Listen Up with Ash McGregor

What an episode! It’s a story of reinvention, finding your place, and at the heart of it all, staying true to yourself. I sit down with the legendary Keith Urban to dive deep into what made him the artist he is today. We go from his first ever gig at a nursing home, to television at nine years old, to the Australian country music scene, to landing in Nashville as a guy with long hair, no hat, drum...

This one is a proper catch-up with one of Australia’s most loved singer-songwriters, Ziggy Alberts. It's a story of Millennial Optimism, train hats, felt, moustaches, quitting (or being fired) from a cafe gig and taking on busking in Byron. It all lead to a hugely successful global career which has remarkably remained independent. We talk 100-plus shows a year, why he never believed in the &#3...

A year ago Ethan French had 15,000 followers. Today he’s pushing a million, and in his DMs are Justin Timberlake, John Mayer, SZA, Leon Thomas, T-Pain, Jaden Smith and a list that truly keeps getting longer. He's living out a fever dream. Ethan is what he calls an 'artist’s artist'. Self-taught, multi-instrumentalist whose music doesn't fit into one box, creating for craft's sa...

In this episode we go right back to the beginning of Stand Atlanntic : the first iteration of the band (I swear this is not a humiliation ritual!!), feeling overlooked by literally everyone, and a moment where they quietly agreed that if the Sidewinder EP didn’t land they’d probably call it. And they never had to. We relive the stories that have made Stand Atlantic, plus the never-before-heard voi...

What does it take to make it as a boy band in 2026? Midnight Til Morning might just be the answer. Shane, Conor, Mason and Zach formed on Netflix's viral Building the Band and since then it has been absolute pandemonium! In two years months they've gone from strangers on a reality show to a globally touring act with a fanbase that will sell out a European run in ten minutes flat. In this e...

Will Gao and Olivia Hardy ( Wasia Project ) are a sibling duo out of London who started making lo-fi bedroom pop during lockdown while they were still in school. Fast forward and they've got hundreds of millions of streams, have opened for Laufey and Tom Odell, and have just dropped their debut album ' Nocturne ' . In this episode we get into all of it: growing up classically trained,...

Jack Gray is every touring artist's favourite support act. Jeremy Zucker, Tate McRae, Matt Corby, Dean Lewis, Freya Skye, Good Neighbours - you name them, he's probably toured with them. Now, after three years in the making, his debut album ' Swimming in Jeans ' is FINALLY out. This episode really takes it back to the EARLY days, memories of high school music projects, unhinged lyr...

Bugs have spent over a decade as one of Brisbane's most beloved bands. They found each other on Facebook, spent years touring the country, releasing music that refuses to be in a box, and collecting some of the most loyal local fans along the way. n late 2025, Jordan their bassist was diagnosed with terminal stage 4 colorectal cancer, and in June this year was given 3-4 months left to live. Th...

Joel Birch has spent 20 years at the centre of The Amity Affliction - but the story behind the band is far more complicated than the music alone. On this episode, Joel opens up about the deeply personal story behind Amity’s ninth album, House of Cards , and his complicated relationship with his late mother. We talk about growing up around religion, becoming a parent, mental health, death, social m...

Fully self-produced, no formal training, and lyrics that feel ripped straight from a diary - Erin LeCount is an artist on the precipice of stardom. We catch up off the back of a sold out tour, and get into what it really means to grow up in the public eye and navigate the vulnerability that comes with putting your most personal moments out into the world for strangers to dissect. Erin chats produc...

Not many people know the full story behind Amy Shark 's career. Four albums in, hundreds of millions of streams, and it all started because her little brother began guitar lessons and she thought, if this little loser can do it, so can I. In this episode we go right back to the beginning, growing up on the Gold Coast with a family that thought pursuing music was absolutely out of the picture,...

This is DICE 's first proper long-form interview! What a privilege! DICE are one of Perth's most exciting bands right now and it all started with a Covid jam session, a broken heart, and absolutely no plan. In this episode we go right back to the moment they wrote their first original song and realised they might actually be onto something. We get into what it really takes to break out of...

