FORMER Freo roots musician and environmental activist Steve Manoa will play a show at the Fibonacci Centre December 2.

Inspired by John Butler, the California-born artist who now calls Byron Bay home, fuses 6- and 12-string guitars, didgeridoo, drums, Native American flute and his voice to produce songs with indigenous, reggae and folk root influences.

Manoa is on a national tour promoting his new single My Medicine, before launching a crowd funding campaign and returning to Byron Bay to record his first full-length album early next year.

“I’ve always been engaged in environmental issues,” says Manoa, who studied marine biology in California and environmental education in WA.

• Steve Manoa spent three months on an anti-fracking blockade.

In 2014 he spent three months at the anti-fracking Bentley Blockade in NSW, playing alongside Butler, Xavier Rudd and Nahko to keep protestors’ spirits up.

“There were people from all walks of life unified with a common purpose,” Manoa says.

“It changed my life.”

The rising artist has since written The Water Song, a piece honouring the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers and their prayer for healing the world’s waters.

Manoa is hosting a screening a documentary on the Bentley Blockade with Lock the Gate at the Margaret River Cultural Centre on December 1 before heading to Fremantle.

The musician recorded his first EP in Fremantle and returns every six months to visit his dad.

by JERICHO FEATHERSTONE