Thelma Plum goes country (but stops off in Perth on the way)

Perth may not be one of the world’s biggest metropolises, but it would be a stretch to call it a country town.

Which is why its inclusion on Queensland singer Thelma Plum’s latest regional tour, aptly called I’m Sorry, Where Is That? is a little puzzling. Plum is performing at the very inner-city venue The Rechabite on May 20.

“When I did the announcement online there were some people who found it very funny,” Plum admits. “Obviously I know Perth is not a regional town.”

Not that we’re complaining. And when you’re coming all this way, it can’t hurt to add in a few extra shows where you can.

So city audiences who missed Plum when she toured last year on the back of her new(ish) album I’m Sorry, Now Say It Back will have a chance to catch her before she heads to Margaret River, Kununurra and then across the country. Plum, who grew up between Brisbane and the tiny town of Delungra in NSW, says she is passionate about reaching regional audiences.

“Country kids need music too,” she says. “Live music is not as accessible to country folk so it’s nice to make an effort to get out that way.”

More than making an effort just to play, Plum is also holding a competition for acts in the towns she is visiting to support her. It’s her way of giving back and helping a new generation of talent, as her own career was given a boost when she won a competition as a teenager.

“It’s so important, because this is how I started. I won a comp to play at the National Indigenous Music Awards. I was 17 so it was obviously only two years ago,” she jokes — Plum is 30.

“It’s important if I’m going to these regional places that I am championing the local talent there. So I am really excited. The only thing I will say is I have been a little bit overwhelmed by how incredible everyone is.

“People are so talented. I don’t know when that happened! People have been sending me videos of them singing or tagging me in their songs, and I am a little bit overwhelmed because everyone is so good, so I’m not sure how to navigate that.”

Plum has come a long way since winning that competition as a teen, having firmly established herself as one of the county’s most gifted songwriters. After her hit album Better In Blak in 2019, she took a break of several years before releasing, (excuse the cliche) her difficult sophomore album. I’m Sorry Now Say It Back was released last year, with music bible Rolling Stone describing the album as: “unspooling lyrics full of raw honesty, humanity laid bare, delivered in her unmistakable, vibrato-hewn voice and soundtracked with studio polish, strings, and delicious melodies.” The magazine also recently awarded her its single of the year prize for the song Freckles.

“I was so stoked. I try not to get too caught up with that sort of stuff but I was pretty excited, I won’t lie,” she says.

Plum says the wave of grungy women singer-songwriters of the 1990s were a major influence on I’m Sorry, Now Say It Back, and she namechecks Meredith Brooks, Jill Sobule and Suzanne Vega as inspirations behind the album.

While I’m Sorry, Now Say It Back has more of a pop vibe than some of her earlier work, Plum says she would love to do a country album one day, and says anyone going along to her WA shows this week can expect to hear a country twinge to the set.

“I think we might have a few more acoustic, slow moments,” she says.

“I will still have my band with me. We might do a bit of a country-esque vibe to the set.

“It will be the same as the tour in some sense as we will do a lot of the same songs, but it will be different in case some of the people who came to the city shows want to come to these shows as well. They can know that this will be different.”

Thelma Plum plays The Rechabite on May 20, The River in Margaret River on May 21 ,and the Kimberley Moon Experience in Kununurra on May 24.