Queensland singer-songwriter Tobias released the poignant single 'Just a Boy' recently, ahead of the release of his album Alive on 4 November. Tobias has played in other people's bands as well as creating his own songs; now he's focusing on a very productive solo career of writing, playing and performing. It was my pleasure to talk to him recently.
You’ve returned to
the Sunshine Coast to live – how long were you away?
I moved to Melbourne nine years ago. Before that I did a lot
of travelling around the world. I lived in Brisbane. I tried to settle in Noosa
but the city lights beckoned. And I’ve just decided to come back now, just to
be with family and stuff. It’s been really, really wonderful.
Once you’ve got an
attachment to that place, it’s hard to leave it behind.
Absolutely. It was just time, you know – I was ready to come
back. And it’s been great for music as well. For songwriting.
On Hastings Street
[Noosa Heads] there’s the odd venue that has music, and I know there’s the surf
club at Sunshine Beach. Are you finding that there’s a good number of places
for you to play there?
Yes. The Sunshine Coast has really changed in the last ten
years, and especially lately. There’s a lot of places that still appreciate
original music. A lot of venues, and a lot of things just popping up through
Yandina and Caloundra and Nambour, Eumundi. All over the coast there’s a real
support for local music, and it’s great [laughs]. It’s amazing. People love it
up here. They love music. Coming from Melbourne, where there’s a lot of
original music and it’s really hard to get people along to shows, up here is very
different. It’s very alive.
I’ll backtrack now
and ask you a bit about your musical lineage – what lessons you used to listen
to when you were young, where you think your musical style has come from.
I grew up in country Victoria up I was about eight. My mum
and dad were real folkies. We moved out to the country and always had Bob Dylan
and Johnny Cash and John Denver. A lot of folk music from the ’60s and ’70s
like John Renbourn and Stefan Grossman. So I grew up with that music and around
that sort of art. Dad taught me how to play guitar and I just fell into the
style of folk, blues, finger-pickig guitar. That’s where it all started for me
– and it hasn’t ended, either [laughs]. I have new love affairs with country
artists. I’m just so into Willie Nelson right now, it’s so funny. But also my
music’s influence a lot by bands I grew up with in the ’80s and ’90s, like The
Cure and The Smiths. Bands like The Shins. I love to think that my music’s
influenced by a lot of country, folk and pop – not pop but indie music.
John Denver gives me
a bit of a clue about your melodic sensibilities – I can hear pop in your
music, in a good way because I love pop music. And I think it’s hard to write
melody really well and in a way that suits your voice. John Denver and Johnny
Cash is an interesting combination of influences. They’re definitely both in
your sound. And country music is storytelling in song, that’s a big part of its
appeal
Absolutely – and it’s beautiful, isn’t it, when music does
tell a story, and it’s meaningful and you can connect with the music. It takes
you out of your life and your body, I reckon.
Which leads me to ask
you about your songwriting process – do you start with a story idea or with a
melody, or both? Neither?
It starts with a melody or a chord progression but it comes
hand in hand with an emotion. If I’m playing something, mucking around, or I
hear a melody I’ll play it, but it normally ties in with an emotion I’m
feeling, or something I’m remembering, then it snowballs from there. But I find
if I just play chords and melodies there’s not much meaning in it and I shelve
them. I write a lot of songs every week. I never switch it off [laughs]. But it
always starts in the morning – my best times are sunrise and with my morning
cuppa [laughs], when my head’s clean and fresh, and when the ideas come freely.
I muck around with melodies and chords, and then if it takes me away somewhere
the song will get momentum and it structures itself, I think.
With the writing
every day, was that something you decided a while ago?Was it a discipline you needed to have? Or do you feel every day that
you want to write?
It wasn’t something that I sat down to do – it’s something
I’ve always done because I love it so much. And I just need to, it’s one of
those things – like eat [laughs]. I’ve got to do it. Sometimes the songs are
terrible but sometimes they can be really nice and they might take me away.
It’s funny sometimes to have to talk about this stuff. But I’ve always done it.
I always find it
interesting to find out about the process. Some songwriters write every day to
write things out, essentially, and some like to obey the muse. There is
something, I think, to be said for writing out the stuff that isn’t working to
get to the stuff that is.
Absolutely. I find that one song might come out of mucking
around. I might have to write three or four songs that sound the same, and then
one of them comes out of it, and it won’t be until I look back at the demos
that I think, Whoa, that’s all the same
song. That progression, that melody. That’s a test of a good song, I think,
if you always come back to that progression and think, What’s that? [laughs] ‘Oh yeah, that’s what I’m hooked on.’
You talked about
expressing emotion in song – did you ever consider taking another path to do
that, like painting or writing prose, or was it always music?
It’s always been music. I’ve done a lot of visual art stuff
but it doesn’t come naturally to me. Music and songwriting seem to be the best
way for me to express creativity and to be whole as an artist, I think. It’s
just the way that’s been natural for me, and it always has since I can
remember. It’s really nice to be able to still do it and hone that craft. I’ve
done a lot of things in my life that haven’t come naturally and have felt very
awkward, but it’s beautiful to do something that comes easily.
Do you ever write
with other people?
Yes, I’ve collaborated quite a bit. But it’s something I
need to work on a bit more. I get a lot out of writing songs with other people
and playing with other people. I learn from ear so I grew up jamming – that’s
how I learnt to play, and learnt how to play with people on stage.
In terms of how your
voice developed – it has such an incredible tone to it. Is that something that
came from the ether, for lack of a better term? Or have you consciously
modelled it on someone?
No, I just opened my mouth [laughs].
Well, that was a
happy surprise!
Yeah, sure [laughs]. It was lucky. I think it’s gotten
stronger over the years – but I think it’s gotten stronger with confidence,
that’s really what it’s been about. But I haven’t done much vocal training. I
said to my producer recently, ‘I’m thinking of getting some vocal training’,
and he said, ‘No, don’t! Don’t do it! They’ll turn you into one of those
singer-singers.’
I suppose one reason
to go might be to avoid damaging your vocal cords.
Yes. I definitely warm up before I perform or record – I’ve
got exercises.
In one video on your
website, of a live performance, you were playing a very distinctive-looking
guitar – it was green. Are you loyal to one instrument or do you have a few
guitars?
I have a lot of guitars. I just can’t thrown them out or
sell them, so I’m carrying around a lot. That one came to me about two years
ago and I haven’t played anything else but that guitar. I just have a love
affair with it [laughs]. It just seems to work for me if I look after it. It’s
great for finger picking and it’s quite sensitive. I can also bash it out. So I
use that guitar a lot. That and a banjo I’ve got.
Was banjo hard to
learn?
