Bart Willoughby

As part of our commitment to capturing and sharing great Australian music stories, the Australian Music Vault asked some of the country’s most influential trailblazers and unsung heroes to open up about their lives in music.

Pitjantjatjara and Mirning singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Bart Willoughby is known as one of the founding members of Australia’s first Indigenous rock band, No Fixed Address.

Born in 1960 on the Koonibba Aboriginal Mission near Ceduna, South Australia, Willoughby is one of the Stolen Generations, having been forcibly removed from his family as a child. While studying at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music at the University of Adelaide in the late 1970s, Willoughby teamed up with fellow students Ricky Harrison, Leslie Lovegrove Freeman and John John Miller to form No Fixed Address. Their album From My Eyes (1982) features Willoughby’s song, ‘We Have Survived’, which remains a seminal protest song against colonisation and the oppression of First Nations peoples.

Underpinned by Willoughby’s signature fusion of reggae and traditional Indigenous influences, No Fixed Address reached international acclaim and became the first Indigenous band sign a record deal, the first to appear on ABC’s Countdown, and the first to tour overseas. Willoughby continued making history, becoming the first Indigenous artist to score a feature film, Jindalee Lady (1992), the first to play the Melbourne Town Hall’s Grand Organ for his performance of We Still Live On in 2014, and the inaugural recipient of the Indigenous ARIA Australian Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Contribution to Indigenous Music in Australia.

He has performed with acts including Coloured Stone, Mixed Relations, Goanna, Yothu Yindi and Black Arm Band, and continues to share his passion through mentoring young Indigenous musicians. In 2023, Willoughby received the Order of Australia for service to the performing arts.

In this interview, Willoughby reflects on writing ‘We Have Survived’, explores the origins of his love for reggae beats, and recalls his experience touring overseas, with Midnight Oil and behind the Iron Curtain.

Interviewer: Daniel James

Location: Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne, 2024