Interview: Dozzi

Brisbane trio Dozzi is made up of three sisters who are on the verge of releasing their debut album. I recently spoke to Andrea about the process of making that album and about their single recorded with Drew McAlister of McAlister Kemp. I was a bit slow with the interview, though, because their next single has been released - called 'Weakness', it's already a staple of their live shows. Look out for Dozzi - live and recorded - near you.

So you’ve been in Nashville?

Yes.  We were in LA and Nashville, so got back yesterday.  

And was that to record the upcoming album, the Nashville trip?

We had some meetings and we did record some songs.  Yeah.

Did you have another trip a little while ago as well?

We haven’t been over in the States, I think, for a couple of years now for music.  I’ve gone for a holiday, but not for music.

Right, right.  And I saw a photo of you meeting Chip Esten from Nashville.

Mmhm.  Yep, yep, yep. One of the highlights [laughs].

That looked like it was backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, was it?

Yes. I saw him and I didn’t care if I was being cool or not — I was on a mission to get a photo with him.  And I did.  And I introduced myself and he was very nice, and he knew we were from Australia, obviously, and asked where were we up to in Australia?  And I said, “Oh, it’s only the first season.”  He said, “Oh, we’ve got so much to look forward to.”  And he was so nice, and then I smiled.

And it was a great photo as well.  He certainly didn’t look at all troubled by being seen with the three of you.

No [laughs].  No, I think he’s just such a nice guy that – just used to people asking for photos all the time now, since the show has just skyrocketed.

So  I don’t know the three of you started performing.  But I do know you’re from a heavily musical family.  So I was wondering if you could talk a bit about your family musical background and then how the band started?

We grew up with musicians as parents.  So they would write country songs, and they would learn and perform cover stuff.  So that’s what we grew up listening to.  And they were musicians until about – how long ago – about 10 years ago.  So our whole lives– our parents were out at night and home during the day.  There’s actually another three siblings as well, so we’ve got another two brothers and a small sister.  And our brother Caleb played about four gigs with us with Jesse and I, when we were younger.  And then he decided to get a real job [laughs]. Then when Nina finished high school she was playing piano and singing, so we just thought we might as well start a band, us three.  And that was about six, seven years ago now.

So have you been playing mostly in Brisbane?  Have you played in Tamworth yet?

Yeah.  We we’ve been at the last two Tamworths.

Oh, how did I miss you?  I don’t know.

The first Tamworth we were there we played – I think we did fourteen shows in seven days, or something. But this last Tamworth we started to cut it back, and I think we only did six, or something.  Maybe less than that. 

Well, clearly I just didn’t research the program well enough.

 [Laughs].  No.  God, how rude [laughs].  Well now you know next Tamworth you have to come and see us.

Absolutely.  But you must have started out in Brisbane.  And I do think Brisbane’s proving to be quite fertile ground for country music performers at the moment.

Well, there’s a few of us.  There’s not as many, obviously, as Sydney and stuff, but there’s a few of us.  And we all generally know each other as well [laughs], which is good.  So Seleen McAlister, whenever we see her we get a snap and have a good chat.  With a lot of the bands like that, though, you become friends. But, yes, we’ve been playing in Brisbane.  And we have been doing other festivals and gigs.  We’ve been to Mackay twice, Bundaberg once.  We’ll go to Bundaberg again this year.  And we’ve done a lot of miles in the car. Up and down, up and down, but the furthest down we’ve gone is Sydney.

That means there’s plenty of territory left for you to explore.  At least it’s a big country. 

Exactly.  There is, there is.  And we will.  Have to get a big bus so we can do it more comfortably [laughs].

Yes.  Because I actually would think three people in a car with instruments, let alone luggage, would be quite difficult.

Oh, you should see.  Whoever’s in the back we put pillows around you because it’s very squished and you can’t see out the back.  You can’t see out the side.  It’s full to the brim. So then it’s annoying, because half the time you don’t wear half the clothes you brought anyway.  Like, oh, it would have been so much easier if we didn’t bring everything.

Well you should maybe settle on a band uniform and that will take care of it.

[Laughs].  Yeah, no, maybe not.

In terms of how you arrange who does what between the three of you when you’re playing live, and this goes for the recording as well, is it a question of who’s been the main songwriter on a particular song, that’s – that person gets to sing it?

