Growing up in Iceland I am well aware of the existence of hidden people and giants but I am less familiar with faeries. In Australia there is a colorful group of faeries who use music to share their love of nature and how to take better care of mother earth. So I interviewed Faerie Cara of the Eco Faeries to learn more about these faeries and their music, nature preservation and how one can get married at their concerts.

First of all, who are the Eco Faeries?

Eco Faeries use entertainment to promote a love of nature and taking care of the environment. We specialize in performing for families with children who are in early childhood years of 2-7 years of age. One stage there are two main performers, myself Faerie Cara, and Faerie Kirstee. I’ve been working as a faerie for over 23 years, Kirsten came into the company two years ago now, but really she’s always been a faerie. We also have a team of faeries who work in schools doing educational incursions, faeries who run nature craft workshops, street artists and volunteers.

What is your background in music? Has it always been educational?

All our performers have different backgrounds. Kirstee is a classically trained flautist, multi instrumentals and vocalist trained at WAAPA. I’ve worked as a faerie my whole life, creating songs as I travel the world. We also love to collaborate with local musicians to create a certain sound. The way we work is first coming up with a message we want to deliver, then we create a song and record it in the studio. For our live children’s shows we use a karaoke track that we created in the studio so we can focus on singing live while dancing and acting. It’s important to be high energy and engaging for the age group we are performing for.

Yes it’s always been educational. We believe faeries are the guardians of nature and we represent them in a way they we’re talked about in faerie tales years before Disney cartoons we’re created. For us to represent faeries we don’t want to fluff about. We want to empower children to make a difference, to use their voices and be the change the world is waiting for.

It seems at a first glance that you are more than just a band. Can you elaborate on the scope of the project?

We like to be seen as an entertainment company and make everything as catchy, high energy and memorable as possible. Within that framework we are educators. We have a message to deliver and through creating magical moments within the community, the families we meet continue to speak about what they learned from the faeries.

Can anyone learn to become an Eco Faerie?

We have a live performance show for events, shopping centers and schools, plus we run workshops, create art installations and just generally create a faerie buzz of activity wherever we can. We also organize our own events and create education videos in partnership with local organizations.

Are you part of any other musical projects?

Yes we are! Here in Perth, Western Australia we love to collaborate with like minded performers to create crowd stopping shows. Our main partners in crime are Junkadelic, an explosive live performance brass band with percussion instruments made from junk. Together we work with other local groups to put on themed shows at street festivals.

Is it true that one could attend a Eco Faeries concert and get married at the same time?

It’s true, it’s a sneaky twist to our faerie tale. I’m an authorized civil Marriage Celebrant in Australia. I was hoping that same sex marriage would be legalized so I studied and registered to become a celebrant. Unfortunately we are still waiting for marriage laws to change, in the mean time I’ve been able to officiate many amazing weddings from barefoot ceremonies in the forest to cabaret shows in a ballroom. It’s definitely not the focus of the main Eco Faerie company but it’s been amazing to be part of so many outstanding weddings. (Input: shortly after interviewing Faerie Cara, Australian people voted in favor of same-sex marriage!)

What do you hope to achieve with your music?

We hope our songs are enjoyed and are continued to be sung by families. We deliberately make them catchy and fun, then the messages written into them are remembered. We’re always aiming to reach more people so we find new events to visit.

Next year we’ll be touring Australia some more, who knows, maybe once day we can do another international tour. In the mean time we just made three short educational videos that can be viewed through our website. These we’re produced through a grant from Keep Australia Beautiful WA so they all have a waste theme. They feature a short educational segment followed up by a song. That way we can share what we do with families around the world and not have to fly about too far.

How has the response been from peers within the music industry?

The response has been great so far. Eco Faeries has been running for 13 years now and is a full time gig for us. We keep our work polished and original so bands and organizers see the hard work that goes into everything we do. Every event that we do leads to more gigs so we must do something right.

Are you connected with faeries around the world?

We keep an eye on social media to see what other faeries are up to. We also love to connect with mermaids or just groups that are working hard to change the world. Everyone represents ‘faerie’ differently. We work on keeping our work original and pull from our own ideas but it’s always fun to meet faeries when we travel. Years ago I travelled through Canada and USA and met some inspiring magical creatures on the way. I love to see the evolution of their performances over the years.

What is on the horizon for the Eco Faeries?

We’re in the midst of our peak performance season but we are looking ahead to 2018 where we’ve booked some interstate events, a few Fringe shows and hopefully we can make more videos.

Thank you very much for participating and for the work you do! Anything else you would like to shout from the rooftops?

Thank you so much for connecting with us. Please check out our website, watch Eco Faerie TV where you can see us in action anywhere around the world and don’t forget that the magic of nature is in you.