Matt Katsis, singer-songwriter and guitarist, has been performing in the streets of Melbourne since 2012, inspired by one of his musical heroes, John Butler, who used to busk on the sidewalks of Fremantle, Western Australia, back in the mid-1990s.

Born and raised in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Matt Katsis, shares his thoughts about busking and his current projects: "The last time I went out busking was March 20th [2020] and my last venue gig was the next day. The week that came after was when the lockdown kicked up a gear and things quickly began shutting down. A couple weeks in I knew I needed to keep playing to stay sane. So I decided to put together some songs from home where I’d play an original on a Tuesday and a cover on a Thursday, and share these on my socials week to week. It’s been a great way to keep my chops up, even though the usual live platforms so quickly had the rug pulled out from under us. The sessions are called the 'Majik Kactus Sessions' and just last week was the 15th episode [mid-June 2020]. I’m taking a little hiatus from the sessions now to work on demoing some new songs for future releases and I am working on some other recording projects. As well as the sessions, I played a couple live streams: a couple local theatres here in Bendigo hosted one of the shows - and the other was a virtual pub put together by the good folk of Mornington Peninsula."

Interview recorded on June 29, 2020 (Zoom recording) by Daniel Bacchieri, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Music excerpts from the songs "All I Wanna Do Is Fly", "Call me the Breeze", "Colours", "Crossroads", "Need You Here", "Shame Shame Shame", "Sunny's Blues", "Tomorrow & The Next Day", "You & My Guitar".

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Photo Credit: Hacking Creative