I think I was lucky that I’ve played a lot of finger-picking
guitars and in open-chord tunings, and when I moved to the five-string banjo it
was already on open G tuning, so it was just a matter of learning a few
fingerings. Within six months I was playing banjo for people like Missy
Higgins, Jen Cloher and those sorts of acts through Melbourne and around
Australia … It’s been a great instrument, just to play with people. It’s a
really fun thing. [American actor and writer] Steve Martin says, ‘You can never
play a sad song on a banjo’ [laughs].
Now, on to your album
title, which is Alive – why did you
choose it?
I think it just sums up the experience of the way the album
came about and the songwriting. Each song is really a personal experience that
I’ve written about. And the only reason I can experience those is that I feel
quite awake in my life right now, and I feel alive for those experiences. And
the music itself is quite uplifting. So it was one word that sums up the album.
Someone – a producer – said that an album’s just a snapshot of your creative
career at that time, and I think that word sums up that time, this time, and
the moment, and the album and the way things are.
Which is a pretty
wonderful thing – some people might go their whole lives without ever feeling
that.
I know. And I forget too that I do a lot of work around
being awake and alive [laughs]. I do a lot of meditation and I look after
myself. It all really helps.
In choose the songs
for this album, did you have quite a few to choose from or were you carefully
curating throughout your songwriting process to arrive at this particular
collection?
Not particularly. I had about 40 songs to choose from. Some
of them I want to use on the next album – that’s another story. It just sort of
happened organically. A few of the songs are upbeat poppy, some of them are
country, which I really love, and some of them are folk-rocky songs, and I
guess I chose them to narrate a story on the album. I didn’t just throw any
song that I thought would go in there -- I did carefully consider which would
be nice.
I get the impression
that you would be careful [laughs].
Sure [laughs]. It’s really exciting to think that in my next
album recording – which I’ve already teed up in a few weeks – it will keep the
process going and keep the songs alive. Another producer who I really admire
said, ‘If you’ve got a bunch of songs, you don’t sit on them – you either
record them and move on or just put them aside and revisit them. And I think
that’s what I want to do – really have relationships with these songs. Put them
onto an album and then I can move on to the next one.
On the single, ‘Just
a Boy’, which the notes say is about your mother, it might have been easy or
tempting to become maudlin about the subject matter but you really avoided that
– so it seems like you approached the subject matter from a position of not
necessarily joy – or maybe it is joy looking back at your childhood and knowing
your mother.
I’m glad you said that. Even though it is a really sad
memory … On my last album I wrote a tribute to my mother’s passing and it was
more about the grief. This song is more looking back as a memory of joy. It was
growing up and going to Noosa River and fishing – everything just being a really
fun, wonderful time. All this warm weather and eating barbies all the time
[laughs]. Just a happy time and it reminds me of Australia as well – we love
that, being outside and being together and having a barbie and shooting the
breeze. It was just a memory and I wrote it when I was feeling a little bit
lonely down in Melbourne and it was cold, and the sun had just come out for the
spring and I thought, Wow, that was such
a beautiful time. I was so blessed to grow up in Eumundi and Noosa and ride
motorbikes and make bows and arrows. [Laughs] When you lose a parent at
that age a lot of that lifestyle goes, so it’s easy to look back on it
nostalgically. But I’m glad you said that because it is a really joyful memory
– a really beautiful memory.
And it’s a lovely
song. Now, my last question: you’re about to go on tour – are you looking
forward to it?
You bet [laughs]. I can’t wait. I’ve got a new tour caravan.
I’m going to be on the road for about six weeks I think, doing quite a few
shows from Brisbane down to Melbourne then back up to Brisbane and all the way
up past Rockhampton, and a few house concerts on the way. I’m really, really
looking forward to it. I love being on the road, playing for people, meeting
new people.
New South Welshman Jason Walker recently released All-Night Ghost Town, his first album on Lost Highway Australia. I spoke to Jason about the ghosts in his all-night ghost town, Ringo Starr, and about his new label and the album's producer, Shane Nicholson.
What is your musical
lineage?
I played country music from a pretty young age with my dad,
we just sat around the house and he would play the guitar and I would play the
steel guitar and we’d harmonise on songs. Then I started doing the same with my
brother when he was old enough to pick up a guitar and start singing and
writing songs. So we started pretty young and I guess we’ve kept it up, in a
way. My brother Sean and I still sit down and play together every so often. We
still have the same songs and still have the same brotherly harmonies. It’s a
bit like the Everlys or the Jayhawks – brothers in spirit or actual brothers
sing pretty well together.
You can see that in
the McClymonts – three sisters and they sound so natural together, so complementary.
There is definitely something in those sibling harmonies that is difficult to
replicate. Even the Beatles don’t quite get there.
That’s right. They still sound like three madly different
voices, and that’s what I really like about them [laughs]. Or four voices – you
can’t overlook Ringo, can you? He’s also the only member of the Beatles to
release a country music album. In fact, his solo album, Beaucoups of Blues, was the first Beatles solo album in 1970. He
recorded in Nashville with all those great names in country music on it. I
think it’s a fantastic record. And for the record I also love the
McClymonts,think they’re great.
They’ve got everything that’s great about that old-school country music style
of entertainment even though their sound is more modern.
You played steel
guitar with your dad – that’s not usually a first instrument for someone, so
how did that end up being your first instrument?
It was kind of an accident, really. I bought this guitar off
this guy – it was an electric guitar and it was really terrible. Unplayable.
None of the edges were dressed. So I took it back to the music shop and the guy
said, ‘I don’t have a guitar here that’s only worth $100’ – like this one was –
‘why don’t you have this lap steel guitar?’ It was a Teisco and they were a
very cool, Japanese-looking thing that had these futuristic buttons on it that
I quite liked fooling with. So the appeal of it for me at that point was the
buttons so I could press them and try to pull all of these different sounds out
of it. And then one day I actually started playing it, just tuned it to open E
and played the scales on the steel guitar, with my steel, and I thought, That’s not too bad, but maybe if I tune the
G down half a step to F sharp … It was pretty cool, some of the sounds that
I started to get out of it. So I kept it for quite a few years and I still play
steel guitar, although I now play pedal steel – I own a couple of pedal steels
and I like nothing more than sitting down at night when the kids have gone to
bed and just sit in the lounge room and play my steel guitar until all hours.
It’s an incredible
sound and it immediately denotes not just the genre of music but it seems to
conjure up play and time and all sorts of things, that instrument.
Absolutely. Last night I was given it a bit of a spanking
and I was playing these licks and they were straight out of 1968, Bakersfield.
