MARLON MOTLOP is used to performing in front of a big crowd.
Usually, he is wearing footy boots and a guernsey and certainly not strumming a guitar and baring his soul through song.
Motlop featured five times at AFL level for Port Adelaide between 2008 and 2011, and has played more than 100 SANFL games with North Adelaide and Glenelg, as well as stints in the WAFL and NTFL.
But nothing has prepared the 30-year-old for what will perhaps be his biggest performance yet – opening for Midnight Oil on-stage at WOMADELAIDE on Saturday.
“A lot of people tell me this is quite a big deal but I’m big on preparation and trying to get things right,” Motlop told portadelaidefc.com.au.
“Being involved in footy for so long you tend to compare everything to how a footy match feels and performing on stage alone and baring your soul to many people is a whole new feeling.
“This feeling is just pure excitement. I always liken it to when you have something as a child and you want to show someone your new toy – that’s the feeling I get when I’m performing. I’ve got a product I want to share with the world.”
As well as his playing career, Motlop worked as Port Adelaide’s Aboriginal Academy Program Coordinator until the on-set of COVID-19 where he was among a group of staff to depart the club.
He said that proved a trigger point to take his music seriously.
“It’s been a bit of a crazy six or seven months,” he explained.
“My Glenelg teammate Rula Kelly-Mansel who goes by the stage name of RKM, moved to Adelaide and started playing with Glenelg, and he had a song he came up with a few years ago listening to and inspired by Archie Roach.
“He liked to dabble in a bit of rap and when he found out I sing and play guitar he asked me to put a chorus and a verse together so on the way to footy training I stopped in to see him and put a chorus and a verse down, put some chords to the song and from that we came up with Black Swan, a track we put out with a video on social media.
“A few key people in the music industry in South Australia picked that up and from there we landed a couple of gigs.
“From there the WOMAD people heard about us and liked our sound and they invited us to the WOMAD Academy, a first nation’s academy which helps emerging artists in certain areas of the arts including song writing, branding, admin and all sorts of areas, and from there we ended up landing a gig at Womad.”
Now working with a company called the Native Co., which specialises in native herbs and native plants, Motlop described his sound as primarily RnB/Soul, saying he grew up around Blues and Soul music amongst a musical family, which includes his cousins Daniel and Steven Motlop, who have also played for Port Adelaide.
While opening for the Oils is pretty special, Motlop is now setting his sights on taking his music around the world.
“I’d love to be able to play music overseas and travel the world with my music, that’s the number one goal,” Motlop said.
“I’m hoping I can perform at festivals around Australia and that will lead to bigger gigs around the world when international travel opens up.
“I always say with footy I’m closer to the end than I am at the start so if music is a viable career choice after some of these gigs I’ll make the transition but for now I’ll keep playing footy and get the most out of my body until I can’t go anymore.”