No.  We know where our strengths and weaknesses are in our voices, we generally know if it’s high I’ll do it, if it’s low Nina will do it, and to what part of what song.  Because in all our other songs we all share lead.  So we all have parts.  So we just work out what part suits who the best.  Because the song needs to sound the best it can, so there’s no point in getting someone to sing some part that’s wrong for them, because the song just won’t be what it could be.

It’s probably easier, I guess,– or maybe not – to get past ego when you’re related to each other.  Siblings if they’re close – if they’re that kind of close where you’re used to arguing with each other and getting past – you can probably negotiate things like that without too much drama.

That’s true.  And you also know that we have each other’s back, so we’re not trying to push the other one out, get the limelight to ourselves.  We do have each other’s back.  And when you know that deep down you are willing to accept something that you may have thought otherwise.

You mentioned earlier that you have another sister.  Is she feeling left out?

No [laughs]. We say, ‘You should sing something for us’, because I think she can sing, but she won’t. But she’s, like, ‘It’s just not a big dream of mine’.  So that’s fair enough.  She wants to do real estate, so she should go do it [laughs]. Our mum’s in real estate now, so we tend to copy each other. One does music, the others do music.  One does real estate, the other does real estate [laughs].

There must be a small amount or even a big amount of pride for your parents in the fact that the three of you are following what was, obviously, a passion of theirs for so many years.

Well, it’s good, because we do get a lot of support from our parents.  And they help us as much as they can.  So that – it’s really good to have that instead of doing it by yourself without their blessing. They want for everything to sound the best it can, and us to do the best we can as well.  You need that, I think.

Well, yes.  If you can start off from that grounding of knowing that you don’t have that to prove to your family, I think it does give you a really sturdy platform.  And obviously the McClymonts are a comparison, because they’re three sisters as well, but there was that there was that sense with them that family structure really gives them the ability to just think, okay, well, we’ve got each other, out we go into the world, and then we’ll – and we’ll see what comes, but we will always have each other at the end of the day.

Exactly.  And you know what?  Doing it with your family is a lot more fun than – well, than I would imagine doing it by yourself would be, considering you’ve got your family there.  So when you do travel for so long you don’t get so homesick, or lonely.  So having a family is the way to do it, I think.

So your album is in the bag.  It’s all recorded and it’s coming out in a month or so, is that right? 

We’re not sure at the moment.  We’re working with some people in the States, so it’s a bit up in the air when that’s coming out.  But we will let everyone know when it does come out.  We don’t want it go to unnoticed, obviously [laughs]. We’ve put a lot of hard work into it.  So we’re not 100% sure when, but we will let you know.

The reason for talking to you is the single off it, which you’ve recorded with Drew McAlister. Drew’s quite an in-demand person – apart from McAlister Kemp, he also does a lot of songwriting. He’s not as well known for doing guest vocals, I don’t think.  But, certainly, well, it’s appropriate for this song.  So how did that association come about?

Well, after we wrote the song and we recorded some of it in Nashville, we were trying to think of who would suit it, because it needed someone with an amazing voice that could do the song justice, and put the heart and soul it needed.  And he thought of Drew, because he knows how good his voice is.  And he sent the song to Drew.  And Drew, obviously, liked it enough that he said yes.

Did you record that vocal in the studio together, or was it one of those situations where he was separate?

It was done separately.  The magic of technology these days [laughs].

Well, hopefully, one day you’ll both be playing at the same festival and he can appear on stage and sing it with you.

I know.  We’re all looking forward to that day.  We are, because we’re used to saying, sorry, we don’t have a surprise from out the back.  Drew’s not going to walk out, so Jesse’s just going to i transform into a male halfway through.  [Laughs].

I’m sure she appreciates that. 

Oh, yeah.

And you also mentioned earlier on that you grew up with country music, that your parents played it.  So does it just seem natural that the three of you are in country music, or have you flirted with other genres?

Well, we didn’t grow up listening to music our parents liked.  We grew up listening to our parents writing country music.  And so that’s what we knew how to write.  And that’s where we learnt about the storytelling and stuff like that.  So whenever we have done our original stuff we’ve just done it our way, I guess.  It has never been hard rock.  It’s never been pop-pop. We also know that we have a natural, I guess, twang when we sing, which fits country.  And we love the story telling and meaning in country music.  There’s nothing else like that.  When you listen to a country song you can picture everything that’s happening.  And I love that.  And we love that everyone plays an instrument, and everyone loves to write.  And the harmonies ֪– we’re obviously big on harmonies.  So it’s kind of a natural thing for us to sing country.