That’s about my proficiency level, as far as that goes. Then I discovered some
other licks that went on top of it and I was having such a great time that I
forgot what time it was and next thing it was 2 a.m. and I had to go to bed – I
had to take the kids to school in the morning!
So who are the ghosts
in the All-Night Ghost Town?
I think the ghosts are all those great bands from the ’80s,
’90s, 2000s and 2010 onwards who are locked out of all these venues in Sydney
which are no longer open because of the lock-out laws because it’s cutting into
everybody’s business. The night economy in Sydney has been really vibrant for a
long time and now it’s just dead – there’s no other word for it. Out in the
suburbs and just out of Sydney itself in the Blue Mountains, where I live, it’s
still happening a little bit but in Sydney itself it’s dead. There’s no great
gigs to go and play during the week any more. There’s no Hopetoun, no Sando.
And that’s the all-night ghost town that I was referring to: the town of
Sydney, now completely denuded of great live rock ’n’ roll and country venues.
But I guess in some ways some of my favourite bands that I grew up listening to
are still punching on, still playing around Sydney. Mike Baird and his cronies
have let the nightlife die but [the bands] are still getting out there well
into the suburbs and still playing. So that’s kind of cool that they manage to do
that in spite of the government taking away our right to play, basically.
And a lot of them are
getting out to Marrickville, it seems.
Marrickville is the happening suburb in Sydney – I don’t
think there’s any musician who’d tell you otherwise. I think it’s amazing that
the inner west sound is still happening in Marrickville. Newtown’s closed down,
Stanmore’s dead and Marrickville is where it’s at now.
How long has this
album been brewing?
It’s been a long time. I was talking to Michael Taylor about
it in Tamworth 2014 and that was when he offered me the deal with Lost Highway.
I feel good about it now but there were a few times in the last few years when
I thought, Is this ever going to see the
light of day? Not because I doubted Michael’s word or the record company
but I thought maybe something was going to happen and they’d say, ‘We’re not
going to really concentrate on doing alt-country any more. It’s not a big money
spinner.’ But the fact that they’re still doing it, still sticking with it, is
fantastic. They still see the potential for people like me. So Ruby Boots and
Mustered Courage and Catherine Britt and Shane Nicholson and all these other
amazing artists.
Lost Highway
obviously has an incredibly good pedigree in the United States and here already
has established such a great line-up. It must have been exciting to be on it
and did it feel like a natural fit the first time you were talking to Michael?
Absolutely, and it was very exciting to be asked. I wasn’t
expecting it at all. He said, ‘I want to get you to write a bit of a blurb for
this introductory video for the label – it’s going to play at the launch of the
label’, which they had in Tamworth in 2014. And he waited until literally the
night before to spring on me that he wanted me on the label and would I be
interested. My gast was completely flabbered. I had to step back for a second
and go, ‘Wow, that’s amazing!’ Not least because I’m not exactly a spring
chicken compared with a lot of the other artists on the label, some of whom are
in their thirties and I’m in my late forties. It’s been an interesting ride
throughout my career and now that I’ve reached this point it doesn’t feel like
the end any more, it feels like the start of something.
One of the great
things I’ve observed about Australian country music is that age really is so
insignificant. You can start a career at sixty, or six, or sixteen. The
audience is so committed to the genre. You can have people in their sixties and
seventies who are really open minded about new music. I actually don’t see it
in any other genre.
That’s right. A lot of the people that I know, particularly
from doing gigs around Sydney is that there’s a lot of people from that baby boomer
generation, if you will, who are incredibly open minded about new music and
they love finding out about new stuff. They like country music but they
particularly like the country rock that evolved in the late ’60s out of The
Byrds and Bob Dylan and things like that, and they’ve kind of stuck with that
music forever. They’re looking for new developments on that sound and they
don’t mind that there are artists who mix up country with electronica, country
music singers who make solo albums, like Chris Stapleton, who made an amazing
record last year. A lot of my older friends really dig Sturgill Simpson, who I think is
amazing, and he’s doing more, in a way, to uphold the legacy of country music
in that outlaw spirit than a lot of other country artists.
Shane
Nicholson was your producer and he does a lot of producing for Lost
Highway. One of the things I think is great about Shane as a producer is that
he seems to be able to identify what’s unique about a performer and keep it
there. He doesn’t have a sound of his own that he layers over. What was your
experience of working with him like?
That’s totally true – he finds the sweet spot for your voice
and the way that it resonates with other instruments and he tries really hard
to get that sound in the studio, whether he’s doing stuff in his own studio or
in another studio like Jeff McCormack’s. We did a lot of the live tracks for
the record there and he just really like the sound of my voice in the studio
with the guitar playing, so I said, ‘I can play the rhythm guitar and sing,
that’s no problem’, and so we cut all the vocals live in the studio, apart from
‘Tears’. I’d sung it in the studio but then I realised we were going to use a
female vocalist, Jules Crighton, on the record, so we ended up overdubbing the
vocals again. He knew how to get that sound just right. He got us to do it live
in the studio, so we sang that duet vocal together in the studio. We did about
four takes and just chose a take and that was it. So it’s all live.
That accounts for the
unified feeling to the songs, and there’s often more of a warmth to live
tracks.
Exactly. Some producers will insist on fixing notes and
things like that – they’ll go through an entire song and take three or four
hours to fix the song note by note. I’d rather not do that – it doesn’t sit
well with me. I was making records when we were still recording to tape. It’s
cool to be able to do it in the studio now and still hang on to something of
that live feeling.
There’s a line in
your bio where you say, ‘My crime is that I wear all these hats as writer,
steel guitarist, lead player, songwriter’ – do you have a preferred hat?
No, I don’t any more. I used to prefer the writer hat, which
could take in some of the songwriter as well because it was at a time when I
was writing a lot of songs. I’d usually write my songs at work, which is a
little bit rough on my employers, but one of them was cool about it. I’d just
take a little bit of time out of work to sit down and write a song and not
worry too much about it. But I do all of those things now together anyway. I like
to write a song and sometimes I get an idea for a story or something like that.
So I do wear all those hats still. Most of the time I’m not concentrating on
writing so much because there’s not much money init any more unless you do
copywriting or something like that. It’s mostly down to playing a bit of rock ’n’
roll, playing a bit of country and I’ll let the rest take care of the rest.
All-Night Ghost Town is out now throughLost Highway Australia/Universal.
There's any number of things that can hook me on a song, and a great chorus is high on the list. So Texas native Eric Paslay's single 'Angels in this Town', from his self-titled debut album, did the job from first listening. A brief glance at Paslay's CV explains why: he's written hit songs for a number of prominent US acts, including Rascal Flatts.
