Music about Difficult Topics, Power to Inspire Action - Holly Rankin (Jack River)
About Holly Rankin
Holly is an Australian singer/songwriter/musical festival promoter, and an activist in the areas of environmental and social justice. Also known as Jack River, her music often deals with difficult topics, like personal tragedy, climate change, and social justice. Holly believes transforming such messages into music has the power to inspire action.
Music, Loss, and Ocean Advocacy Shaping Climate Action
Holly grew up in a little place called Foster on the East Coast of Australia, a place with beautiful crystal clear water lapping up against a pristine landscape. Lots of ocean, lots of adventures. It was a beautiful childhood growing up next to nature. It definitely shaped who she is today. Growing up her dad was and is an insanely dedicated Bruce Springsteen fan. Her mom loves Abba. Bruce Springsteen perked her little ears with his musical storytelling and messages of community. She was introduced to perfectly crafted pop songs with other artists like Elton John, Bob Dylan, and the Beach Boys. At the age of 13-14, when she realized these artists were real people making the music, she also made the connection between artists and their listeners. At that same time, Holly experienced the tragic loss of her sister in an accident. The experience drove her to write music more than she’d done before. It was important to her as her body and spirit needed to create. The writing felt good, and she wanted to be there for other people.
Holly explains the origin of her pseudonym Jack River. It was a fun vehicle to create for herself. It gave her another persona to step into and do what she wants. She also explains why sings songs with difficult subject matter like personal loss and global warming. Holly says it’s a way to weave her everyday experiences and lean into the issues. Some of the ways she’s engaged: Surfers for Climate and Sea Forest Australia. Holly was on the board of Surfers for Climate. Surfers have a special connection with each other and parliamentary people who often surf. Sea Forest Australia is an organization started by an ex-fashion designer who discovered that certain type of seaweed, when fed to cows, reduces their production of methane (cow farts).
Holly’s latest role is that of mother. How does she balance all these roles? Holly says, as a new mom, it’s a challenge. Each day comes with different challenges. She is lucky to have her own mom to lean on. Holly finds the ocean therapeutic, letting her body feel washed by the waves.
Her latest projects are working on a nationwide referendum to give Indigenous people the ability to serve in government, lend their voice to decision making. She is also working with the Australian Conservation Foundation on preserving biodiversity.
Holly’s advice for how people can get involved is to remember everyone is different. Engaging locally is both impactful and feels good. Doing things with other people makes us feel good. Holly believes we should all lean in more when it comes to politics. We shouldn’t be afraid to get involved and engage with politicians.
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00:00:02 Pamela Ferris-Olson Today on the Wo(men) Mind the Water Artivist Series podcast on womenmindinthewater.com I’m speaking with Holly Rankin. Holly is an Australian musical artist who just released Endless Summer, her second album. The singer-songwriter, also known as Jack River, is an emerging festival promoter, her Grow Your Own festival promotes sustainable culture and her Electric Lady Festival creates space for female music artists. Holly is driven by a belief that music has the power to inspire audiences to take action. She is an activist in the areas of environmental and social justice.
The Wo(men) Mind the Water Artivist Series on womenmindthewater.com engages artists in conversation about their work and explores their connection with the ocean through their stories, Wo(men) the Water hopes to inspire and encourage action to protect the ocean and their creatures. I'm speaking with Holly Rankin, a musical artist from Australia. Holly, also known as Jack River, is a multi-dimensional musical artist who just released her second album. In her capacity as a concert promoter, Holly creates space for other female artists. Her own music often deals with difficult topics like personal tragedy, climate change, and social justice. Holly believes transforming such messages into music has the power to inspire action.
Welcome, Holly. I am not sure if you and I could be much farther apart. While you're in Australia, I'm in Maine. There are 12 hours difference between us. You are talking to me on a Tuesday morning, while it's Monday evening here on the East Coast of the US. Thank you for inquiring about participating in this podcast. I'm really happy you did. I imagine our listeners will be eager to learn about Australia and hear about your journey as a musical artist, concert promoter, and environmental activist. Let me begin by asking you to tell us a little bit about the Australia. You know, what is the area like where you grew up?
00:02:27 Holly Rankin aka Jack River Hi, I'm so excited to be here. I grew up in a little place called Foster. It's on the East Coast about half way up along the East coastline on Wadawurrung country, which is the local indigenous country and it is beautiful. Crystal clear waves and water lapping up against pristine landscape. So I was very lucky to grow up in a small town. Lots of ocean, lots of adventures and horse riding and pools. And like, I don't know, it was a beautiful childhood growing up very close to nature with a family that was very active. So that was my childhood and it definitely shaped who I am today and my love for the ocean and nature.
00:03:20 Pam Ferris-Olson So is there a particular sort of music that you associate with your growing up.
