The Rise of Ziggy Ramo

Published in print, March 2018.

Words by Erin McFadyen
Photography by Bryce Thomas

Adjacent to a BP service station in Bondi, passers-by with their takeaways stop to look at Ziggy Ramo. He’s standing on somebody’s front fence in double denim, having his photograph taken while he explains to us his ways of living and thinking. Hailing originally from Perth and rapidly ascending in an industry that whisks him around Australia and around the world, we’re lucky to catch the musician for a moment in Sydney, where he’s recently set up house. Roaming the streets of his sun-soaked new home, we talk writing, women in hip hop, dressing and vegetables. Ziggy’s a restlessly prolific artist. He’s a thinker of inimitable compassion, a second-hand store devotee, and also a hugger. 

Erin McFadyen: Can you tell me a little about your writing process?

Ziggy Ramo: I write the majority of my music with a writer called JCAL. We live together now too, actually. He’s one of my best friends. 

Were you pre-existing friends or did you meet through music?

We met through work and just became really close. He does a lot of live stuff with me as well. He’s an amazing artist and we have a great connection writing-wise. We write really quickly, and we write more stuff than we need for my project. So, my manager suggested I write for other people as well. I think the biggest struggle as an artist is that you write a song, but it will take months at least for that song to actually be released. Most of the music we’ve put out had been written a year before its release — that was really tough to deal with at the start of my career. Then I got the opportunity to go to LA and write with and for other people as well, and I just loved it.

You were there for a month, right?

Yeah, we were there for a month. Then we came back and did WAM Fest, and Fidelity festival in Perth. And then we did Falls, and moved to Sydney. 

Work-wise, 2017 saw you traversing the country, and even getting intercontinental. What is it about Sydney that made it your more permanent home of choice?

In LA I was doing lot of writing and a lot of recording. The industry there is massive and there’s a lot of opportunity for collaboration. Sydney, to me, is the place in Australia that is most like LA — it’s where the industry is situated; there’s the most going on and the most people to work with. So it’s really the best place for me as a young musician building up a career, who’s trying to work with as many people as I can. 

You were previously based in Perth, right? 

Yeah. I grew up all over Australia really, but as an artist, I really consider myself to be from Perth. That’s where music for me really came to life. I started making music there when I was 15 with my brother’s friend, who’s now my manager. It was a slow start. Matt — my manager — always said that we didn’t want to sound like kids in a garage banging tin cans together, so we were careful to take the time to develop early on. So I was kind of hidden working behind the scenes for those first six years. Then he branched out and started working for (record label) Pilerats; while I graduated school, moved up to East Arnhem and started working with public health. After that I went to Perth and started studying medicine. At that time I met JCAL and started writing with him. At that same time Matt’s time at Pilerats ended and he started doing his own management stuff. That’s when we sat down in a café and I said, ‘So are you going to start managing me now?’ And he was like, ‘I knew this day would come.’

How do you manage the business of music? There’s a lot more than just writing songs to be done…

At the moment I’m independent, so in the last half of 2016 we got a publicist and a booking agent, who takes care of all the live stuff — the performances. It’s still pretty DIY, which is fun. And it’s helped me to understand what it is that labels do administratively. 

Would you want to move to a label in the future or do you like doing it all yourself and with your team? 

Maybe! It’s about finding the right fit and making sure that any people I work with understand what it is I’m trying to do. Particularly because everything that I’m trying to push is about equality and a certain political vision. I can’t have assholes working with that stuff; it just doesn’t make sense. 

As you say, a lot of your work takes quite a firm political stance. Why do you think that music works as a platform for that kind of thought? 

There’s a quote I heard the other day, and now I can’t remember who it’s from! But it said that ‘Sometimes the truth is too raw for people to handle, but that’s what the medium of art is for’. It’s an easier path into understanding. A lot of music is founded out of oppression, especially the styles of music that I do. It’s just more compelling than someone screaming in your face.

Your last release YKWD is so jumpy and groovy, but has quite serious lyrical content, right? 

I love hip hop, but just because I love something doesn’t mean I don’t think there are some very serious issues with it. Hip hop is entrenched in misogyny and homophobia, and so this song is kind of an antidote to that. I truly believe that an attack on equality anywhere is an attack on equality everywhere, so it doesn’t make sense to say ‘yeah I care about black rights, but fuck women.’ So even though the song is fun and feel-good, it’s still a kind of a critique. 

