Ned Cain has a passion for music which has led to him becoming one of Lismore's new young entrepreneurs, he is an accomplished motorcycle racer which led to him being named Lismore's Senior Sportsperson of the Year on Australia Day. Lilly Harmon sat down for a chat with Ned to find out his life story.

I was born in Darwin, later moving to Lismore when I was a child, attending Wyrallah Road.

I have been surrounded by music my whole life, and my parents were heavily into the punk scene in Sydney in the '80’s, so there’s no doubt it influenced me growing up. My dad was a drummer and played in a whole load of bands throughout his time, so there was always a drum kit in the house. I don’t necessarily remember learning how to play, because it has always just seemed to be an extension of myself.

I played drums from as young as I can remember, continuing when I began high school at Lismore High and throughout my schooling, particularly in the elective music class early on (where I was always the drummer because I was the only one who knew how to play). I just kept on playing and it all went from there.

I didn’t view it as a career until I was 19, when I started studying at the Lismore Conservatorium. Before this it was more of a hobby, but it was slowly evolving into a lifestyle.

Around 2012 my friends and I started forming bands and from then I decided that drumming would be an amazing thing to do as both a job and to have fun! My primary driver for my current career was the passion I had for music.

When I first started out at the conservatorium, I’d be practising for around three to four hours every day, behind the drum kit. I had the initial ambition of being a session drummer or touring with bands and I just kept thinking to myself, “I’d love to do this forever”.

(Ned behind the drums) 

During my time at the conservatorium, I was in a band called Substation and we would write our songs alongside studying. In 2013 I won the Lismore male Young Songwriter of the Year for the band, with the song ‘Spooks of Hazard’ and that was a clear point where I realised my actual skill level and that I could take this dream further.

The following two to three years after I won that award, I started playing in as many bands as I could so I could get the experience, exposure, and be active in the scene.

As mentioned, my first band was called Substation, next were bands called The Snatchettes Fly Agaric, Raygun Mortlock, Jamhog and Fly Agaric More recently, I'm playing and touring in the bands Masochist and Dahlia.

Being the drummer, you're the member of the band where it’s easier for the bandmates to come to you to rehearse because who wants to lug kit a drumkit around!? I was lucky that my parents lived in a place that didn't really have any neighbours and was in an area on its own.

We set up a jam space in the kitchen in my parents’ house where the bands began to constantly rehearse. We were probably there two or three times a week just jamming, and it was loud! My poor parents had their kitchen overrun by instruments and the constant noise; even when they were cooking, they had to avoid leads.

After a year or two of it, my dad finally got over it and decided it was time to build a studio for the bands. Initially, we built the studio just for us and our bands so that we had a dedicated place to rehearse, however, over time it began to evolve organically into the business it is today, Nedlands Studio. After some time of letting friends use the space and seeing the potential it had, we decided to open it as a commercially available rehearsal space for bands to come and book to rehearse.

There is a high demand for rehearsal space in the area because there's so many local musicians and so little space for them to rehearse and record. Even during the COVID lockdown, we decided to build another studio to allow for more area and more opportunities for local artists, particularly when lockdowns were over, and the music scene would begin to come back.

This time, we built it with a control booth which allowed it to have recording capabilities that artists could use. Yet again, initially, we just built that for ourselves to learn how to record and produce in-house without having to rely on external sources. It just so happened that when we'd finished the build, a producer and recording engineer friend of ours, Allen Peg, reached out to us. I had recorded a few albums with him as he had a studio in Corndale called Old Dog Studios, and he needed to relocate his recording gear, so I invited him to come and record out of the studio we’d just built.

So now we've got the two rehearsal studios, one of which is a recording studio where Al Pegg from Old Dog Productions operates from. If bands need, everything can be done in-house from recording to production.

A highlight of running the studio is being able to organise the Nedlands Studio end-of-year party where we showcase a music line-up of local bands that have been rehearsing in the studio that year. It has been steadily growing for 10 years now from what started as a small party at our house to an all ages 1-day mini music festival in Lismore.

After COVID, the 2022 Lismore flood came around. The rehearsal studios were actually fine because they are high up on a hill over in North Lismore. However, the other part of my business, the screen printing aspect was destroyed. I'm operating that from a studio under my house which all went under, with the help of the community we rebuilt, replaced everything and got back to printing as soon as we could.

The screen printing side of the business stemmed from the idea of bands being able to use us as a central hub. We wanted to be able to screenprint merchandise for our own bands individually, which then expanded to other bands.

(Ned (right) selling his I Back Lismore t-shirts on Magellan Street)

It allows artists to sell merchandise and t-shirts at shows, which is a great way of connecting with fans and the audience. My parents being punks in the 80s, they were screen printing all their own T-shirts and posters at the time. So, when it came time, Dad showed us how to create our own silk screens and expose them and then print our own designs onto T-shirts.

The screenprinting side continued growing and is now a fully-fledged commercial part of the Nedlands Studio business, expanding outside the music scene to numerous other industries and productions.

We have screenprinted for a lot of local businesses in Lismore. Notably, if you went to the Lismore Show, chances are you got a bag that we hand screen printed with the I Back Lismore campaign, we screen printed 10,000 of those before the show as well as the shirts and you may have screen printed a Lismore design with us at one of our pop-ups for the Lismore delights over the last 2 years.

We also have a big focus on printing sustainably, so we only partner with ink brands that are sustainable. The brand we use, Permaset - all their inks are produced through 100% renewable energy and they're all water based and environmentally friendly.

Ideally, I view our space as a place for bands to come and record, rehearse, produce and print merch all in one place.

More recently I have been pursuing my other passion – Motorcycle Racing.

I have been quite passionate about motorbike racing all throughout my life. Growing up Dad always had motorbikes and religiously watched motorcycle racing. Along with drumming, that was another thing that really rubbed off on me and I became infatuated with motor vehicles.

I always wanted to race go-karts as a kid, but we couldn’t afford it. It wasn’t until I had a pretty bad motorcycle accident on the road at 27 that I decided to buy a race bike and take my need for speed to a safer environment on the track.

My first year I crashed a lot learning and in my third year, I won the NSW State Titles for Short Course Road Racing. Last year I won the NSW State Titles for a second time, and I also raced in the QLD Southern Downs Series in Formula 4, winning the championship in my first year. I also won some 4-hour endurance racing events at the Pheasantwood circuit in Marulan racing against (and beating) 2 x World Superbike Champion Troy Corser who I'd watched race on TV as a kid with dad.



This year I plan to compete in the NSW Short Course Road Racing State Titles with North Coast Road Racers, the QLD Southern Downs Series, the QLD Road Racing Championship, the OZ BEARS Championship and endurance racing events at Pheasantwood.

Just this past week, I was nominated and selected as Lismore’s Senior Sportsperson of the Year at the 2024 Australia Day ceremony. It was a great honour. 

I feel really lucky to have a huge support network of family and friends in this area that has allowed me the opportunity to pursue all my passions and I really want to give that support back wherever I can whether it’s through helping expose screens for people looking to start screen printing at home, organising live music events & gigs, motorcycle coaching for my club North Coast Road Racers or just going out to support as many venues and live music as possible.

I love being able to call this beautiful area home.