Attendees will have the opportunity to ask our knowledgeable panel questions throughout the evening.

When: Wednesday 25th January 2012

Time: 6.30pm – 8.30pm

Where: The Rise Recreation Centre, 28 Eighth Avenue, Maylands WA

Cost: FREE

RSVP with your name and contact number to: reception@youthfocus.com.au or call 6266 4333 by Monday 23rd January 2012

WHO ARE YOUTH FOCUS?

Youth Focus is an independent charity providing free counselling to young people at risk of suicide, self-harm and depression. Our services also include free family counselling and fee-for-service mental health training.

For further information please contact us at the service or visit www.youthfocus.com.au

The Let’s Talk About It forum gives the public a chance to interact with some of the leading experts in the mental health industry including beyondblue Deputy CEO Dr Nicole Highet, Lifeline’s Director of Communications Chris Wagner as well as representatives from Headspace and SANE and a special guest contribution from Stephen Fry.

You can restream the entire forum online here.

When the day is long and the night

The night is yours alone

When you’re sure you’ve had enough

Of this life, well hang on

Don’t let yourself go, ’cause everybody cries

And everybody hurts sometimes

Check out the song here !

A lot of things can happen to a band during a five year absence – members can leave, babies get born, people pass away. Life’s been once massive whirlwind for The Rapture to say the least ever since the band released their third album Pieces Of The People We Love, and in 2011 they’re back with In The Grace Of Your Love as a three-piece. Yep, a lot of things can change in just five years.

“Matt [Safer, bass] quit the band, then Luke [Jenner, vocals/guitar] quit the band, then Matt came back and then Luke came back, but then Matt left for good, and now it’s the three of us,” laughs drummer Vito Roccoforte when talking about the line-up changes. “With Matt, it didn’t end particular badly, we just didn’t really feel as connected to him in terms of friendship as the rest of us were, and he obviously felt the same. Matt wasn’t very happy being in the band anymore anyway, we could just sense it at first, but then it began to show really obviously. There are no hard feelings there, it just wasn’t meant to be. By the time Matt joined the band, we’d already had a lot more experience than him so maybe it had to do with the fact that he entered the whole thing later on. The only thing was that we’d already started writing some new songs with him before he left, but then we realised we had to scrap the whole thing and start again when it looked like he just wanted out.”

It wasn’t only Safer who wanted out, however, as Roccoforte reiterates – it was lead vocalist and guitarist Luke Jenner too. At first, anyway. While Safer’s reasons for leaving The Rapture were very different from Jenner’s, Roccoforte says the singer was battling some very serious demons for years – and it wasn’t helped by the tragic suicide of his mother which occurred while the band was on tour on the back of Pieces Of The People We Love.

“Luke couldn’t get over that for a long while,” Roccoforte recalls. “His mother committed suicide while we were touring the last album and it’s very hard to process anything when you’re on tour because you’re just in a bubble. He stuffed a lot of that inside at the time, but then when we got home he distanced himself from the band. He just needed to take that time, I guess. In the end, he took this negative thing and decided to turn it into a positive. He started making a lot of changes for the better in his life. It wasn’t about him ignoring the pain, but more about refusing to dwell on it and be some kind of tortured artist about it. Luke decided to transcend all the bullshit. I’ve known him since we were eight years old, and I really mean he started to shift his whole outlook on life. I think he also realised how important his family was to him because as much as he loves this band now, I think his kid comes first. Luke really came through to the other side.”

At the same time, Roccoforte notes, the band itself seemed to be going back to the basics, reminding the drummer and the frontman of why they formed The Rapture in the first place. These days considered the pioneers of the early 2000s post-punk revival, Roccoforte says on fourth album In The Grace Of Your Love the band is largely channelling their 2003 debut Echoes – in more ways than one.

“We’ve also gone back to working with [label/production team] DFA,” the drummer adds. “It’s probably a little bit darker than Echoes but it’s pretty much in the same vein, except that it’s a tighter package. Considering the circumstances, I don’t think we really had a choice but to make a deeper, more atmospheric record. And to be in the company and space with people at DFA that we’d been so close with was amazing too. Our relationship hasn’t changed very much in the last 10 years. They’re people who actually enjoy music and know music and we were a part of the DFA family, so it feels like a homecoming. Working with Philippe [Zdar, producer] was just a bonus because Luke really bonded with him because they both had a kid and Luke had just been coming to terms with the changes that he needed to make in his life.”

The pieces were finally falling into place, in other words, as Roccoforte puts it. On In The Grace Of Your Love, the trio is back on form and ready to start the touring cycle all over again after five long years. It’s been a blessing, really, according to Roccoforte, who claims he is looking forward to getting back on the road, despite the fact that he is “in serious need of some sleep.”

“I’ve also had a baby recently so that’s been keeping me busy!” he laughs. “Normally I’d be talking about how tired I am from touring, so it’s a little weird to be talking about how tired I am from waking up at crazy hours of the night. I’ve got these huge bags under my eyes so I’m feeling a little delirious. But we have been touring on top of that too, we also just did our first tour of Europe in a while, so it’s exciting to be getting back into it. What I love about this album is that it’s really a document of this long journey we’ve been on since Pieces… I love the fact that we can honestly listen back to it and see how we’ve transcended the bad things and turned them into something positive.”

The Rapture [USA] will be appearing alongside Fatboy Slim [UK], James Murphy and Pat Mahony [USA], Swedish House Mafia [SWE] and many, many more at Future Music Festival taking place on Sunday March 11, 2012 at Flemington Racecourse. In The Grace Of Your Love is out now through Modular/DFA.

(Article taken from http://www.beat.com.au/music/rapture)

John’s track ’A Long Way Home’ was featured on this year’s Music Feedback CD.

Male Artist of the Year

• Dan Sultan – VIC
• Buddy Knox – NSW
• Gurrumul Yunupingu – NT
• Troy Cassar-Daley – NSW
• John Bennett – WA

The awards are announced Sept 27^th, and John is flying to the Opera House to be part of the action.  Details here !

Are you keen to support youth and mental health?

Ruah Community Services is seeking young people aged 16-21 years to participate in the Music Feedback online development project. 

The project aims to raise awareness of mental health concerns for young people and to encourage mental wellbeing. The program, now in its third year, has involved many national and international artists including Blue King Brown, Art Vs Science and Dan Sultan.

Project participants will receive media training including web and graphic design so that they are well equipped to become champions of the campaign!

Participants will learn and practice media and IT skills to promote the Music Feedback message on the web. These skills will include:

• Graphic design for the web
• Website maintenance (using WordPress content management system)
• Networking and establishing links with other websites and organisations
• Effective social networking (Facebook, Twitter etc)
• Editing and uploading songs and videos to the web

Please send expressions of interest, outlining why you would like to be involved in the Music Feedback IT project, to the Music Feedback IT Project Worker Raymond Grenfell.

Closing date – Friday 23^rd September, 2011

For more information call Raymond on 0429 666 251 or e-mail raymondgrenfell@ruah.com.au