I was particularly impressed by Same Script, which addresses mental health, especially coming from a young man. 

Gender roles are so entrenched for both men and women. The movement towards dissolving gender roles for women is so important, and while I would never speak on behalf, I will always echo and use my platform to spread wiser words from wiser women. But gender roles that compartmentalise us also affect men, and we don’t have enough men speaking about the problems that come out of that. It’s so important for everyone — of all genders — to feel comfortable speaking about mental health. Men, for example, are much more likely to take their own lives. And I certainly think not having the skills to communicate or feeling supported to communicate about our emotions and our vulnerabilities is a contributing factor in that. 

Another thing that I’ve noticed is big on your social media, if not in your music, is your diet. Do you think veganism is something people can survive on?

Yeah absolutely, and not only survive, but flourish. Veganism I don’t think is necessarily a ‘diet,’ but a frame of mind. You can be a vegan and eat awful food, just Oreos and fries. But in terms of eating a plant-based whole food diet, there’s pretty strong evidence that that is what our physiology needs. Also, one of my favourite things about veganism is that sometimes you go somewhere and there may be one or two things on the menu, and if there isn’t you can usually say ‘Hey, just do whatever you can do’ and it’s really fun. Every now and then you get people who aren’t so stoked, but more often than not the chefs get really excited — they get to do stuff off-menu and they get to be creative. I love that. I wish I could take the same approach to clothes actually, just be told what to wear. 

Wardrobe veganism, there you go! How do you go about what you wear onstage?   

I like what fashion can do for self-expression, and for creating communities, but if I’m inside my house I can guarantee I’m naked. I guess I find it difficult to put stuff together. But if someone gives me something cool, I’ll wear it and love it. Levi’s gave me this jacket (gesturing to a light washed denim jacket thrown over a striped shirt). And then there’s op shop stuff, that’s really fun. Actually, I’ve been really into K-pop lately. There’s this group called BTS, and their fashion is amazing. And I’m like — if I had someone to just dress me like that, it’d be amazing. 

What music do you listen to? 

I listen to hip hop as a staple, and I grew up on a lot of reggae. But personally, probably one of my favourites is Beach House. They’re a duo — they do dream pop. I really like it because I find a lot of music is hard to listen to and not pick apart, but not Beach House. 

Do you mean you pick apart things lyrically or musically? 

Both. As a songwriter, it’s really hard to not just analyse, to ask ‘Oh how many bars have they done for the verse, pre-chorus, chorus? What instruments have they used? And what’s the lyric concept?…’ I found Beach House back in about 2010, because when The Weeknd was first coming out, he sampled them on his first mix tape. I have a love-hate relationship with him (The Weeknd), but anyway he’d sampled them and I always chase up the bands people have sampled. And so I found them through him and I was just really happy about it!

You work with samples too right? Not necessarily musical samples though, for example (prominent Indigenous journalist) Stan Grant.  Does he know about that? 

Yeah! His daughter messaged me a while ago actually. She found the song and liked it, and showed it to him, which was really cool. 

How does listening to music fit into your day? Do you treat it like research, or part of your work? Or is it more organic and leisurely? 

Actually, this is what I love exercise for. It’s hard to get a whole hour in the day — especially in this day and age where everything moves so fast — to sit down and listen to a whole album. So exercising is an opportunity to listen to the music I’m curious about and want to experience. And you don’t feel so bad because you really do need to exercise! I don’t curate up-tempo playlists to work out to, I just use the time to listen to what I’ve been wanting to listen to anyway. 

2017 was so massive for you.  So what’s next?

It’s funny. You kind of become desensitised because you’re always trying to go further. So something that you thought you would have lost you mind over, say, a year ago, happens, but you just focus on what’s happening in the future. On my grand master plan, I’m on like step two. There’s still so much I want to do. 

Ziggy pulls us in for hugs before we leave, farewelling us on the doorstep of his home. He’s meeting Australian hip hop outfit Thundamentals this evening, ‘to hang out.’ A position as his wardrobe curator is currently available. 

END