00:03:25 Holly Rankin aka Jack River Sure. My dad was well, he is an insanely dedicated, like the most dedicated Bruce Springsteen fan you'll ever meet. So much so that I think he might think he is Bruce Springsteen. That's very concerning [she laughs]. And my mom loves ABBA but I think Bruce Springsteen ringing through the house definitely peaked my little, you know, even sold me on the idea of storytelling and also like, you know, protests and community storytelling through music. I think that's what Bruce does so eloquently and that was kind of ringing around the house. And then I do remember finding this CD that was hit from the 60s and 70s that had Elton John and who else? Like Elton John, a bit of Bob Dylan and The Beach Boys. I feel like there was something about that CD that perked up in me as well. It was like these perfectly crafted pop songs, and it felt almost like humans couldn't make that music. It was, you know, like plastic or something. Yeah, as a kid, you don't realize that people are actually making the music if you get me like that concept of, it seemed so fake and so perfect. How could we ever make that? So it really intrigued me once I began to realize that people make this music and it's very meticulously crafted to feel like another world.
00:05:10 Pamela Ferris-Olson So at what point did you decide that you'd like to be part of that special musical world?
00:05:17 Holly Rankin aka Jack River Aged 13 or14, I began to realize how powerful the connection is between artists and listeners. And at that time went through a pretty huge tragedy in my family. I lost my sister in a freak accident. And that experience drove me into writing and writing music more than I ever had before. Music became like a parent to me. And I think I couldn't see anything else. For those late teenagers, I just wanted to be immersed in music and creating. And I think my body and my spirit just needed to create, create, create, exhaust, exhaust, exhaust the trauma that was happening in my life. So naturally just form this idea that I want to do this. I'm loving this. This feels great and I want to do this for other people and be there for them like it’s being there for me.
00:06:23 Pamela Ferris-Olson That's a wonderful sentiment, and I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that. What I'm curious about is why you adopted the pseudonym Jack River.
00:06:34 Holly Rankin aka Jack River Quite a random story. I don't think I knew that this would be my career for real. When I was 17, my two best friends and I made up pirate names. Mine was Jack River. The others were Simon Woodpecker and John Scarlett. We would go out on the town and use these names as if they're our own and we felt invincible. And, you know, running around saying that they were out names. At the time I was like you know, I love this. The idea of an invincible character in another world able to do anything she wants to.
Also, with a with a kind of male name. And yeah, I just thought that was like a really fun vehicle to create for myself in music. Since then, it's felt like a different another person or another persona I can step into and do whatever I want.
00:07:35 Pamela Ferris-Olson Well, Jack River is very special because Jack has its own Wiki page. On that page it recounts that his first album, titled Sugar Mountain deals with painful memories associated with your family tragedy, you were just telling us about. Why have you chosen in your songs to deal with difficult topics like loss and global warming and injustice? What motivates you to take these on as subjects for your songs?
00:08:10 Holly Rankin aka Jack River I guess you don't choose when you're creating. You don't really choose what you are going to create. It comes through you and it's born within you. To me that was mine and my family's journey and experience of loss and that's what I needed to process through my music and then to me the person before I lost my sister. Since I was very little, I've been really passionate about engaging in politics and, you know, what I can do for the planet if we do engage and lean in. And so, yeah, I'm always trying to see if I can weave my everyday thinking and my everyday experience of the world into my music. And right now, as everyone knows, we're living through an extremely tumultuous time, where we more than ever in the history of humanity, need to lean in and do everything we can in every way we can to avert the further climate crisis. There, that's just me trying to, you know, as well as writing emotional songs that are true to me, I try to make a bit of politics, why not?
00:09:29 Pamela Ferris-Olson So Wo(men) Mind the Water is a platform for sharing stories through the lens of women, about ways we engage with and share responsibility for the ocean. You are active in many arenas. One of these was back in March when you joined with Surfers for Climate. Tell us a little bit about that organization and what you did with them.
00:09:52 Holly Rankin aka Jack River Sure. So I was on the board of Surfers for Climate for about a year. They’re a new political environmental organization that brings together surfers that care about climate, the climate crisis. They're part of a growing trend. I'm sure it's the same in the states right now, with smaller subgroups leaning into climate action. Basically, Surfers for Climate look at ways that surfers can get active on climate in their own way. You know, lobby or have conversations with politicians about their coastlines. You know, in local language and with local actions.
00:10:40 Pamela Ferris-Olson On your Instagram page you posted that you were on a climate learning weekend and during that weekend you visited Sea Forest Australia, a company that grows seaweed. You posted that they are one of the coolest startups in the world. What made you say that?
00:10:58 Holly Rankin aka Jack River Well, Sea Forest was started by an exfashion designer who came across the research of a professor in seaweed. And so what that is called we can look up later [laughs]. The professor found that this certain type of seaweed when fed to cows, reduced their methane output by like I think it's 80% or some huge figure like that. So he went ahead and started this company called Sea Forest. And now they're doing commercial grade seaweed production to turn into a liquid form of this seaweed that makes cows fart less [giggles].
Basically, I think you know, we're living in this time where we need impossible thinking and impossible action on this insane scale if we want to come anywhere near close to averting, you know, a humanitarian and ecological crisis that threatens the rest of humanity, and I love that.
