As a champion of local art and community, Foley Magazine emerged through a particularly straining time for the Australian arts community. Born in July of last year - when the lifeblood of Melbourne’s music scene existed entirely online - Foley Magazine offered a vital platform for emerging, locked-down artists. Through long-form interviews, features, and an eclectic parade of emerging artwork, Foley has established their ethos across five unique publications, drawing upon the trio’s broad creative interests and expanding their scope with each release.

In late October, Foley returned with Celestial Bodies, a loosely conceptual magazine that draws parallels between the reopening and return of live music to the endless possibilities of an atmosphere, universe, and space. Cosmic in both its beautiful cover art (created by Melbourne artist Ameya) and its vast contents, edition #5 of Foley pairs the transformative nature of music with cosmic life and galactic imagery.

Talking us through this latest edition of Foley Magazine, we caught up with one-third of the creative trio, Alannah Sawyer, to talk all things music, arts, and the production behind Celestial Bodies below.


TJ: Hi Alannah! First off, thanks for taking the time for this on a Saturday morning, I really appreciate it. How are you going?


AS: Good thanks! Things are very busy haha!


Congrats on selling out issue #5 earlier this month, it’s so good! How was the process for this one compared to previous Foley editions?

I’d say that this issue was pretty breezy, to be honest. A lot of it was done in lockdown, and even though we have done previous editions in lockdown, we kind of know what to do now haha… We’ve got most of it down pat! Plus, we also started it a little bit earlier, which gave us heaps of time to do it. In the past, I know we’ve sometimes had a bit of a time crunch, so I think we learned from that. I guess because it was in lockdown, we didn’t really need that extra time, which made it a lot easier than previous editions. Everyone was super responsive and lovely about it all. The launch also timed pretty well with the end of the lockdown… People were just excited to be out and getting back into gigs!

You mentioned that issue #5 was made entirely throughout lockdown which is crazy! You guys also formed Foley mid-last year as the pandemic was really ramping up, how was the process of starting such a big project in the midst of everything going on?

Yeah, that’s true haha, it was a crazy time. We actually started Foley for a uni project. It was our last major assignment, which happened to be in lockdown. But that one (issue #1) was a bit different because we didn’t really know what we were doing. 

Even though you say you were maybe picking up the pieces a bit as you were going, Foley still feels like it has very consistent branding and themes across all five of the issues.

Yeah, we try to keep them consistent. We change them a little bit, just to make it interesting. 

On that note, how did the Celestial Bodies theme come about for issue #5? Where did that concept come from?

Well, the way we decide on the theme is, we just kind of get together and brainstorm. Colour ideas, theme ideas, whatever sounds cool and makes us think “yeah let’s do that!” We also usually have artists in mind that might suit that theme. A lot of the artists who do the front covers - excluding the first one obviously - have been in the magazine previously. So we kind of think, that person would be so good for this theme, based on what they did last time… And also, a lot of them are our friends anyway, so that helps! So we pick the theme, and we kind of try and relate it to each edition. For example, with Celestial Bodies, we tried to say that the universe is kind of like the music community, and all of the elements within it come together to form this functioning ecosystem. 

How do you decide on this theme with multiple brains working behind the scenes at Foley? And how do you deliberate on all of the art and design, and also, choose the artists you actually put into the magazine for each of the publications?

We each have our own styles and interests I guess, but we also have a lot in common between the three of us. We’re all pretty easygoing, and we’ll agree on a lot of things. So with themes, we’re always like “That’s a great idea, love it!”. We’ll also bring in fresh ideas and just bounce them off each other, and then with the musicians and contributors and artists, a lot of the time we’ll get submissions via email, or maybe our friends will ask for us to put something in for them. We also try not to just have submissions, we also like to reach out to people that we like too, just because we want to interview them. But we just kind of divide it up between us three so that it’s an equal amount of work, and then if there is someone you really want to interview, you can put your hand up and do it. 

I can imagine the workload must keep getting bigger with each issue!

Yeah hahaha, I think it has! This issue in particular has a lot more pages than previous ones. I didn’t realise that until I went to post it at the post office, and it was over the 500gm limit. I was like “why is this so expensive!” But I think generally, as we’ve progressed, we’ve put more research and time into interviews. Also, it’s very different doing an issue coming out of lockdown compared to while you’re in one. When you have work, social life, gigs etc, it just becomes harder. So that can definitely change how big an issue is. 

Speaking of shows, do you have any plans for the next Foley launch?

Well, the next Foley edition is coming out in February, so we haven’t necessarily organised a launch for that yet. But we’re in the midst of organising a Foley Christmas party (this Saturday the 18th at the Retreat Hotel!). We’ll be picking three artists that have been in the mag to play.

Given the next edition is set to come out in February, is the turnaround for each Foley publication usually around three months?

Yeah, usually it takes about two months to do everything, and then we leave a month for printing. We do like to leave a bit of space in case something goes wrong. This year, we did it in January, but in 2022 we’re pushing the release to February. Usually, around December to January time, people are just busy and away most of the time, so we just thought it made sense to leave a bit of space for it.

Music publications can often feel very male-dominated, with Foley being a great example of a female-led and operated publication. How important do you feel it is to be providing a platform for female artists and musicians through your work?

Yeah, that’s definitely intentional. We try to curate at least half of our content to be female-led. Even though we are conscious of doing this, we don’t even really need to try because we just love female and non-binary artists so much that it comes naturally to curate their work. I think that’s quite a cool thing, that we’ve never found it hard to fairly represent these artists. Especially with our visual artists, we get a lot of submissions from women which has been amazing. I think it is really important to push women to the front because there are still so many festivals and lineups that are so dominated by men, whether it’s intentional or not. We really just try to be inclusive, and represent everyone fairly! 

Do you have specific female/non-binary led publications that you are inspired by for Foley?

We love Gems Zine! (formerly fems zine). It’s not necessarily music, but they showcase a lot of art, writing and poetry. I bought one of their zines in lockdown… Actually, I bought three of them haha! We were also definitely inspired by Gusher when we started making Foley.

Thanks so much for chatting! What’s next for Foley?

Well, we’ve got our Christmas party coming up, but I think generally, moving forward we’re looking to branch out our artists from Melbourne to all of Australia, just so we can grow more! We’ve done a few accidental, sneaky artists in the past, but moving forward I think it will just be nice to pick from a much broader range of people and art!