The Lismore App has featured some younger local entrepreneurs in 2023 including Felicity Hyde from Scoops and Candy and artist Amarina Toby. Blake Rhodes, AKA ‘Mr. Rhodes’ is 29 years old and a dynamic performer, professional musician and creative arts and culture facilitator. His new show ‘Flow’, a collaboration with NORPA, debuts this week in Lismore. Lara Bell had a chat to Blake to discover more.

I was born and bred here in Liz (Lismore Base represent!) and I grew up here my whole life.

I had a single mum, went to three different primary schools - I did the rounds. I didn't work well in the system, I wasn't the best kid either. But we all grow and learn. Same thing with high school. Lismore High, Kadina, Richmond River.

I loved growing up in Lismore. I still love being here when I can. I played saxophone in primary school for a little bit but it got too expensive for my mum. It was tough. But I always had thoughts about being a DJ, just because I loved music. I loved listening to music, all kinds, everything. I grew up on country music, old rock, pop music. My first ever CD I bought was a Human Nature CD - my taste is so broad! Somehow, I make hip hop which is hilarious to me. 

I guess my career all really started when I was sixteen, which is insane to think about. I got suspended from school for some reason (I did a lot of dumb sh-t). I was hanging out at a place called Youth Connections here in town. It was like a youth centre/youth service. They had a music studio in the back. We'd go hang out there and play on the computers and stuff Fridays after school. And then when I was suspended I walked into the music studio.

I knew Mitch, (who I work on Flow with) and he was in there. I didn't know he rapped and he was in there recording a song. And he was like, “you should go in there and just do whatever”. And I did. And then we started a band and have been making music and art together for the last 13 years.

(Blake and Mitch King in Lismore at The Quad November 23-25)

So, we kind of just kept plugging along recording - all those early songs are terrible. You can probably find them on the internet still. Eventually, we were playing shows. My first gig ever was at the Lismore Show. It’s engraved in my brain. I wore a backpack on stage. Why? I have no idea. I've still got photos. But I caught the bug off that performance. I was like, “I love it. All I want to do is make music and play shows”. So that was like, just before I was 18, I just finished year 12 exams.

I stayed in Lismore until February last year - two weeks before the flood, which is pretty crazy to think about! I was here forever. I built most of my career here.

We got to tour, we got songs on TV shows from here, we played the Sydney Opera House from here, we played the first iteration of Boomerang Festival, Falls Festival - we did a ton of stuff from our Lismore base. We did a lot from our mate's recording studio over near Trinity. And I ran a youth program here for Rekindling The Spirit alongside Mitch for five years, called Dream Bigger.

That really started because we were running basic hip-hop workshops - we’d go into schools write songs with young people. And then Rekindling The Spirit asked us to come in and do a holiday program for them. We loved it so much. And then that turned into “You guys just want a job? We will pay you to do this”. So that's what we did.

We had an amazing cohort of young people who are all now doing incredible things. Also just graduating high school, which is crazy. We ran a festival here in town with them, called Lismore Youth Festival, and gave them the skills to be able to book their own shows, work professionally in the music industry (and any arts industry really). 

I moved away because I felt like I was being a bit of a hypocrite, telling them to live their dreams and not pursuing mine. So, yeah, I threw my hat in the ring.

Two hours before an application closed for a scholarship at Abbey Road Institute in Sydney through Studios 301 (which is the largest recording studio in the southern hemisphere and the oldest in Australia) I applied and I got it. I didn't think I was going to get it which was pretty funny. I got a call while I was at work one day from them saying “Hey, congrats” and I was like “What?! This is insane.” Then I was like, "Oh, this is actually happening”.

I walked into my boss's office and said, “Hey, I'm leaving”. So I packed up all my stuff, sold all the furniture in my house, took two bags and the synthesizer and moved to Sydney to a tiny little apartment on Enmore Road. I'm not there anymore. The City of Sydney has given me a place to live in and work out of as a part of an artist initiative to encourage more artists to live in the city. Honestly, if I didn't get that place, I probably would’ve moved back because rent is so expensive in the city.

‘Flow’ kind of started from Mitch having an idea and getting asked to perform in the SCC plaza and do some spoken word. He texted me “Hey, you just want to make some weird stuff and do it while I improv some spoken word over it?”. We rehearsed it once in my bedroom, and then did it.

Someone from the NORPA office saw it on Facebook, and was like, “Hey, we've got this bit of funding here, do you guys want this money to kind of flesh it out a bit more?” It wasn't much but it was a week in the studio underneath city hall and a space and a tech team and we just went in and made the first proper visual with lighting version of ‘Flow’. Very bare bones. That was about six years ago, and now it's just gotten bigger and bigger.

The first season we did was during the pandemic. We did three nights, four shows, pandemic capacities. So it's good that we can finally show it to more people and take it outside as well. It's a completely new ballgame for us, it’s exciting. I'm very excited that a lot of people who couldn't come to those first shows will be able to. A lot of my family didn't see it because tickets sold out and capacity rules at that time were so strict. But yeah, this show is so sick. I'm still blown away by it. We did a run through with all our video and stuff yesterday. And I was like “I forgot how cool this looks!”

Mr. Rhodes is my stage name, and I have a band. My DJ has been my DJ forever, it was his house we were recording in and now if the budget allows for it, we just fly him wherever we can, when he doesn't have to work. He is the best DJ in the world. I will stake my reputation on that!

