Taasha Coates and Tristan Goodall take Audreys in Adelaide from 2004 to triple ARIA blues/roots gongs
Taasha Coates and Tristan Goodall provided the dynamic for the revinvention and refinement of The Audreys.
Image courtesy ABC Music
Lead singer Taasha Coates and guitarist Tristan Goodall remained the core the Audreys, a triple ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) award-winning Australian blues and roots band who formed in Adelaide in 2004.
After dropping out of university in Adelaide, Coates and Goodall moved to Melbourne where they played original pop songs and slowed-down versions of 1980s song. An impromptu jam session at a winery in 2003 with a bluegrass band inspired them to change direction from pop to their preferred folk and blues music.
They moved back to Adelaide and formed The Audreys with Cameron Goodall and Michael Green. The band's debut album Between Last Night And Us was released in 2006, and featured the singles "Oh honey", "You and Steve McQueen", "Banjo and violin" and "Don't Change". Between Last Night and Us won the 2006 ARIA award for best blues and roots album, and its songs were used as the soundtrack for the 2007 ABC TV series Rain Shadow.
Their second album, When the Flood Comes, also won the ARIA award for best blues and roots Album in 2008. The album featured the single "Paradise City" with the tracks "Small things" and "Lay me Ddown" included on movie and television program soundtracks both in Australia and the United States. "Small things" was used as soundtrack music in the November 2010 episode of Neighbours when Steph Scully was sentenced to six years in jail for the death of Ringo Brown.
The Audreys appeared at Australian festivals such as A Day on the Green, Woodford Folk Festival, Red Hill Harvest Festival, Port Fairy Folk Festival, The Great Escape, The East Coast Blues & Roots Music Festival, Southbound, Mossvale Music Festival, Great Southern Blues & Rockabilly Festival, The Falls Festival and the Adelaide leg of the Big Day Out in 2007. They have also toured overseas, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Russia.
After touring When The Flood Comes, Cameron Goodall and Michael Green departed and Coates and Goodall continued as a duo and recorded their third album Sometimes The Stars. As in their previous two albums, they were guided by friend Shane O’Mara as producer and engineer. Picking other musicians to suit each new composition for Sometimes The Stars resulted in the band’s most genre-defying work. The album included work from Tim Rogers, jazz pianist Paul Grabowsky, members of Tripod, and Michael Barker of the John Butler Trio. Sometimes the Stars debuted in 2010 at No.28 on the ARIA charts and won a third ARIA award for best blues and roots album.
In 2012, a three-CD box set called Collected was released, featuring the first three studio albums. The digital version included seven bonus tracks, including the song “Train wreck blues”, released as a single. The Audreys’ fourth album ‘Til my tears roll away in 2014 peaked at No.32 on the ARIA charts. The album, again nominated for best blues and roots, was preceded by the lead single "My darlin' girl".
In 2016, Taasha Coates released her first solo record Taasha Coates and her Melancholy Sweethearts produced by Shane Nicholson, through ABC Music. The album’s first single and video, "This house is gonna burn”, was about domestic violence.