Paslay recently performed 'Angels in this Town' on NBC's Today show - you can watch the video here or below.
There are stacks of country music albums released in the USA
each year, and I don’t even attempt to cover them, mainly because this blog is
focused on Australian country music. However, something prompted me to listen
to the debut album from young artist Mo Pitney, who was born in Illinois and
now lives, naturally enough, in Nashville.
As soon as the first song, ‘Country’, started, I had
absolutely no wish to stop listening. Pitney’s voice is, simply, irresistible:
deep, warm, emotional. The clue to his vocal inspiration is in track 7, ‘I Met
Merle Haggard Today’ – and Australian country music fans will hear in Pitney echoes
of Troy Cassar-Daley, an avowed Haggard fan, and Adam Harvey – but what is
remarkable is that Pitney has such maturity to a voice that has not been
singing for that many years.
Lyrically, the songs on this album describe life, love and
faith in the country. They are sincere without being twee. The production is relatively
light on instrumentation, meaning this doesn’t sound like a heavily produced
vehicle for radio-friendly songs but more a carefully thought-out collection of
numbers that accurately depict Pitney, who co-wrote ten of the album’s twelve tracks.
The toe-tapping, catchy hallmarks of modern American country
music are certainly there on Behind This
Guitar. What’s missing is the sense of manipulation that can come from certain bells-and-whistles numbers. There may be very few original ways to sing about life
and love but Pitney’s sincerity – his ability to connect with the listener – means
that this album is a genuinely entertaining and genuinely moving experience. It is a beautiful piece of work.
Behind This Guitar is out now through Sony Music Australia.
The Central Coast of New South Wales has a vibrant country music community, and it includes duo The Wayward Henrys, who are married couple Brock and Natalie Henry. They released their debut album Cold Love in September, and it's a beautiful dance between the pair, who share singing and songwriting duties. Recently I spoke to Brock Henry about this 'break-up album without the break-up', amongst other things.
What is wayward about
you?
Probably just in the way we’ve lived our lives, I suppose.
Me and Natalie, the other songwriter, we’re husband and wife in the band. We’ve
known each other since she was sixteen and I was eighteen. We’ve been together
and been apart and gone off and done our own things, made some crazy decisions,
some good ones, some bad ones, and we’re still together. And nothing’s ever
straightforward with us. Gigs normally end up something crazy and something
happening. Nothing’s ever smooth sailing but we enjoy it anyway.
You say you make
crazy decisions, some good ones, some bad ones – it’s all good songwriting
fodder.
That’s right, exactly. We’re never short of material, that’s
for sure.
It says in your bio
that you grew up immersed in an ‘offbeat country record collection’ – what did
that collection contain?
It contained everything from the classics like Waylon and
Willie and a lot of early Canned Heat. Stuff like Chad Morgan and Tex Morton.
The whole gamut of weird Australian country guys and a lot of the American
standards as well.
I was listening to a
Chad Morgan song on ABC digital radio the other day and it was really clever
and funny, and I thought, This is why
he’s lasted as long as he has.
Exactly right. I remember as a kid my dad used to play him
and we used to laugh and love it. He’s still going now. He was old then
[laughs]. Maybe it makes me feel young, I don’t know.
So you’ve got that in
your musical background – I imagine Natalie has her own musical background. How
did you arrive at your joint musical style?
She sort of dragged me into it. She grew up in a country
music household as well, and of course she hated it until she got a bit older
and then she loved it. I played in other bands and listened to a lot of punk
and other sorts of music, and she dragged me into playing and listening to and
performing more country-orientated stuff. So I blame it all on her. It’s funny
– the stuff you grow up listening to and don’t like, eventually you come
around. Classic songs and classic songwriters, eventually you appreciate them,
especially as a musician.
In punk there’s a
certain amount of discipline – you really have to keep those lyrics tight and
keep the song structure tight. I can hear in your music the discipline in the
lyrics in that you’re not self-indulgent. Is that something you learnt in punk?
For sure. I definitely take that attitude across into
songwriting. I was listening to a lot of that music before I really understood
what it was all about, because I had older brothers who were into it. I think
in the alt-country genre a lot of people take that punk attitude across to it.
It’s a can-do
attitude, in a way, isn’t it?
That’s right, and I think it’s the way the music industry is
these days – you’ve got to have that can-do attitude whether you realise it’s
got its origins in punk or whatever. No one’s going to do anything for you –
you’ve got to do it for yourself. You’ve got to get up and play in front of
people and you’ve got to push your music, and you’ve to believe in it, because
if you don’t nobody else is.
Especially these days
when a lot of artists are crowd-funding their albums, which makes a lot of
sense in music because you’re essentially pre-selling the albums. The standard
of what’s coming out of crowd-funded or independently produced albums is really
fantastic. Certainly that part of the punk-rock attitude is working really well
in country.
It’s sort of a double-edged sword, that crowd-funded thing.
I think it’s great for pre-sales and stuff like that but when you see bands on
Gofundme because they want a trip to Nashville to go and make an album, you
think, Am I just paying for your holiday?
[laughs] There’s plenty of good producers and studios in Australia where you
could knock out an album. I suppose it’s each to their own.
Some of the
information about your album says, ‘It’s the break-up album minus the
break-up’, so how did you and Natalie get to the point of thinking you’d make a
break-up album without breaking up?
It just sort of happened, and then when we started to get
the songs together for the album we said, ‘This is a break-up album. Are you
trying to tell me something?’ We were both thinking the same thing. We’ve got a
couple of young kids and in my day job I work a lot – I was away for long
periods of time, and she’s stuck at home with kids, and there’s that isolation.
You get used to being on your own. And just the normal ying and yang of
relationships, [they] aren’t always rosy, especially when you’ve been together
for as long as we have. We thought, well, this is one way to get the anger and
the frustrations out without actually breaking up because we obviously love
each other a lot and we’re never going to break up, hopefully. But you have
your moments when you think, It’s
probably not that bad an idea. [Laughs]
I suppose the album
is therapy, then.
Absolutely. It’s our way of dealing with it. And it’s also
that coyness – I’ll write a song and she’ll be thinking, Is this song about me or is this about someone else? We don’t
interrogate each other too much with the songs – we just think, Oh yep, this one’s about me – but it might
not be.[Laughs]
It’s lovely because
it preserves that mystery in your relationship, which could be why you’ve been
together for so long.
Yeah, absolutely.
But on the other hand
I suppose you’re both desperately wondering who it’s about.
That’s right. If it’s a particularly nasty one I just bury
my head in the sand and say, ‘It must be about someone else.’
Well, of course!