We are currently on tour with Illy (popular Australian Rapper) doing regional NSW and ACT and those shows have been really fun, really exciting. It’s the first time I’ve toured like that. It’s different to just driving somewhere and doing a couple of shows along the way. It’s bam, bam, bam - one after another, high level every night. It's insane, it's a completely different energy and it's brilliant. I love it. It's exhausting.

Like last weekend I was here until Thursday, flew to Sydney and went straight from the airport with all my bags to the venue in Cronulla, played a show and then went home, slept and then played in Brookvale the next night and then went to Wollongong the next day to play, then came back to Sydney, grabbed my bag, went to the airport, flew back up here, straight into rehearsal! And then I'm doing the same thing this week. It's insane. It's been like that for the last couple of months.

Moving to Sydney and getting a scholarship and studying and building on skills that I already had, but weren't necessarily honed in on or thought about, has given me the opportunity to work with so many people over the last year. I played Big Sound last year and again this year, which is a massive Music Industry Conference in Brisbane every year. It's 20,000 industry people - record labels, agents, PR, international booker’s - everything. It's the most chaotic week. But I love it. 

I went to New Zealand for a week for a writing camp recently. First time I ever left the country! I had to get a passport. I was so scared picking up my passport. No idea why but when I was walking into the passport office in Sydney I was shaking!

Mitch and me collaborate on a bunch of things - we do workshops a lot together. We are literally sitting on an album, maybe two albums worth of music that hasn't been released. Mainly because we both just got so busy with our own individual things. So we’re still a band, we’re still a crew.

We have played so many shows over the years, I've lost track of how many. We perform as Teddy Louis King. My nickname was Teddy, so it was combination of that, Mitch’s last name and our DJs middle name. We released an EP called Canapés and Hip Hop.

We were playing at the Sydney Opera House back in 2018 and one day in the middle of our set they started cornering off in front of the stage for all the VIP guests and started serving canapés and champagne. We’re onstage going "What is going on? This is weird. This is gonna be the name of the EP.”

I just finished mixing a song today for the show, which is fun. I literally built a recording booth in this kitchen yesterday out of a picnic blanket, some mic stands and some tape to record a singer for the show. Very Lismore style - on our feet, moving, saying “What do we have? Mike stands. And I've got a kitchen. Right, I can make a recording booth!”

100% growing up in Lismore has had an impact on my art. I think my music doesn't really sound like anyone else's. And I think that's because of the amalgamation of everything that is Lismore. It’s such a diverse place, musically. I've played shows here where it's been a guy playing banjo, Acid House DJ, punk band, hip hop acts… and everyone's just having a great time. And it’s through those osmosis kind of dealings I’ve developed my style.

It's a small community here and the artists community is even smaller, and the music community is even smaller. You just end up going to shows and picking up things. You know, as a teenager we would go to doofs, the Lismore Show, all kinds of things. I think that kind of makes my overall sound what it is. I think that if I grew up in Sydney or if I grew up in Melbourne, you'd be able to tell. They all have very clear defined sounds.

Lismore is often relegated as Byron's Mount Druitt, but we’re thriving. The young people are doing amazing stuff in this town, especially the young musicians. I’m still quite connected. I feel like I have to be, you know. I've watched a bunch of these kids come through who are now doing stuff and running their own shows and putting out their own vinyl and making their own merch and music videos. I’ve booked some of them for their first shows ever. I'm seeing them do that for themselves and for others in this community and building each other up and it's so awesome to watch.

I meet a lot of A&R (artists and repertoire) and label people and they ask me what I'm listening to and I always say someone from here, because if I can help the next act get up while they are in Lismore and make a name for themselves, even better. There’s already so many Lismore people in the music industry. It's ridiculous. Every fifth person I run into is from Lismore, it's hilarious. My manager’s from Lismore!

Working with youth is something I see myself always doing. I finish Flow, go back to Sydney for two days and then I fly to Griffith to run workshops at the high school for Apra Amcos.

They take us out to schools for two days and we write songs and record them with the students. The kids get to work with professional artists and ask us questions. They get access - I think that's something I missed, regionally you don't get much access to the music industry. The only industry you know is the little community of bands and people around you. But when you finally see it, it's another level.

I love doing it. It's cool to get paid to just go hang out and make music for a couple of days in a completely random place. It's awesome. I’ve met so many lovely people and so many talented young people along the way. Sometimes they still send me stuff to listen to, which I’m happy to do.

Each one, teach one, as they say. I got pretty lucky because I had Mitch and Brendon and I had NORPA and Arts Northern Rivers. We were part of a mentorship program for them back in the day and they put us with this guy AJ McFadden who had toured massive artists around the country and taught us so much early on about booking and how to get the best deal, how to act professionally at shows, you know, all these little things you don't know.

The reason I started making solo music was that my mum passed away nine years ago. And I kind of just needed a way to get the grief and sadness and anger out of my head. That’s what my first few releases as a solo artist are all about, using music more as a tool to get those feelings out. I never had a plan to release them at all, and then a friend of mine heard the demos, and was like, “Oh, you have to put these out. They are really good.”

My mum was one of a massive family so my cousins, uncles, aunties are all around here. I'm not short for family at all, I stay at my cousin's place when I come back up.

My advice for younger people, particularly in Lismore is to try everything. Honestly, I barely said no to any opportunity for the first five, six years of my career, and that's how I built my name and my reputation. Go to shows and meet people. Be around, shake hands. Don't be an idiot. That's it. It's pretty easy.

If people have questions, they can hit me up in my Instagram DMS. I'm always happy to answer questions, especially for young artists.