KNOX
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Sunday, March 24
Yours & Owls
Tickets: $10 at the door
Music was the only way Fijian-Rotuman singer and guitarist Knox ever wanted to make a living.
Surrounded by harmonies since he was small, by the end of his time at high school, he knew what path he wanted to take.
"I grew up playing music at home, in church and other places," he says.
"By the time I was in my last year of high school, I was like 'This is it. I'm going to finish these exams and going to become a musician'."
Knox (whose real name is Inoke Kalounisiga) only picked up a guitar in his late teens, but was making music with his family long before that. When he was five years old, Knox and his parents performed as a vocal trio at their local church, while his father studied and taught Indian classical music.
"That was a bit weird to see this big Fijian man playing a sitar," Knox jokes.
The dreadlocked singer has been playing professionally for 12 years, starting in cover bands - which he says are huge in Fiji - as a guitarist.
He made the move to singing with his band Kulture and began writing his own tunes, going solo a few years later.
His song Jah Love, Jah Crucify gave him his first international recognition in 2007, topping the reggae charts in New Zealand and getting airplay around the world, with people often describing him as the Fijian Jack Johnson.
He didn't release his first full-length album until three years later and is only just getting ready to release his second, having spent the last few months performing small gigs and busking in London.
Knox is based once again in Fiji, but travels to Australia two or three times a year to tour and visit his Australian partner's family. He is gigging now to launch the first single, Candy, off his yet-to-be-named second record, inspired by watching his cousin pine for a girl who didn't notice he existed.
"It's the cheesiest of my tunes so far, normally I don't like cheesy stuff. It's about this guy who really likes this girl, but she never really looked at him," he says.
He thinks it is important for musicians to realise they are never bigger than the music itself.
"It's a passion, something you live and die for. It's everything in my life. I realise that music is something bigger than you and your own artistic ego or your band.
"That's a problem nowadays, some people think they are bigger than the music, but you're but a mere conduit. When you get to realise that, you get to see this whole other side of music, this spiritual side, which you don't get if you don't know what it's all about."