Storytelling is always what I focus on with country as well, because it’s something that marks out the genre from other genres, but also it’s the Australian storytelling in song.  There’s no other way to get Australian stories in song, because rock and pop songs don’t really do it.  And I think you see that in Tamworth, how important that is for people to get those stories.

Yeah, exactly.  Music can be like therapy, in a way.  Or music touches you in a way that nothing else can.  So you need those stories in there to help you through, or just to brighten your day, or to do whatever you want the music to do.

I sometimes wonder, though, for songwriters and performers like yourselves, whether because you are telling stories, to an extent you’re wearing your heart on your sleeve.  Do you ever feel too exposed?

No.  It’s kind of therapy in a way, I guess.  And you want to write and put your heart on your sleeve.  We love getting out our feelings because you know you’re not the only one.  You may be having a really crappy day, or going through something horrible, or going through something amazing, and you’re not the only one who has done that.  You’re not the only person who has felt like that.  So we love writing something, and getting something out there, so that people also know others feel that way, or can relate to it.

When it comes to writing those stories down, and then writing the songs for the album, did you end up with more than you needed, so you’ve had to keep some back?

Yes.  It’s always the way.  We just write and write, and you end up picking the best ones [laughs], which is good.

I was going to say, it’s a good problem to have.  And I’m also curious because a lot of people, when they’re writing for albums, it would be quite structured:  ‘We’re doing it on this day for this long.’  But because the three of you are in the family together, I would think that there’s the opportunity for spontaneous songwriting to occur.

Well, we all write together, but we also write separately too.  Songwriting is always happening somewhere.  We do have rehearsal dates where if we need to rehearse something we’ll rehearse it, otherwise we’ll work on a new song, or whatever like that.  Normally you’ll bring what you’ve already done.  Or we could be out on the road and Nina will play us something she has just written, and then we’ll have listening with fresh ears and then start working on it.  But if you go to Nashville or something, you’ve got songwriting days booked in with people.  So they’re more structured, because you’ve got to do it then.

Is it hard to come up with things to, essentially, channel what you need to channel when you know you’ve got those set times?  Or does it make it easier?

Sometimes.  It really depends.  You’ve got to click with the person you’re writing with, and get along, and work well together.  So, and you don’t just come and go, ‘Okay, let’s now think of something.’  You normally come with something you’ve already written, or a title, or something that you want to write about.  But sometimes it’s easier than other times.  And sometimes you get better results than other times.

And just going back to something you said a couple of minutes ago about rehearsal days and organising it.  Country music people often make it look like it’s fun and easy.  But, invariably, you all work hard.  You’re all rehearsing a lot.  You’re all on the road a lot. And, really, there’s no substitute for that hard work.

Yeah.  Well, you’ve got to.  If you want to be good at something you have to put the hard work into it.  And it shows.  You can tell when bands or people have put the hard work into it.  And you get used to it.  We tell our sisters – our sister who’s not in the band, “Oh, tonight, tomorrow night, the next night and the next night I can’t do anything because we’re rehearsing, so …”  “Oh, I don’t know how you do that.” 

[Laughs].

But you do.  And you don’t have any problems doing that, because you know why you’re doing it.  And you know how much you need to do it.  And once you’re busy, it’s like anything.  You get into a routine.  So we try and create a routine.  It’s like eating healthy.  It’s like exercising.  It’s like everything you do.

www.dozzimusic.net

Album review: Bittersweet by Kasey Chambers

It's tempting to write a review of Kasey Chambers's new album, Bittersweet, that is loaded with superlatives and not much else. Not because it's a perfect album - if there even is such a thing - but because it's her best album in a career full of truly exceptional albums. It may not be my favourite of her albums - yet - but anyone who knows her work could recognise that this album is a progression from the last (Little Bird) just as that album was a progression from the one before that and so on, back to the start: The Captain. Each album shows progression not just in the stories told - in a life unfolding through song, amongst other things - but in the way the songs are delivered and in how authoritative Kasey sounds when singing them.

Kasey has always produced albums that break your heart and then mend it, maybe because we can hear her breaking and mending her own heart over and over again. On this album, in the song, 'I Would Do', she makes the breaking explicit: 'I'll do it till a heart breaks/If that what it takes/Until my heart breaks/If that what it takes/Until my heart breaks/If that's what it takes'. It takes until the title track, 'Bittersweet' - sung with Bernard Fanning - for the mending to become clear, and further still in 'I'm Alive', when she sings about being given another chance and having enough stories to fill a mansion. 

