatted to Travis Cook about making it all happen.

Noisey: So tell us about the Save Baby Riss fundraiser gig you’ve got coming up.
Travis Cook: Our friend Baby Riss has a really rare blood disorder and until the government covers the medication it’ll cost her $600,000 a year to stay at a baseline level of health. We’re banning together with a bunch of old friends; we haven’t actually played a show with this group since our album launch in 2012. It’ll be good to play a show with our close friends again and for a good cause.

It’s crazy how much bureaucracy is involved to make this drug reasonably affordable for someone.
Yeah, it’s a bit stupid to expect someone to pay $20,000 [a dose] to essentially stay alive.

I did read that it’s up for review soon so hopefully with some of the publicity that’s been getting out, they get it together.
Yeah hopefully that happens, otherwise it’s a lot more gigs.

It’s pretty great to see an online campaign like this get off the ground and actually raise some money. It’s easy to become cynical about Armchair Activists, where you click “like” and don’t ever really think about it again.
I think that’s true to a certain extent, but I guess if you can communicate that someone’s life is at stake and there’s a sense of urgency behind it people do more than just click like. The internet has a lot of potential for change and stuff, but some people can be a bit lazy about it. It’d sure be a lot harder to coordinate this stuff without it.

For Collarbones the internet would have played a pretty big role in how you did things early on?
Collarbones wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for the internet, because we met through it, on a music forum a few years ago. We sent some songs back and forth of us solo and then decided to collaborate.

You guys played Camp a Low Hum in New Zealand, your first shows outside of Australia, how’d that go?
They went really well. I was kind of expecting no one to turn up because I have no idea how many people have heard of us over there. But because Camp a Low Hum has a lot of Australian people going over there to the show it felt like we were playing in Sydney almost. It was a really good festival with a lot of friendly people there, but it started to get really rainy for the last couple of days we were there and we ended up getting moved to a porch on our second show, which was funny but it all worked out in the end.

That was the last time they’re having Camp A Low Hum isn’t it?
Yeah it is, which is unfortunate. I’m sure Blink, who puts those festivals together, will do something else but yeah it’s a bit sad it’s over.

“Die Young” you’re most recent album is really great, how do you feel about it now?
We’ve actually been recording a lot of new music since it’s been a long time since “Die Young” was released, which I’m really itching to put out some time this year. It’s quite different from “Die Young” I suppose.

How so?
We’ve changed naturally over the course of the last year. We’ve been touring a lot more since that album was out also. Marcus is a bit different vocally, and the music is a bit more sure of itself now.

Collarbones are playing a Save Baby Riss Fundraiser show at The Toff in Town, March 10. Joining Collarbones are The Harpoons, Brothers Hand Mirror, Major Napier with Oscas Key Sung and Andreas Fox doing DJ sets.

You can donate money to the Save Baby Riss campaign here.