MMAD I'm On A Wave

Youth music charity Musicians Making A Difference (MMAD) and Universal Music Australia are excited to share the release of the 2020 campaign single inspired by young survivors of childhood adversity called "I'm On A Wave" featuring singer/songwriter and The Voice finalist Zeek Power.

The new single released in the lead up to Musicians Making A Difference Day (MMAD Day) Friday December 4th, a national day that brings awareness to the work of MMAD. The charity uses the power of music to help young people overcome adversity and encourages everyone to get involved on MMAD Day by sharing music that has helped them overcome their own personal struggles in the hope that it reaches thousands more young people in need.

 

To build this year's national music campaign, Musicians Making A Difference and Universal Music Australia provided ten young people from MMAD with a once-in-a-lifetime industry mentorship including writing, recording and releasing a single that will create positive change and raise support for the important cause. Despite COVID restrictions, the ten participants collaborated virtually with artists including ARIA Award nominee super producer Alice Ivy who helped shape the lyrics and production ideas for the track.  "I'm On A Wave" is a summer feel-good infectious groove that speaks to overcoming personal challenges, making changes and riding the wave to inspire personal and social change.

Talking about the collaboration, Alice Ivy says, "I was so stoked when MMAD reached out and asked if I wanted to get involved this year because it's such an awesome program! This song was actually one of the first projects I collaborated on over Zoom during COVID! This way of collaborating was entirely new to me so I was pleasantly surprised by how smooth the process was! All of the participants were super cool and the final song came out great!" 

The program enabling MMAD's young people to gain invaluable experience working with the industry's best, with one of the 2020 participants noting, "MMAD has been a life changing program, it has opened my eyes to the operations of the music industry and allowed me to help bring the mmad day campaign and single to life. It's been an incredible learning experience."

Musicians Making A Difference again collaborated with Sydney based graphic artist Joe 'Neathway' Brown.  Neathway's video concept was inspired as part of this year's mentor sessions with the MMAD kids.  We see the journey through the eyes of a new rainbow campaign mascot, navigating from a place of feeling overwhelmed through to riding the wave of positivity.   With a helping hand and few winking dolphins thrown in along the way.

On collaborating with MMAD, Joe said, "I was stoked to be invited back to create another music video for this year's MMAD song. Before I started on the video, we met for a brainstorming session with the kids and mentors. I came with a basic direction to get the ball rolling, then the kids just went wild with concepts and ideas. Their confidence and imagination was inspiring and by the end of the session, my initially straight forward approach was turned on its head and we had pages of hilarious ideas and a really fun storyline to go with the song. Obviously we couldn't fit everything, but we knew the creation of some loveable characters (to follow on a small metaphorical journey) was essential. I then created a storyboard with pages of the kids' ideas by my side. A month and one more group session later we had a completed music video that was the brainchild of about 20 people."

Neathway also partnered with Musicians Making A Difference on an exclusive merchandise range including, t-shirt, cap and bucket hat designs that feature the MMAD Rainbow mascot as a symbol of hope and happiness. The range is available to purchase via the MMAD website.