As an album, this collection of songs is possibly Kasey's most cohesive since The Captain. Previous albums have contained extraordinary songs and some that weren't ordinary, exactly, but just not extraordinary. Kasey's bar is always set high and not all of her songs can make it, but they're all worth listening to. That is true of Bittersweet, too, except that this album is not just cohesive but solid. There is a sense of Kasey delivering a message, and perhaps the key is in that final song.'I'm Alive' - after a difficult time in her personal life (which fans will know about but which is only relevant to a review because it has shaped some of her lyrics), she is here, and not just alive but vibrant, defiant, creative and strong.  

This is the first of Kasey's albums that have not been produced by her brother, Nash Chambers, and this is another progression. Not because Nash hasn't been a great producer for her, but because the more steps Kasey takes towards believing that her monumental talent stands alone - that she does not need any family members to bolster it or coax it out of her - the better. She doesn't need anyone else to bring her songs fully to life - she just needs to believe in herself more. Bittersweet sounds like a step - a leap, a bound - in that direction. For that reason, as well as because of the songs she gives us, it may become my favourite Kasey Chambers album yet. There is, of course, the remarkable, wonderful prospect that there will be new candidates for that title one day.

Bittersweet is out now through Warner Music Australia.

www.kaseychambers.com

Interview: Low Rent

Melbourne band Low Rent have flown a bit under the country music radar - but with the release of their new EP, Grace Radio, their sophisticated-yet-laidback alt-country sound should win them some new fans amongst country music listeners. Recently I spoke to Dan Swan, the head honcho of Low Rent.  


I’ll start off by asking you, why country music?

Country music has been in my family for a long time. My father performs in the same band. He always listened to Neil Young and the Rolling Stones, in a more country aspect. And that’s really had an effect on me. It feels like home. It’s ingrained. Yeah [laughs].

So you didn’t do a teenage rebellion through heavy metal, or anything like that?

Well, actually, I did.

[Laughs].

I still perform in a metal band as well, so I can’t get rid of that [laughs] interest. So the answer is ‘yes’ to that [laughs].

Are you the lead singer?

Yeah. I am. I sing in the band. It’s progressive metal [laughs].

Are there any other bands? I mean, one’s enough, let alone two, but ...

No, two’s as much as I need at the moment [laughs].

And especially when you’re the leader of both and, I would imagine, writing music for both?

Exactly, yes. Writing for both bands. So it’s a different headspace, naturally. But it’s also plenty of work.

It leads me to wonder whether for you, as a songwriter, whether [when] a song idea comes to you, you think, Oh, actually the best – the best way to serve that story is to – is through country, or it’s through metal. Or do you actually set out to write songs for each band differently?

It’s a good question. I’d say that I’d set out for a particular band in mind as opposed to thinking about a line, or something that’s more appropriate for one band or the other. Generally I’ll start with a title for a song and then build from there. So once you’ve got your title, you sort of know which band it’s going to apply to.

Are you quite workmanlike in your songwriting? Do you tend to say, okay, I need some new songs now, off I go, or do you tend to flow with the muse, so to speak?

Yeah. Sure. I am operating all the time. Even if it’s not a full song, it will be sort of gibberish on a notepad, for at least 10 to 15 minutes a day. And sometimes that turns into a song, sometimes it doesn’t. But, yeah, it isn’t a case of sitting down and writing a series of songs because we need a new album, it’s usually for picking and choosing from a big catalogue of music that I’ve got ready to go.

So it sounds like you’re a believer in the showing-up-every-day school of creative work. There are some people who do believe in the idea that you just keep writing and out of that comes something good.

Absolutely. Yeah. To me it’s the same as practising to play guitar. If you do it every day you’re going to get a little bit better each time. It’s the same approach with writing lyrics. You go deeper when you really want to write a song and have it stick, because you put in that practice.

So you talked about the music you were listening to as you were growing up. But you’ve obviously been playing guitar for a while, and singing too, so when did your personal musical history start?

That’s a good question too. I’ve been a massive Beatles fan for as long as I can remember. That’s probably the first band I got into. And, yeah, from there, I think, it was probably about 10 or 11 years old that I wrote my first song, which – no surprise –was a very Beatles-inspired song. But, yeah, I can trace it back to at least that young. And then I’d get other kids in the neighbourhood to come and perform with me, even though they had no idea what they were doing.

