Brian Ritchie used to live in an apartment in New York City and play in the Violent Femmes. He now lives in a house just outside of Hobart and runs a tea shop. This is because Hobart is flipping ace. It's so ace that we've created a whole guide to the best parts of it - and a whole calendar to MONA FOMA. The MONA FOMA festival is about to head into its fourth year and 2012 (from January 13-22) is going to be giant. Sure, they say that every year but trust us, next year will be next level. We could rant on about it but Brian and the rest of this site's content is going to do that, starting from... now.

Hello Brian! Why are you in Hobart?

My wife Veruni and I had both been to Tasmania on previous trips before we moved here. Veruni is a scientist, she was working for the Museum of Natural History and was sent down here, and I had already been here a few times playing music. We came together in 1996 and said "let's move!" We didn't know what living here was going to be like really. We just knew that we liked the place in terms of the topography and the way it smelt. We'll probably be here for the rest of our lives.

Did you know about The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) or MONA FOMA when you moved?

Not at all. Didn't know about MONA. I found out about it because I was talking to somebody who runs another festival here called Ten Days on the Island. We were talking about Hobart and I was saying, "This place is pretty good, but I think that I'm going to have to make a few trips overseas so that I can see some museums," and she said, “Well, that might be changing pretty soon..." That was the first time that I heard about MONA.

So there's MONA the museum and MONA FOMA the festival, but how did the festival start?

Originally MONA FOMA was something fun to do before the museum opened. The idea was to have fun, be creative, do things and at the same time draw attention to the fact that the museum was coming. The third year, last year, was big because it was the lead up to the opening of the actual museum and next year, 2012, is slightly different again as we're doing it as part of MONA, but I haven't approached curating it in a different way at all.

How do you start putting the program together?

The festival reflects my own personal musical practice. I started out in punk. I play a lot of blues and jazz. I got into Japanese music, and started playing Japanese classical music, then rock and jazz and blues on the shakuhachi. I'm kind of musically omnivorous I guess you could say. The festival has to reflect that - and that's really all there is to it. I don't have a curatorial rationale. The results speak for themselves. It is what it is. There are connections between things but they are not obvious. I'm not into presenting themes, like: “This is the year we explore...world music! Or... sorrow!” I like to present the acts and let people draw their own conclusions.

There must be subtle connections running through the program though. John Cage's name comes up in a few places for 2012.

It's the 100th anniversary of John Cage's birth, so there's a lot of Cage in the festival. We've had Cage stuff in the previous years’ festivals too. What I like about the program though is that you don't have to know anything about him to appreciate what's going on.

What else is on the program this year?

Well there are people like Amanda Palmer from The Dresden Dolls, who used to tour with the Femmes, but there is all kinds of new stuff - so much Australian stuff, which is fantastic. Lots of these acts are basically unknown in the rest of the world, but they are great - guys like Lawrence English. I travel in Australia quite a bit, and I became friends with Lawrence in Brisbane. I think that he's doing a lot of interesting things with music. We're also doing a massive project with Pierre Henry, who really started a lot of stuff that everyone's been doing lately.

Can you tell us a little more about Pierre?

Pierre invented musique concrete; he was one of the first people to make compositions from tapes - splicing, editing and manipulation - and using these as the building blocks of composition. We take all that for granted now. Back then they used to have to go to extraordinary lengths to do it. So he's working on a piece for MONA FOMA. We're supplying him with the sounds by musicians from every state in Australia, and he's got his own sounds, and he'll make these into a new composition. He can't travel anymore. He really wanted to come down here though, so we came up with the idea of doing a satellite transmission from his house, which is an amazing place full of art and music. It will still be a live performance, but from France. It's radical stuff. It's exciting.

Do you "like" all of the acts in the program?

No, I don't like everything and a lot of the time neither do other poeple. I have this conversation repeatedly, about MONA too, people will say: "I don't like the stuff in the museum, but I think that the museum's good." I suppose that they say the same thing about MONA FOMA. Sometimes I put things in there to provoke. There's also things like 'process art', where the process is more important than the end result. I respect that as a practice, even though I don't often like the result.

A lot of the artists are quite obscure, how do you keep the programme accessible?

I don't care how unpopular the artists are, but I do want it to be relatable. You don't have to be a devotee of an artist to 'get' it. There's a lot of music that no one's heard, but it's so good and digestible that it works. A lot of times people say, "I didn't really like that, but I appreciate it. I can tell that that person is really good at what they do."

How much autonomy do you have with the program?

I have a lot of freedom. I talk about the stuff with David [Walsh, the director of MONA]. We're the same age, we both come from blue collar origins, we relate to each other, but there are obviously differences. I do what I think is appropriate for the museum and the statement that it should be making as applied to music. If I'm not sure if an act - particularly a commercial act - could fit in at MONA FOMA I might check with David, but I never don't put something in because he doesn't like it. A lot of the time he's said, "I thought that was going to suck, but it was great."

Do you think that events like MONA FOMA are changing the wider mentality of people in Hobart?

Tasmania has an endemic inferiority complex, which I think is being dispelled because of the stuff that we are doing. We're also not by any means the only thing happening. There are great places here. There are a lot of excellent art galleries and music, and a few night clubs with original music. I think it's maybe changing the attitude of the Hobartians. They are actually really proud of Tasmania, but kind of afraid to say so. People ask me: "Why did you move to Tasmania?" and I say, "Well, you know why. It's beautiful, the food is great, the people are really friendly." Maybe there's a certain amout of affirmation going on as a result of the museum being open and a result of people like me and other foreigners and mainlanders coming down and saying: "Wow, this place is great!" It's also giving some of the young people a reason to hang around. Tasmania uses the young population at a greater rate. I've talked to booking agents about this; you can book acts for really young people, and for older people, but you can't for 25-40 year olds because they've all left. There's a whole, like, lost generation in Tasmania. I think that maybe having a little bit of critical mass on the creative side of things is providing different possibilities for young people. Maybe they can stay here and even have an art practice here. It's not a pre-requisite for them to think that they have to leave. We've actually had some people moving here because of what's going on. It's changing.

MONA FOMA happens 13-22 January, 2012. Find the full MONA FOMA calendar here.