Living A Messy Life

Chelsea Zerna DJs under the name Hart Flayme and the co-owner of Ancient World, an underground nightclub in Adelaide. We met in late 2025 and we reconnect in this conversation, covering her alternative upbringing and foray into the arts from art and classical music training to playing in punk bands and buying a club!

Follow Chelsea on instagram @hart_flayme as well as the temporary Ancient World page @ancientworldburnerphone

This week's episode we have Psychedelic Disco Punk Queen, Ellie aka Patsy Skeet! Ellie is the creator of Thunder Horse Studio, a bold, rebellious art haus where creativity knows no bounds and individuality is the mission.  She is also the creator of the Patsy Skeet Experience, an immersive, silly camp ritualistic experience.

Ellie and I met in Bali in 2025 and spent a bit of time getting to know each other over the course of a week. In this conversation I find out more about her journey into the arts and how she came to be doing so many creative things.

Follow Ellie:

https://www.instagram.com/patsyskeet/

Helen and I met many moons ago, back when I was a classical singer and she was a classical composer. We both ended up moving into electronic music, and now run into each other at underground raves rather than classical concerts!

Classically trained, Helen Grimley aka Grimbo, began her musical education from a young age as a clarinettist and saxophonist. She went on to study composition at UNSW and classical singing alongside. Helen completed her studies with First Class Honours and received a University Medal in Music Composition, amongst other awards. She then studied at the Australian Film and Television Radio School (AFTRS) before working as a professional composer on several feature films, short films, dance & theatre and television. She has served as music assistant and written Additional Music for L.A based Australian composer Michael Yezerski (The Black Balloon, House of Hancock, A Place to Call Home, Transformers). Helen started producing electronic music in 2025, focusing on jungle and footwork. Her track “Start Bleed” was the inaugural release on Sydney label “Chronically Ill Audio” and she is currently DJing at several events around Sydney including Afterlife and Bump In.

This week on the podcast I welcome an old friend, Benny Davis of The Axis of Awesome fame. We went through university together many moons ago, and I invite you to be a fly on the wall as we talk about many things.. music included.. and a little bit about how The Axis of Awesome and the 4 Chord Song came into being.

​

Benny is a musician and occasional comedian from Sydney. He's best known as the keyboard player from The Axis of Awesome, where he spent ten years writing, recording and performing comedy songs.

Since leaving the group, he has continued making comedy music, and has solo works available on all platforms. He also composes and produces music freelance for a variety of clients.

This week I had the pleasure of catching up with the creative director of Newy Bass Crew, Dreadmaiden. We talk about the Newcastle dj scene, both of our bad backs and where she gets her cool glasses from..

As the creative director of Newy Bass Crew, Dread Maiden is at the forefront of fostering underground rave and doof culture, creating safe and inclusive spaces for self-expression, and championing representation for women in the bass music scene. Dread Maiden’s performances have graced stages at festivals, including Dragon Dreaming, Subsonic, and Rain Dance, and she’s shared the spotlight with international heavyweights such as Dillinja, Serial Killaz, Jam Thieves, Visages, Hypho, Teddy Killaz, Paige Julia, and KOAN Sound.

You can follow Dreadmaiden here.. https://www.instagram.com/dreadmaiden.audio/

Ponymeadow is an Australian electronic music producer who creates uplifting progressive house and trance tunes that feature evocative female vocals

We chat about her journey from playing bass in New York to producing electronic music in Sydney, the importance of having a mentor and playing at Comet Ping Pong.

Follow Ponymeadow on instagram..

https://www.instagram.com/ponymeadow_music/

For this week's episode I had the pleasure of chatting with Kinetic Theory. KineticTheory is a DnB artist known for her deep, dark, and heavy sounds in jungle, dancefloor, and neurofunk drum and bass.

We talk about her diverse musical education, that time she auditioned for Australian Idol, and her ideas for the future of youth culture on the Northern beaches.

You can follow Kinetic Theory at https://www.instagram.com/kinetictheoryau/

This week I had the joy of speaking with the wonderful Jessica O'Donoghue. We talked about her music career, motherhood and changing direction as an artist.

Jessica and I have crossed paths a few times; we've sung together, I've photographed her band and most recently when I conducted a new Australian work for which she was a composer.

Jessica is an award winning performer and composer, post-Baroque Dramatic Pop artist and creator of new artistic works and events. She is co-artistic director of The Song Company and will be performing the title role of "Aphrodite", a new opera composed by Nico Muhly & Laura Lethlean with Sydney Chamber Opera in June 2025.

This week I had the very fun time of interviewing Nick aka nickname. Based in Melbourne, he's coming up to Sydney to play Keep Hush this Friday night - something he's about to be able to tick of his bucket list!

Nick produces a sick mix of underground music that I wouldn't dare try to define. He's released on the likes of

We talk about all sorts of things in this episode and his positive energy and healthy attitude towards the whole scene is inspiring and infectious. Get amongst!

You can find him on insta @nickname.music