[Laughs].

Just to try and get a feel for performing live at that age [laughs].

Do you still have a love for harmonic voices?

Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. I mean, Low Rent has a female accompanying – sort of lead singer, you could almost say. as well. And almost every chorus has at least two, three parts in it. So I certainly do.

I remember reading something a while ago saying that humans instinctually respond to harmonic voices more than solo voices.

Absolutely – it’s that crowd mentality, isn’t it? Everybody together [laughs].

So you’ve obviously moved on from the Beatles. When you started writing songs for Low Rent, was it a conscious decision to switch your style, or you just evolved naturally towards the right style for that band?

I think having country music around me so much from that age, as well as the Beatles, it became so ingrained that when I first started to write songs they were country flavoured, and shaped what the band was going to be at that early stage. And I think that has been the case for a long time.

Now, I knew your father was in the band, but is your brother also still in the band?

Yes, he is. He’s the bass player.

Can you imagine the band without family members?

Certainly it would be a different experience without family members. Family makes it that extra special – I don’t imagine it being the same sort of thing without the family involved. I mean, as well as the players my mother’s sort of a co-manager. She’ll sell merchandise at shows, get people up dancing. So it really is everybody involved.

It sounds like there’s not a lot of push-me-pull-you stuff going on. It sounds like it’s quite a harmonious experience.

Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time it’s [laughs], it’s fantastic. But every family has [laughs] disagreements.

It’s quite an interesting dynamic because, of course, there are quite a few sibling arrangements, but it’s not that common to have a parent and child in the same band. Even Kasey Chambers doesn’t necessarily play with her father all the time. So it must be interesting for your father, in particular, to almost have a role reversal, because you’re the boss of the band, basically, and he’s not.

That’s right. Exactly, exactly. And he’s happy with that. Way back when it started with him telling me what to do and now all the roles have reversed [laughs].

It’s like a holiday for him almost.

That’s right. He can just enjoy it. And he does. He really does.

And your brother doesn’t mind not having any decisions?

No. He has a similar approach to my father. My brother, Tim, does take on some concept writing. So what I mean by that is the overall sound of a record, or what it’s going to mean overall. He’ll certainly assist with that. So he has got some creative input into the process. But for the most he is similar to my father. He’ll happily do what he’s told [laughs].

Well, I think that works out nicely for you.

It does – it does. It’s ideal.

And, actually, that’s a good segue to my next planned question which was about the concept of the EP, because I’ve only heard the one song but I’ve read that it’s a classic concept record. So I was wondering if you could say what the concept is?

Yeah, for sure. The protagonist that I’ve chosen for all five songs on the EP is a man that’s in prison, and he’s reflecting on his life, different aspects of his life. Things that have led him to where he currently is. By the end of the record he’s on death row, trying to face not only the imminent death, but just reflecting on how his life had led him to this position. I guess, I’m trying to induce from the listener the idea that even though somebody could do such horrible things and end up in a terrible position, that they are still human beings. And they do still think and feel the same way everybody else does, regardless of whatever they may have done. So, yeah, at the high level that’s the concept. 

It sounds like there’s a couple of strands in that, one of which is exploring moral boundaries, and the concept of right and wrong. And the other is having compassion for people who are difficult to have compassion for. So are those themes that you’re interested in, or themes that just emerged in the telling of this story?

I think they were themes that were very clear before even the story writing began. I knew that’s what I wanted the end, that you could feel compassion for somebody like this, even though you’re not supposed to. And I think it has been achieved. When you’ve got that structure – similar to the way I was saying, that I’d write a song with the title and then elaborate from there; same sort of thing with the record culture. We have an idea and a very, very rough outline, then we fill in all the flesh and bone and make it into a breathing thing.

I’ve interviewed quite a few songwriters over the past couple of years – or three years, I guess, and I’ve actually not ever come across anyone who works quite that way. So you are you conscious of being, I suppose, if not unique, but almost unique, I would think, in working from concept first?

Oh, sure, definitely, it’s something I’m aware of, that my approach might not be the same as everybody else’s. But it’s a comfortable way to work for me. It keeps you on the page when you’ve got a really clear idea before you even begin. So, commonly, in music you can have an idea just transform as soon as you get other people involved, or play it a different way than you first imagined. So sticking to that course is really something I strive for.

And it’s not unrelated to the metal side of you either –  it sounds a bit like a Led Zeppelin or The Who thing to do.