[Laughs]
So is your
songwriting process a bit like Lennon and McCartney where one of you writes the
bulk of the song and then hands it over to the other one for a little bit of
tinkering, or is it more of a collaboration?
It’s along those lines. Most of the time I’ll write a song
and I’ll take it to her and she’ll say, ‘You should do this here and that
there’, and she’ll panel beat it around a bit, and I sort of do the same –
she’ll have a song written and I’ll say, ‘You probably should say this here or
that there. No, try this chord here’, and stuff like that. Lately we don’t tend
to start from go to whoa together. Normally we’re finishing off the other one’s
ideas.
I think that’s a
great process in that it’s always a good idea to have an editor and you both
have an idea who lives in the same house.
Which makes it really easy – you’re not sitting around and
waiting to organise the time to do a co-write or get someone to try to help you
out with stuff. We sort of keep a leash on each other – she stops me from going
off into too weird a direction and I stop her from going too traditional
country, I suppose.
And you find each
other somewhere between those two poles.
Yeah, we find a happy medium – something that we both like
and hopefully everyone else does as well.
Well, it’s a great
album so you’ve achieved that happy medium. But it’s a big undertaking to put
out an album – it’s a lot of songs and a lot of decision making about what goes
on it – so at what point did you think, An
album is the next step?
Natalie’s the real big driving force in, I would say, 99 per
cent of all the things that happen with the band. Writing songs was something
we’ve never struggled with – we’ve almost got too many songs. That’s not to say
that they’re all classics … But [the album] was just a natural thing. We met
Lachlan Bryan, who recorded it, and we knew we had an album in us so we were
just really keen to get one down.
Since you mentioned
Lachlan – I know he’s been doing a bit of producing. But when you’re meeting
another artist like that, it’s not necessarily automatic that you’ll think, You’ll produce us. So how did it evolve
that he came to be your producer?
We met him in Nundle, at the Dag Sheep Station. And I’d been
listening to his first album, Ballad of a
Young Married Man, and I thought it was a really great album. He’d seen us
perform; he liked what we were doing and what we were about. He and Natalie
wrote a song together, which is, I think, the last track on the album. So from
there we built a relationship. We went down to Melbourne and played a few gigs
down there. We were talking about making an album and I started asking [if
there was] anyone he recommended to make it with, and he said he would love to
do it.
He recommended
himself.
He did. So we said, ‘Righto, let’s do it.’ So we thought
we’d just record some songs and see how they come back. We wanted to put a
single out before the album was ready, just to keep something out – because it
had been a while since we’d released anything – so we did that, and we loved
the results. He was really great to work with, sort of effortless. Cool
studios, we loved being in Melbourne, and we decided to keep going with it. It
was a pretty long process – over twelve months from the first song till
finishing the album.
Give that you have
work and family, it’s not surprising.
Absolutely not. The easy part is writing songs and going to
record them. That’s all the fun stuff. But after that it’s the editing and
getting songs sent back to you – ‘No, we don’t like this, we don’t like that,
do this, do that’ – the back and forth and everything else that goes with it.
And then you have a
lovely body of work, and one of the great things about an album is that it can
stand there forever.
And it’s a real signpost of where you are at that stage of
your life and your musical career. It’s something you should be proud of.
I won’t ask you if
you want to work with Lachlan again, though, because if the answer’s ‘no’ …
[Laughs] He actually just edited a film clip we just made.
He’s busy!
He’s very busy. There’s plenty of strings to his bow. I’m
more than happy to do anything with him because he’s just a good guy to be
around creatively, and especially when you can sit and talk music with him. I’m
more than happy to have him involved in anything we get up to.
Of course you’ll see
him again in Tamworth – I’m presuming you’re going?
Yes. We’re looking forward to Tamworth. I think we’ve got a
show at the Frog and Toad with Lou Bradley, so that’s going to be exciting. And
we’ve got a couple of other shows – I’m a bit sketchy on the details. Nat
organises all of that. We’ll be playing out at the Dag Sheep Station again, for
sure. John Casula and his crew out there run some great things over the
Tamworth Country Music Festival. It’s a really great place to play and sort of
feels like home to us when we’re up there, which is good.
And it’s really
developed, that programme, over the past few years.
I’d implore anyone going to the Tamworth Country Music
Festival to take some time to head out to the Dag Sheep Station. The shows and
the catering and the way they look after you up there, and the quality of the
musicians, it’s second to none. It’s a real highlight for me to come to
Tamworth and head down to Nundle.
When you have a
daytime job and children and travelling to do, what’s your inspiration? You
might get up every day and write songs – is there music or books that you
regularly find inspire you?
Music, for sure – a lot of the older stuff, for sure. Not a
lot of the new stuff inspires me. But in saying that, there’s an artist called
William Crighton – it sort of blew my hair back when I heard that album. He’s a
real inspiration. A lot of it’s in books – old Kurt Vonnegut books and stuff
like that. And the human condition – what you see around you.
Brisbane band Halfway has eight members, and all of them are showing up this Saturday night, 29 October, to perform at hometown venue The Triffid to celebrate the success of their critically acclaimed fifth studio album, The Golden Halfway Record, and the release of their new single 'Three In and Nothing But The Stars'. Ahead of the show, John Busby answered my questions via email./
There's eight of you in this band - who's really the boss, who's the troublesome middle child, and are there any arguments?
The songs are the boss. We disagree occasionally. Being in a band this long you have to from time to time ... But we are very good friends and we have been through a lot together. Not just music. Life stuff. The band is bigger than just music.
What's great about the Brisbane music scene and what do you wish you could change?
I have no idea really. There have been some great bands from Brisbane so that sets a precedent ... So the bar is set high with Screamfeeder, The Go-Betweens etc … going all the way back to the Saints & the Bee Gees. What would we change? Nothing. It’s not perfect. But nothing is.
What's so special about the Triffid?
It’s a great place to see a show & to play one. It is made by people who love music. Good people, great stage & PA. It all sounds obvious but these things are surprisingly rare in live music venues.
What are you most looking forward to about this show?
Revisiting our first album, Farewell to the Fainthearted, has been fun. I am looking forward to playing it for us and our friends here in Brisbane.
Who gets to write the set list?
Ben Johnson usually writes our set list. And then Chris Dale changes a couple of songs. That happens at most shows. No set list at this one though … two albums in order/start to finish
This album has been your 'golden' record - what comes next?
Good question. We have a few new songs but no titles as yet. The songs will dictate the direction we head in. Not sure really. We have been buying a lot of guitar pedals so that would suggest maybe a more psych guitar-based record. But maybe we will do another narrative-based album. Have to wait for the songs to tell us.
