ANDREA CROFT

Western Australian Andrea Croft was the lead vocalist in 80s band The Honeys. With only one album released, the Honeys disbanded; Croft, Greg Shanahan and drummer Brett Thomson deserted Bruce Begley to start a new act called Catherine Wheel. "I wanted to try something different," Croft says. "We'd been touring pretty intensely over a few years - me and four smelly boys in a Holden HG. I wanted to try something poppy. It wasn't a big blow up." With Catherine Wheel, Croft was able to hone her pop skills and meet Matt Handley, with whom she would form yet another seminal indie-rock band, Pollyanna.

Croft's stint with Pollyanna also ended before the band rose to prominence; today Handley is most remembered as Pollyanna's vocalist. "In the end I just came home to Perth where all my family is," Croft says. "I'm a little boomerang - I always come back home." Croft and Suzie Higgie (Falling Joys) recorded an EP in 1991 called 'Splinter'.

Croft has since got on with a regular "boring day job" life. Then, out of the blue, about 16 years later, the phone rang. "Bruce gave me a call one day and said that he and Grant were working on some new songs," she says. "They sent me some CDs with their ideas. A couple had lyrics, a couple without." It was decided that the Honeys, dead in the water for far longer than they were ever together, would give it another try. Flying to Sydney, Croft spent four days laying down vocals in Shanahan's home studio in Spencer, on the Hawkesbury River. "It's a beautiful place," Croft says. "All around you is nature."

Those sessions were released as the 'Star Baby' album. There are no more four-month tours on their agenda, but the band has committed to doing the odd show, inviting old friends Greg Atkinson (Big Heavy Stuff) and Jodi Phillis (The Clouds) to support. Croft says it felt "terrific" to be onstage again. These days she is a small business owner.

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