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How A McDonald’s In Melbourne Sparked Brian Baker’s “Our Freedom”

New Zealand singer-songwriter Brian Baker is best known as a journeyman musician, bouncing between his homeland of New Zealand and Australia. Baker is also a laid-back bohemian lifestyler, living off the grid on his permaculture farm in the picturesque heart of the Kaipara. It’s a busy combination, as Baker balances life between running the farm with using his considerable musical talents to record and produce his own music, plus other artists in his production studio, ‘The Bakery’.

After moving to Australia from New Zealand in 1980, Brian performed with many Australian bands, securing a Sony
recording deal with “The Ones”. Around this time he scored his first song placement on the second UnCanny X-Men album, (Australian rock act) with the song “Colour Your Answer Blue”. After writing and recording the top 20 single “Heart” with The Ones (released on Sony) he went on to co-write the score for the movie “Rikki and Pete” with Eddie Rayner
from Split Enz/Crowded House. Eddie and Brian continued to work together as “The Makers”, releasing 2 CDs through Warner’s East West label, including the hit single “Big Picture”. Together with drummer Michael Barker, they toured Australia and New Zealand with the B52’s and appeared on TV shows like MTV, Countdown, Hey Hey It”s Saturday,
Tonight Live, and The Midday Show.

Baker recently released his latest single, “OUR FREEDOM”, a song inspired by the right to protest. It sees a woman at a protest, then in court, and finally in a supermarket, where she is finally free to choose. The pop-rock song sounds right at home with the works of Tom Petty and Elvis Costello. Lyrically, the song came about after a local protest on the building of a new McDonald’s. I originally wrote it when protesting against a McDonald’s store being built up the end of our street in the middle of a National Park area in Melbourne,” explains Baker. “Seems like the word “Freedom” is being used to mean a whole lot of different things to folks these days…I thought I could reclaim it from the far right – whatever they tell you, we are lucky enough to live in a democracy and we can vote, we have rights and as consumers, we can vote with our buying power.”

The song has been worked into Baker’s live tour set, and has been going over great next to his classics. I love playing live, this song has people jumping up and down every time, the reaction is insane! I’m doing festivals in New Zealand and would love to tour my show internationally.” Along with the single, Baker released a music video for “Our Freedom”. We shot the video at home using an old projector. Made a loop of some corporate footage and stood in front of it. Really liked the way it looked on the guitar so had to go back many times to redo that bit and get it in the right place. And it’s summer here so had to wait until the darkness of night would allow the old projector to do its stuff.”

A naturally gifted musician, Baker can lay claim to a catalog of songs sure to warm the musical soul of any audience member. Now he’s made a return to performing live in support of it. He’s created a fantastic live show highlighting his uplifting vocals and amazing guitar skills. In 2003 Brian signed with Fable Music/The Image Label to produce library music which continues to be used worldwide. H e’s written and recorded radio and TV jingles, short film, and documentary scores. He has performed at countless shows and is writing and recording songs and music at the highest level of his profession. Brian is proud to be currently signed to Origin Music Publishing who works with him to develop the music and
songs he is frequently releasing and promote it worldwide. Big shout out to Philip Mortlock who is the boss of Origin Music in Australia. He signed me up to a publishing deal and is not only pushing my music worldwide but is a great, and experienced sounding board for music and music industry advice for me.”

Connect with Brian Baker on his LinkTree. “Our Freedom” is currently streaming across all DSPs, listen to it now on Spotify or watch the video below.

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