Melburnian Emilee South has released 'Howl', a single from her forthcoming EP. 'Howl' is earthy Southern-gothic bluesy rock, a sultry song that South commands without hesitation, her vocals coiling and curving, ably backed by a thrumming rhythm section and, it has to be said, howling guitar. Listen to 'Howl' on Soundcloud.
'Howl' Single Launch & Halloween Party
Sunday 30 October 2016
Bella Union, Melbourne
With very special guest support Skyscraper Stan
Doors 8 p.m., tickets available here
Amber Lawrence does many things well, but there’s one thing
in particular: on each of her albums she has produced at least one song
guaranteed to make me cry every time I hear it, whether recorded or live. On 3 that song was ‘The Man Across the
Street’; on Superheroes it was ‘The
Lifesaver’, and on her latest album, Happy
Ever After, it’s ‘The Lucky One’. There’s a reason Lawrence is able to do
this: she writes and sings from an authentic place, and she is unabashed about
showing sentiment and emotion. You get the sense that in conversation she
wouldn’t be one for small talk – she would want to get right to the heart of a
matter.
The songs on Happy
Ever After address a range of experiences, not all of them positive. ‘Cheers
to the Girls’ is an exhortation for girls (and women) to stand up for
themselves in the face of others who try to crush them; on the track Lawrence
is joined by Catherine Britt and Fanny Lumsden, with whom she’ll tour next
year. ‘Drive By Breakup’ is about the shock ending of a relationship. And the
bittersweet ‘The Lucky One’ is Lawrence acknowledging that despite sadness and
loss, she has a lot to celebrate.
Happy Ever After
is full of well-crafted country pop that will delight Lawrence’s fans and,
hopefully, introduce her to new fans. One emotion that is common to the songs
on this new album is joy – regardless of the subject matter, Lawrence sounds as
if she loves what she does, and that makes listening to it a joyful experience.
Lawrence deservedly won a Golden Guitar for Female Artist of the Year in 2016. She
is a dedicated songwriter, performer and member of the country music community.
These attributes don’t just make her worthy – they make her worthy of your
time. And so does this lovely album.
Happy Ever After is out now through Social Family Records.
Some albums and EPs take a while to warm up – they can sound
uninviting at first but there’s enough there to draw you in, and they grow
richer with time. Some are immediately engaging and stay engaging. Matt J Ward’s
debut EP is in the latter category. It contains five songs in what has been
described as an Americana style – that descriptor is being used a lot lately,
probably because the musicians concerned have Americana influences (and I can
hear Whiskeytown in this EP), but I hear Australia in these songs too, despite
three song names with American references (‘Terlingua’, ‘Neil Young’, ‘America’).
The reason I hear Australia is because this EP, like quite a
bit of music I’ve heard lately, has echoes of Australian lyric-led pop/rock of
the 1980s and 1990s, and that’s just fine, as this brings some nostalgia into
play as well as the joy of discovery.
The tracks are mostly upbeat, troubadour fare; Ward has a
briskly warm voice and he sounds like he’s enjoying himself, which is always
nice to hear.
If an EP is a test of an artist’s audience – is there enough
here to merit an album? – then Ward should find some fans who eagerly await the
next instalment.
Sydney singer-songwriter is one half of Dear Orphans,
although he’s going it alone on this album, his debut long player. The album is
divided into halves: ‘Salvation Jane’ and ‘Paterson’s Curse’ – which are, of course,
different names for the same thing: a bush – all right, a weed – that grows
wild and produces vibrant purple flowers, seen across the Australian landscape.
It’s fitting for this album of road songs which evoke the Australian experience
of hours in a car, kilometres of land that can look like dust, skies that
promise no rain as they stretch unendingly away. Payne’s songs also evoke the
people he has met along the way, whether they are friends or strangers.
Payne’s genre is cited as bluegrass and Americana, but there’s
a bit of Slim Dusty here too – it’s impossible to ignore Slim and his
wife/chief songwriter Joy McKean’s influence on the Australian road song. In
some ways Slim gave Australian songwriters permission to document their
experiences of travelling around the land – permission, in other words, to not
be American. So while Payne may have stylistic influences from the northern
hemisphere, this is firmly a southern hemisphere album.
Payne is ably backed by some great musicians and the songs
vary in pace and style as befits the song. Payne has help from Katie Brianna on
‘My Darling Kate’ and Megan Cooper on ‘Peace Tonight’, and both singers complement
him nicely. ‘Old Sydney Town’ sounds like it belongs in the early days of the
colony. ‘White Line Fever’ moves at the sort of pace you’d want to keep you
going on a road trip.
Overall, this is a great piece not of Americana but, dare I
say, Australiana.
Many moons ago I spent a year living in Vancouver, BC and I was involved with Canadian music. I was so impressed by the sophistication of Canadian musicians, their awareness of their lineage and their sense of responsibility to contribute to the national culture. There were certain places that had stronger musical cultures than others, and Cape Breton in Nova Scotia was one of them, with a Celtic culture and lots of accomplished musicians.
Singer-songwriter Drake Jensen hails from Cape Breton and he's just released a single, 'Wherever Love Takes Us', ahead of an Australian tour in early 2017 (dates to be announced).
'Wherever Love Takes Us' may have a title that sounds like a typical love song, whatever that means, but it's not that: Jensen is an activist for LGBTQI rights in Canada, and he's keeping a close eye on the marriage equality debate happening in Australia.
The video for 'Wherever Love Takes Us' is below, with such an endearing opening. Enjoy the song, and watch out for Jensen's tour.
Glenn Skuthorpe has performed with some very well-known names in his long career, including Archie Roach, Renee Geyer, Rory McLeod, Michelle Shocked, Buddy Miller and Mary Gauthier. His music is featured on multiple films, documentaries and television series, and Glenn has toured through Canada and the Australian East Coast featuring on stages at Calgary, Edmonton and Woodford Folk Festivals, Byron Bay Bluesfest and Sydney Opera House.
So if you haven't heard of him yet, well, perhaps you weren't paying attention ... and you should, because 'Small Change' - a single from his fifth independently produced album, to be released early next year - is a fantastic song that blends influences from country, blues and rock. Plus it will get your toes tapping.
Listen to 'Small Change' below or buy it on iTunes and keep an eye out for Glenn on the road (dates beneath the video).
TOUR DATES
4-6 November, Bendigo Blues & Roots Festival
12 November, The Lomond in Melbourne
18 November, Commonground Festival in Victoria
6-8 January 2017, Cygnet Folk Festival
12-15 January 2017, Illwawarra Folk Festival
Part of the fun of running this blog is that I'm sent emails that alert me to music that I wouldn't otherwise hear about. Like this song from Swedish duo Johnossi, who are popular in their homeland and making a push into the UK. The song is not really country music but because I have a deeply embedded, long-lasting affection for ABBA, I'll make an exception. Plus it's really catchy.