Absolutely. Especially the concept idea. That’s a very ’70s idea. Every album in the ’70s [laughs] was a concept record by rock bands. And I love all that music, so I think that’s definitely a little sprinkle in what we’ve done.

So it sounds like your life is suffused with music in a lot of ways. And I note that you’re a trained sound engineer, and you also took over the production of this EP – which, on the one hand, sounds terrific if you love music, but on the other hand, I was wondering if that, at any point, felt like too much responsibility?

It only even feels like too much responsibility if things aren’t going to plan [laughs]. That can be overwhelming. But generally not. I like to have a lot of control. That might be a theme that you’ve picked of some of my responses.

[Laughs] Yeah.

And that’s just control still. You’re not communicating to a producer or an engineer that needs to make your idea into a tangible sonic sound. I can do it myself. So, yeah, I get to sit in that seat as well as the creative writing seat and director of the band, if you will.

Control’s not always a bad thing either, or wanting control’s not a bad thing. It can get a bad name. But I tend to find that people who like to control in the way you’re describing are also very good at taking responsibility for things.

Absolutely. Another word that comes to mind which sounds like a bad thing, but it’s not necessarily when you’re talking about art or an artist, is ‘selfish’. If you’re particularly selfish about what you’re doing, that means that nobody is going to change it. It’s not going to stray from the page. It’s not going to become something completely different. And I’m all for being selfish about art and making art.

It’s one thing when you’re a solo performer and you can just boss yourself around, but most bands don’t operate very well unless there’s a benign dictator at the head of them.

Absolutely. I couldn’t even think of a band that doesn’t have that role in it, in some way [laughs]. Sometimes there’s two.

Keith and Mick.

Yes [laughs].

It is a lot of responsibility. But in the end you know that you’ve got the product you want.

Exactly. And that’s what it’s all about. No compromise.

And then you get to hand it over to people like Shane Nicholson and Jeff McCormack to do the finishing touches. So I was wondering how those relationships came about?

Shane had heard of my group before I got in contact with him with this particular record. And I had to find a pocket of time with Shane, because he’s such a busy man, which, in a way, sped up the process for Grace Radio and its production, so we worked on his timeframe, which was earlier this year, about January, February this year he had free to work on something. So we needed to hustle down and get it all ready. But once I made contact with him he was more than happy to be involved, and did a great job mixing the record. And it was also his recommendation to use Jeff McCormack, who he used himself for his own projects. So that was entirely Shane’s doing and thinking, and it was, again, a great move. I think Jeff has done an excellent job mastering it.

And apart from that, just from my own observation of Australian country music and how things work, those relationships tend to become important in other ways. It’s not just how your songs sound, but what you can go on to do, in terms of touring and future collaborations. And, certainly, those two men are very good to know, shall we say?

Absolutely, absolutely. Especially for a band like ours. We have been together for a long time, but we’ve never really taken that full plunge into exploring what Australia might be able to offer us. And already Shane has hinted at good places in Tamworth to look out for, and particular festivals that he has found helpful to his career. So you’re exactly right. It’s that network thing really starting to work in the right way.

And I also find that the country music audience really understands that country music’s a broad umbrella, and is very accepting of acts they haven’t heard of before, regardless of whether those acts are brand spanking new or have been around for a while. So I think it’s a great a genre to work in, and certainly it seems from reading the press release that you’re ready to burst out, in a way. And it’s certainly the right genre to do that in.

For sure. We did a live [song] yesterday on a morning community radio station. That was just myself and Tim on bass. And we were saying the exact same thing. It feels like everything’s in place for us now. We’ve got the right people involved. We’ve got a great publicist. And we’ve got really good songs that might be able to help us break through and get some attention, which is what, I think, we need at the moment.

I guess the trick, though, is – as it is for a lot of musicians – how you balance. Especially working in country, ideally you get out around the country. But it’s a big country and it takes a lot of time and organisation to do that. So, I guess, it’s a question of how much time you can give to it, initially, at least.

Certainly, certainly. And travel is something you really do need to plan for in great detail in Australia, because you’re right, it’s eight hours to the next state, not two hours, like it would be in the US or somewhere. So you’ve really got to hope to get a lot out of that if you’re going to do it. And it can take a toll. It’s a lot of time.

Well it can, but it seems like you’re in the right place. You’ve got a great EP, and you met some good people, and Tamworth is half a year away, so you’ve got time to plan your shows there.

Yeah. Exactly, exactly [laughs].

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