Crazy wild things like making cows fart less through seaweed. And it’s happening in our backyard here in Australia and that it's happening, you know, to someone who used to be a fashion designer.
00:12:21 Pamela Ferris-Olson I think that Asparagopsis [red seaweed native to Australian coastal waters] is a great name. Maybe for a song title, Do your learning trips provide material for your songs.
00:12:32 Holly Rankin aka Jack River Yeah, like absolutely it's all fading into the brain somewhere and just waiting to be let out. Asparagopsis does sound like a really great name for like an album or project or something. It's very textural, isn't it?
00:12:48 Pamela Ferris-Olson Right. I believe you added something new to your resume. Am I correct that in addition to being a musician, a musical promoter, and activist, you recently became a mother?
00:13:01 Holly Rankin aka Jack River I did, yeah. I have a seven month old daughter now and her name is Maggie Magnolia. That’s her name. She’s been amazing. You know, an amazing journey. In many ways, women tend to be multitaskers. We try to juggle what we need to do with what we want to do.
00:13:22 Pamela Ferris-Olson How do you balance all the things that you do and now being a mother?
00:13:27 Holly Rankin aka Jack River I guess when I ask other mothers this question, they say you don't balance, you just, you know, every day is a new day, there's a different balance in that day. And I think, youre mom might Pam, right?
00:13:43 Pamela Ferris-Olson Yes, I am.
00:13:49 Holly Rankin aka Jack River You’d know. I'm at the very beginning of this journey. And I’m already absolutely fumbling through it. As a confessed workaholic, I'm really kind of, not struggling, but I'm challenged by the different demands each day. You don't know how you and your child are going to feel or what they're going to need. And in that inner pool between work and your baby. Yeah. So I don't know how I'm balancing it but I'm just giving it a crack. And I'm leaning on my own mother in immeasurable ways at the moment.
00:14:24 Pamela Ferris-Olson Well, that's lovely that you have her to lean on and that she's willing to be leaned on. And I can just tell you the journey always keeps you unbalanced and you have no idea what's coming down the Pike. Just enjoy it. It’s always changing.
00:14:42 Holly Rankin aka Jack River You know. I love actually swimming in therapy to deal with. Letting myself be washed around by the waves and just letting my body fall into that. I feel like that's the kind of approach I'm trying to bring. The motherhood is just letting go into the chaos and let it throw you around and you'll be fine when you.
00:15:02 Pamela Ferris-Olson So what projects are you working on now that are related to climate change and environmental justice?
00:15:11 Holly Rankin aka Jack River Right now I'm working on two different projects.
The first one is in our country here in Australia. We're going through a referendum, which means a point at which everyone in the country votes to decide whether we want to implement a First Nation voice to Parliament. So our First Peoples Aboriginal people in Australia don't have any kind of mechanism to offer advice to our government. So I'm working on that. It's a really big campaign here in Australia. It relates to the environment in that we're a country of a lot of mining, offshore mining and coal and gas mining and a lot of it's done on First Nations land, aboriginal-owned land. And right now, there's no big mechanism for people to say something, to speak out on those issues, along with many other issues, but that's how it relates to the environment, so I'm working on that. And hopefully by the end of the year, we'll have a First Nations voice department, which is very historic for our country.
And I'm also working alongside the Australian Conservation Foundation on biodiversity laws, so as governments trying to pass different biodiversity laws protecting big, big portions of forests and also marine parks. Basically, we just want more of it. Yeah. So that's what I'm working on. Those two things in the background. And then just music and the full on mothering.
00:16:56 Pamela Ferris-Olson Wow. So before we close, I typically ask my guests to offer advice to listeners on how they can contribute to protecting our ocean. What advice do you have?
00:17:08 Holly Rankin aka Jack River Well, first place, my advice is that everyone's different than everyone else and have a different way of engaging. I would say engage locally with the people around you, because that's not only impactful but makes you feel really good and makes you want to do more for local beach cleanups or local environmental orgs. It's just the best feeling to be around people that care about this as well. And then for me, I just feel like all of us could lean in a little more in on politics. I know your country, there's a lot to lean into there. Don't be afraid. Get involved. It's so it's so rewarding when we lean in and engage with politics, local, state, federal. Do it. Get amongst it.
00:18:05 Pamela Ferris-Olson Holly, I admire and appreciate your energy and your drive. I'm grateful that you are using your musical platform to make space for other women and spreading the word about climate change and environmental and social justice.
I'd like to remind listeners that I've been speaking with Holly Rankin, also known as Jack River. She is an Australian musical artist and social advocate. Holly transforms weighty messages into music with the belief that music has the power to inspire action. Holly Rankin is the latest guest on the Wo(men) Mind the Water Artivist Series podcast. It can be viewed on womenmindthewater.com, Museum on Main Street and YouTube. An audio-only version is available on womenmindthewater.com, iTunes and Spotify. Wo(men) Mind the Water is grateful to Jaine Rice for her song Women of Water. All rights for Wo(men) Mind the Water name and logo belong to Pam Ferris-Olson. This is Pam Ferris-Olson.