Drax Project are one of the most unlikely success stories to come out of New Zealand: three jazz school kids plus a fan-turned-band-member, who started busking on the streets of Wellington to pay rent and somehow ended up on the same stage as Ed Sheeran, Lorde and Christina Aguilera . In this episode Sam & Ben take it back to the Wellington jazz scene, the busking days, the toga parties, and w...

Not many people know the full story behind Matt Corby's career. Despite being a household name who has soundtracked generations (hundreds of millions of streams, huge hits like Brother and Resolution ) the journey to get there is not what you'd expect. We go right back to the beginning singing as a ten year old with a vibrato he couldn't control, touring the country at 14 and landing on Australian...

Hooligan Hefs is the Western Sydney rapper putting Australia on the map. We go right back to the beginning growing up in the 2767, Doonside, making music in a mate's wardrobe with soundproofing and doing it purely for the boys before the rest of the world caught on. We get into what it really means to come up in Western Sydney, why staying independent when the label contracts started rolling i...

Kita 's story is one of naivety, guts and manifesting things into existence (which we do a lot of in this episode). We dive into the story that took her from SoundCloud demos and cold-emailing management teams to touring with Dua Lipa and pitching Fisher's 'Atmosphere' . One thing you'll learn quickly: rose-coloured glasses may get you further than you think in this industry. W...

If you're into Ocean Alley or SIX60, South Summit are a band to get on your radar. Today I sit down with Zaya and Nemo, one half of Australia's most exciting reggae-rock acts. In this episode, we go right back to growing up in a 3,000-person mining town in the Pilbara of Western Australia, moving to Perth on rugby scholarships, boarding school, and the random Covid jam session that turned into the...

Ten years ago, Caleb and Kieran of Spacey Jane were busking on the main street of Geraldton, getting paid $20 to play Riptide on repeat. Today, Spacey Jane are the face of Australian indie rock and they've just released their rawest project yet, Exit Wounds . In this episode, I sit down with two of my good friends to take it all the way back to day one: how a mum asking a favour at a high scho...

Genesis Owusu has built a reputation as one of the most fearless and genre-defying artists in modern music. From the explosive success of albums like ' Smiling With No Teeth ' and ' STRUGGLER ' to praise from public figures as unexpected as Barack Obama, Genesis' creations have aways been larger than life. Now, with his third studio album ' REDSTAR WU & THE WORLDWIDE SCOURGE ' , he’s turning h...

Melanie C , best known as Sporty Spice from the Spice Girls, is one of the most recognisable voices of a generation, she redefined pop music and global fame in the late ’90s. In this episode, Melanie takes us back to growing up just outside of Liverpool, being handed a flyer to audition for what would become the Spice Girls, and her first impressions of the group that would change her life forever...

Vanessa Amorosi had one of the most explosive starts to a career in Australian music history. Within a year of releasing her debut music, she was performing on one of the biggest stages in the world - opening and closing the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. But the story started long before that, years of dedication and grinding. In this episode, Vanessa takes us back to growing up in a very musical hou...

Canadian rock band The Beaches have spent years building their story from teenage bandmates to one of the most exciting names in modern rock. In this episode, sisters Jordan and Kylie join the podcast to take it all the way back to their first band Done with Dolls , and the early years of growing up making music together. We talk about navigating the music industry as a female rock band, the momen...

Sydney psych-rock project Velvet Trip might feel like a new name on the scene, but the journey behind it is anything but conventional. In this episode, Zeppelin Hamilton takes us back to the beginning, growing up surrounded by some of the world’s best blues musicians in his family home, and nearly taking a completely different path as a professional skateboarder. From hitchhiking from Sydney to Da...

Meg Mac has been one of Australia’s most distinctive voices for over a decade. From her breakout track Known Better , which exploded on triple j Unearthed, to fan favourites like Grandma’s Hands and Roll Up Your Sleeves , she’s built a career defined by powerful vocals and deeply personal songwriting. Her 2019 album Matter of Time even debuted at #1 on the ARIA charts cementing her as a staple of...

Wisp's breakout single Your Face exploded online and pulled her straight onto the global stage, almost overnight. But behind the viral moment is an artist who grew up immersed in discipline and craft. Raised in San Francisco, Wisp trained as a ballerina and violinist before stepping into shoegaze - a genre known for both devotion and scrutiny. In this episode, we talk about what it really means to...