So here is 'Air is Free' by Johnossi on Soundcloud or you can listen by clicking 'play' below. It's also on Spotify.
Guitarist James Cruickshank play in bands such as The Cruel Sea and The Blackeyed Susans. On the day he died, some of his friends in the 'cosmic country' band Lost Ragas wrote the song 'Where James Played' in honour of their friend. Those writers were Matt Walker, Neil Murray and Shane Reilly.
This great song also serves as notice of the Lost Ragas' upcoming tour. See dates below and check out the video while you're at it.
MON 31 OCT NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB MELBOURNE VIC
(With Liz Stringer)
FRI 4 NOV BRISBANE HOTEL HOBART TAS
FRI 11 NOV STAG AND HUNTER HOTEL MAYFIELD NSW
SAT 12 NOV THE UNION HOTEL SYDNEY NSW
SUN 13 NOV WHEATSHEAF HOTEL ADELAIDE SA
I knew very little about New Zealand artist Jody Direen before interviewing her ahead of the start of the This Crazy Life tour with the Wolfe Brothers and others, which is now under way. It took me about a minute to be incredibly impressed by her spirit, professionalism and inspiring attitude to life. Dates for the remainder of the tour are below the interview - Jody is a fantastic addition to the line-up. And you can watch the video for Jody's new single at the bottom too.
Your grandmother
introduced you to country music when you were quite young – what country music
did you listen to at that age?
It was a lot of Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn – I think the
first song she taught me on guitar was ‘Pistol Packin’ Mother’ [laughs] which
is pretty old school. Johnny Cash was foremost, I think, in my childhood, then
it kind of morphed into the Dixie Chicks when I was about sixteen – and it
keeps evolving from there.
So she not only
introduced you to music but she taught you to play guitar?
She did. She was my inspiration. I found my love of music
through her, I think. Just having her around in my life from such a young age –
she would play us songs on guitar and I just remember being so inspired by it.
When she first taught me three chords on guitar, which is enough to sing a
song, that sensation of singing and playing guitar at the same time, I realised
how much I loved that, loved the feeling it gave me. So that’s where it all
started.
Had she been a
performer, or did she play for her own enjoyment?
She had been but she didn’t make a career out of it. She
played in her local bars and that kind of thing. But my life whole life I’ve
been told that she should have done more with it, but just her personality –
she was quite a humble lady, I think she was quite content with where she took
it, it was just a hobby for her. But she could have gone places, is what I’m
trying to say [laughs].
Being told that she
should have done more with it – was that a spur to you to think, I’m going to do more with what I have?
I think subconsciously yes and I think it probably still
drives me now. She passed away a couple of years ago but I am still really
driven by the presence she had in my life, and I feel like she would be really
proud of me.
It’s sad that she
can’t be here to see where you are now – but she would have seen you when you
started out. You essentially gave yourself your own start – you were organising
shows and you funded your album. Are you glad that you did it that way?
I am. To be honest, I had no choice – the whole fairytale of
record companies with people coming along and picking you up is pretty few and
far between these days, so I feel like any artist, any musician, who wants to
pave their way in a career in music, you have to have that drive to do the hard
graft yourself. You have to be careful because it is really draining. I got
quite burnt out a couple of years ago because I was just going so hard. I think
that for so many it is the only path to take. But I’m really thankful for my
journey so far. I have learnt so much – so many life lessons that I feel that I
had the chance to learn earlier than I might if I’d worked nine to five, if you
know what I mean. I’m really thankful for that, I feel like it’s really helped
me and I’m in a stronger position in my twenties, right now, to take on life in
general.
Because you’ve had to
be so self-reliant, and make some pretty grown-up decisions, and if you’d had a
record company they’d have made those decisions for you.
Exactly. And it really toughens you up and you have to be
really thick-skinned in this industry because every time you stand up on stage
you’re putting yourself out there to be judged. It’s definitely helped me doing
it that way. The feeling of satisfaction after putting on my own tour in New
Zealand – it is so much work. Just
getting up and performing is one thing, but I would literally turn up the
morning of the show, set everything up, put out tables and chairs. I would have
put up all the posters around the town and organised all the staff, and I’d
have an hour to go shower and get ready then I had toswitch into my ‘Okay, I’m an artist now’, and get out there
and put on the best show that I could. And at the end of the night I’d
finished, I’d do my meet-and-greets, my signings, then I’m on the end of a mop
wiping up the floor. But the feeling afterwards if it was an amazing night, a
sell-out crowd and everyone was loving my music and having a good time – that
makes it all worth it for me. That is why I do what I do: I love to make people
happy through my music.
What you’ve just
described reminds me of Slim Dusty and Joy McKean’s tours around Australia
where there would pull up the caravan, they’d go into the hall – not many
people do it and it is a lot of work. Kudos to you for making it through.
[Laughs] Thanks. I always share my stories of that kind of
thing. I’m not ashamed of how hard I’ve worked. If I can share that and it
might inspire somebody else, that makes it worth it for me.
Also, doing it that
way probably brings you a lot closer to your fans than if someone else was
organising that tour. If you have a record company there can be a gatekeeper
between you and your fans. I tend to find that people who are like you –
self-funding and organising things themselves – they can really feel that
relationship with their fans a lot more strongly.
One hundred per cent. I feel such a huge connection with my
fans because I share the hard reality of what I do. I try not to put on a front
as an artist and be, like, ‘My life’s amazing’ [laughs]. I’m just like
everybody else: I have a dream, I have a passion and nothing comes easy, you
have to work hard at it. I feel like I would be letting my fans down if I
didn’t share my stories with them, because it would put across a false [front]
and I don’t think that’s very inspiring at all.
And there is no
substitute for hard work, really – you could have all the talent in the world
but what tends to separate people who have careers in the arts, in particular,
is hard work. You just keep at it and you don’t give up.
You do, exactly, and I think that it’s constantly testing
you with how bad you actually want it, as well. Obviously if it gets too hard
and you give up, that’s as much as you wanted it. But I think if you can keep
battling through – it’s not just music, it’s anything in life, any passion or
dream anybody might have – that’s what I keep telling myself if I feel weight
down with my workload, I think, No, I
want this and I’m going to keep pushing through. [laughs]
I actually feel
inspired talking to you – I can go off and conquer the world now! [Laughs]
[Laughs] That’s good! Some people call me crazy. My friends
think I’m crazy.
And I suppose the
other thing about success is that it does breed more work because you have to
maintain that level of commitment. You’ve been working, working, working the
last few years. There will come a time, though, when you can think, I can cruise on this for a while.
