Up the front of an excited gaggle of students at the Rumbalara Football Netball Club in Shepparton, Adam Thompson went through a list of song names.
“Stronger Together” got a handful of votes, and “Embrace Love” got a couple, but when he got to the last name on the list, most of the students threw up their hands to vote for “Stand Up For Who We Are”.
That was the song the 22 students released a day later, having written the lyrics and filmed a music video with rock and roll musician Adam Thompson — of Chocolate Starfish fame — and up-and-coming alternative country star Laura Frank.
The students were comprised of local First Nations students from all over the region, who acted as mentors to disability-affected students from Verney Road School.
When the News visited on Thursday, February 16, the students were picking a name for their song, having just voted for Culture Strong as the name for their 22-strong supergroup.
The project was part of a program ran by MusoMagic, a company started by former Chocolate Starfish frontman and Greater Shepparton resident Adam Thompson.
Thompson said the music video would be sent to the National Indigenous Television Network as part of the Outback Tracks series, so kids from all over the country could watch and be inspired by each other.
He said the song would also be uploaded to Spotify, iTunes and Youtube, where one of the previous songs he had made in a rural community had accumulated more than 100,000 views.
First Nations participants Brooke Fowler and Emma Miller, from Guthrie Street Primary School and Greater Shepparton Secondary College respectively, said they had enjoyed recording the song.
“The first time I found out I was going to sing and be in a music video I was really excited but also really nervous, because it was in front of other people, but now I’m just way more confident,” Brooke said.
“I’ve made a lot of new friends from Verney Road and it’s been nice helping out Adam and being here with my family,” Emma said.
Mr Thompson said the whole group wrote the song together and everyone got to record their voices so they all had a place in the song.
He said the mentors could be described as older siblings or mother hens to the Verney Road students.
“It is like being a big sister. Culturally these guys have got great family connections as Aboriginal people, so they naturally like to care for them in that way,” he said.
Brooke said she helped get everything sorted and encouraged the Verney Road students to get involved.
“Some of them might find it hard reading or speaking and we’re here to help them,” Emma said.
Mr Thompson said the group started with a theme given to them by program sponsor Rights Information and Advocacy Centre about best futures, and standing up for rights, “not only as Aboriginal people but as disability-affected kids in Verney Road.”
Emma said to her, the message was all about putting yourself out there.
Mr Thompson said he couldn’t be prouder of the group.
“I push them and I bet sometimes they wish I wouldn’t make them do things, but like Brooke said, she’s a lot more confident now, as is Emma,” he said.
“When Emma first came in she would barely look at me but now she’s volunteering to speak to the newspaper.”
Mr Thompson is not a First Nations person, but said early on in his music career he started building relationships with First Nation communities all around the country.
“I have such a great connection to different mobs, and I have been accepted so beautifully by a lot of cultures that have asked me to keep coming back to the community,” he said.
“That to me is the greatest gift, if the Elders want you to come back and work with them and be part of solutions, and man I could go on for hours about how we just need to listen more,“ Mr Thompson said.
He said he started the program to give kids within those communities opportunities he didn’t have.
“Music is just the vehicle for us to grow. Music is just the thing we do,” he said.
“It’s the bits along the way, and Emma said it so beautifully, it’s about putting yourself out there.
“Me growing up here, I wasn’t encouraged to do that, I had to find my own way and my own confidence.”
Program facilitator Laura Frank is walking proof of the program’s impact on young people.
Ms Frank said she didn’t come from a musical family, and when Adam Thompson and MusoMagic came to her school when she was 14 it was her first real experience with music writing, recording and producing.
She said Mr Thompson came with just a team of two people and there was no music video component to the program at that time.
Ms Frank said she attended a few more of the workshops and went on to do work experience with MusoMagic, before stepping away from music for a while.
“I still kept a relationship with Adam though, for over 20 years,” she said.
Three number-one charting country music videos later, Ms Frank is well on her way to becoming a household name in the alternative country music scene.
She was recently awarded Most Promising Future Star at the People’s Choice Awards at the Tamworth Country Music Festival, and said it all started at her high school with Mr Thompson and his team.
“Without having had that connection with music and experience with the program, I don’t know that I would be doing what I’m doing,” Ms Frank said.
“Now I’m able to come back full circle and be kind of facilitating that, knowing how much impact and effect it had on me.”
She said working within remote communities was important to her, as she grew up in a rural area and understood the lack of musical opportunity.
“When we work with students who do have disabilities and sometimes aren’t verbal, we still record the sounds they are able to make and find a way to incorporate them into the song so they can be as involved as possible,” she said.
“They light up when they see what they were able to do, and breaking those boundaries and barriers, that’s kind of what we do.”
Mr Thompson said the kids didn’t know about Ms Frank’s connection to the program, or even his rock ’n’ roll past, and to them he was just Adam.
“In 15 years when I’m really old, and they’re all so famous like Laura, hopefully they can remember this and remember me, and say it all started in Rumbalara,” he said.
Mr Thompson said he would be reaching out to more schools next time and was hoping to get even more students involved in the initiative.
The full song and music video was presented to the group at Verney Road School on Friday, February 17, and uploaded to the MusoMagic Youtube channel, which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gXc9CCM73I.