Back to the studio and back to Queenscliff

Clare Bowditch can recall many nights falling asleep to the sounds of Queenscliff Music Festival at her aunty Gail’s house as a child.

A nostalgic “second home” for the ARIA-award winning artist, Bowditch last performed at QMF in 2007 with Paul Kelly and Gotye. Bowditch, who still has a commemorative beer coaster from the event, will take the stage as one of the headlining artists at this year’s Low Light Queenscliff.

But her long-awaited return to the tour bus isn’t the only proclamation exciting fans. Seven years since the release of her last studio album, The Winter I Chose Happiness, Bowditch has announced she will put out a new record early next year.

“It’s about bloody time. It’s been many years in-between albums,” laughs Bowditch, 44.

Juggling motherhood, the business world and the creative process of her impending book, Your Own Kind of Girl – which will be released in October – Bowditch always knew she’d one day get back to the recording studio.

“I was never worried I wouldn’t get back on. I continued to write songs during that time – probably about 250 over the last seven years. Most of them are half-finished or not fit for public consumption,” she jokes.

“But the muse never wavered. I always have a lot of curiosity which is the basis of my song writing. I did wonder whether I had the energy to do what we are doing now (touring), but my mojo is back.”

Bowditch’s latest single, Woman, an anthem to the female race about selflove and empowerment, was released earlier this year.

Written in 2014 upon returning home from a night-out with her girlfriends, Bowditch believes despite its inception date, the lyrics and overriding message of the track is still relevant in today’s media-saturated society.

“It was written on a cheeky school night out with the ladies and when you are desperate to get out of the house, you tend not to waste a second. We got right down to the nuts and bolts of what life is about,” she remembers.

“I heard these emotional, brilliant women suffering the same worries I do. I don’t know if it was the gin martini speaking,but I got home, and it just came out all in a rush.”

Bowditch, who’s been a longstanding advocate for women’s rights in the workplace and in thecommunity,saysconversationsabout females have formed the centre-point of most of her appearances on the ABC’s Q&A as well as on stage.

“I think these things are fairly eternal, but our conversation is really maturing and will continue to mature, too,” she says.

“It’s just something that’s always been part of my conversations. My quest with song writing hasn’t changed – to be true, but hopeful.”

A little cryptic in revealing the theme of her next album, in true Bowditch style, her new record will draw on her own experiences using a no-frills and raw approach.

“We (artists) often write stories about the height of the love affair or the veryend of the love affair, but in the middlethere’s a whole generation of us with youngish families and very few songs tell our stories – that might be the theme,” she says.

Clare Bowditch will be performing at Low Light Queenscliff on Friday June 21 at Queenscliff Town Hall. Tickets on sale now via lowlightqueenscliff.com.au.