Koda Jace is an Indigenous Australian recording artist originally from Lightning Ridge on Yuwaalaraay country, but now residing in Dookie.
"Living rurally can make it challenging to get yourself heard with such limited opportunities, but when you’ve been around the world and lived in big cities, you learn to appreciate the countryside,“ Jace said.
“It might not be anything fancy, but to many of us, these little towns are home. It’s a part of who we are, it’s where we can always be ourselves."
Jace said the name of their latest album, Hollywood Can Wait, comes from a place of truth for them and the title inspired and motivated them to live in the moment through the music.
“The entertainment industry has long placed more value on appearances than on talent,” Jace said.
“It’s a sad reality that many talented individuals degrade and harm themselves to meet Hollywood’s expectations.
“Hollywood lures you in like a moth to a flame without you realising you’re flying straight into the fire."
The album features covers of ABBA’s biggest hits and original songs, one of which is a tribute to movie icon Marilyn Monroe.
“Marilyn was one woman who Hollywood absolutely destroyed, yet she remains an icon to many of us generations later," Jace said.
“ABBA got everyone up dancing, and I love that. I miss those days when people danced to music.
“Music's constantly evolving and as new music comes out, we start to forget and lose older songs and I think it's kind of good to revitalise and to take people back a little bit with music.”
Recently, Jace reached number 26 on the Global ReverbNation Pop Charts, and it only came about because of their dad.
“I was actually just recording my voice singing, an ABBA song, to my dad on the phone, and he said it would be good if those songs could come back and my first demo that I did was Mamma Mia for the cover of that,” Jace said.
“Then I recorded it and had it put together and then submitted it on ReverbNation and I just left them there, and I look in a few days to a week (later), and it's just skyrocketed, and I'm like, ‘what happened? When did this happen? How did this happen?’
“I was definitely overwhelmed, and I didn't believe it to start off with because ReverbNation is a very big global artist platform which many millions and millions of artists use across the world to promote their music and to put the music on there and for me to be number 26 out of the millions of people that actually use that...”
Jace has a passion for small towns like Dookie and uplifting the arts in regional areas.
“Small communities can really feel small sometimes so it is important to acknowledge that you can still do everything you want to do, even in a town as small as Dookie and Shepparton as well,” they said.
“One thing I would love to do is to bring the Dookie Arts Hub back to life, it’s one of my goals.”
Jace has some new music on the horizon, which they hope to use to breathe life into the old arts hub.
“I am currently working on music, which is almost finished; it’s an Indigenous song which is really, really good, and it's a really groovy dance song,” they said.
“I'm actually looking forward to putting it out, and hopefully, I can use that song to do something for a Dookie Arts Hub project or something, to get the community involved.”