‘I can have a break now,’ yeah [laughs]. I’m hoping. I think
it’ll happen. I’ll know when the time is right. I think the problem is that the
more I climb the ladder, the more I want to keep climbing [laughs]. I’ll
probably just keep going and going and going. But I do try to give myself some
time off. I learnt that the hard way when I burnt out – my body got to the
point where it was, like, ‘You have to stop.’ And ever since then I’ve tried to
learn to have a little bit more balance in my life. I think that’s something
everybody has to go through, to find that balance between work and play.
And it is hard
because performing takes a certain amount of energy and it’s not like you can
put it in a bucket and say, ‘Well, that’s how much energy I’ve used up’. It’s
just one of those things you feel and some nights are harder than others.
So, so true. It’s definitely been one of my biggest
challenges.
Before I move on to
talking about the This Crazy Life tour, I’m curious about the New Zealand
country music scene. Is there a lot of media support? Is there any way to get
the word out? Is there much of a country music scene?
It’s not as big as Australia but it is heading in a positive
direction, and I feel like what’s going on in Australia is really influencing
and helping the industry from New Zealand as well, which is really cool.
There’s quite a connection between the two now. So many artists are coming out
and playing in New Zealand and a handful of Kiwi artists are coming over here
as well and performing. The media has been a really huge challenge for me to
get the support of mainstream media in NewZealand. There is quite a mentality – a lot of the media are
really good but the mainstream radio over there are really traditional and old
school [with country], like still stuck in the Johnny Cash days. And I love
Johnny Cash, he’s an absolute legend, but you and I both know that country
music has evolved so much in terms of its sound, and the rock/pop influence as
well. So it’s just cottoning on in New Zealand now – I feel like Australia is a
little bit ahead. You have massive festivals here which you can play, which is
amazing, and a lot of American headliners coming out to perform here. In
December, for the first time, Carrie [Underwood] and Keith [Urban] are doing a
show in New Zealand, which is amazing. But in terms of selling my own shows in
New Zealand, honestly I have relied purely on social media and posters and
fliers, and that seems to have worked. I haven’t really needed any more than
that. I guess I’ve learnt not to rely on other media aspect so much. But
there’s a really awesome group of talented artists in New Zealand that are
starting to make waves. I’m actually involved in a New Year’s Eve festival
called Top Paddock Festival, which is really showcasing that new country, and
that’s really successful so far.
We have Tamworth,
too, and I don’t know what Australian country music would look like without
Tamworth because it’s a focal point every year and it’s a way of bringing
people together every year. I don’t know if every country needs a festival like
that, but certainly here it’s been very useful.
That festival vibe and the bringing together of a group of
fans, it’s definitely an awesome vehicle to help drive the industry forward and
that’s something that I’d love to see happen in New Zealand. I can really see
an awesome connection now between the two countries in terms of the country
music industry, which I think is a really exciting thing, and hopefully it will
help each country in different ways.
Now in 2011 you were
offered an Australian deal but you went to the United States instead – was that
a difficult decision?
I tend to go a lot by my gut feeling. I think I was
nineteen. It was a difficult decision; I was feeling a little bit confused
about what to do, but my gut feeling was just screaming, ‘Don’t tie yourself to
a contract yet! The first offer that’s come along, don’t.’ I just felt really
strongly that I needed to explore a little more and I had my sights set on
getting to America and just seeing what the scene was like over there, because
my whole life I’ve been influenced by American country music – those artists
have been my inspiration. Dixie Chicks, Shania Twain – although she’s not
American, she’s Canadian. But they were massive [for me]. So I felt a real pull
to go to America. And it was amazing. I had some awesome opportunities over
there. I had an American management company for a while and that really helped
me, and I’ve made some amazing connections over there. If I could turn back
time I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Then your gut was
right.
Yes, I honestly think it was. [laughs]
So now we come to the
present day where you are joining the Wolfe Brothers and others on tour. When
you were invited was it put to you as a mini-festival?
It was definitely pitched to me as a mini-festival. There
was going to be six or seven acts, Australian tour. That’s all they had to tell
me and I said, ‘Yep, I’m in!’ It’s come around so fast and I’m so excited. I
think it’s going to be such a great tour. I don’t know everybody on the tour –
there’s a couple of acts I haven’t met. But I’ve listened to their music and
we’re all really on the same page in terms of the new wave of country pop,
country rock. I think it’s just going to be a party [laughs]. It’s going to be
so danceable and high energy. The Wolfe Brothers are just so amazing. I’m
really excited to be a part of it. It will be a really good feel show.
And a different kind
of show for you because you won’t be playing a full set – you’ll have a handful
of songs that won’t change. When you’re used to changing your own set list if
you want, is it hard to not be able to?
I’m actually a shocker – I just pick my songs and I don’t
think about it, I just throw myself into the deep end. [laughs] I’m pretty
happy with the songs I’ve chosen, though. I guess it’s a bit of a scary
prospect because I’m performing with a band I’ve never performed with before as
well, and a couple of the songs I haven’t even performed live myself because
they’re new and they haven’t even been released yet – the single is being
released this Friday [7 October].
It is a great idea to
release a single, ‘Gimme the Beat’ just as the tour is starting – are you
feeling happy about it?
I am feeling so happy. It’s very pop influenced. I’m a rural
girl – all my music is always going to stay true to my country roots. But, as
we discussed before, there’s a lot of pop coming into country music and I’m all
about remaining really competitive with what’s happening in the international
market because I think it reflects what’s going to happen here, and it’s what I
love as well. So I worked with a producer who’s actually a pop producer with a
secret love for country music. We made an amazing team and I’m so excited about
this song. The difference with performing this one live is that there’s a lot more
going on in the song than your typical country song, so translating it in a
live environment can be a little more challenging. But I’m really excited to
see how it sounds playing live.
Jody Direen
Your grandmother
introduced you to country music when you were quite young – what country music
did you listen to at that age?
It was a lot of Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn – I think the
first song she taught me on guitar was ‘Pistol Packin’ Mother’ [laughs] which
is pretty old school. Johnny Cash was foremost, I think, in my childhood, then
it kind of morphed into the Dixie Chicks when I was about sixteen – and it
keeps evolving from there.
So she not only
introduced you to music but she taught you to play guitar?
She did. She was my inspiration. I found my love of music
through her, I think. Just having her around in my life from such a young age –
she would play us songs on guitar and I just remember being so inspired by it.
When she first taught me three chords on guitar, which is enough to sing a
song, that sensation of singing and playing guitar at the same time, I realised
how much I loved that, loved the feeling it gave me. So that’s where it all
started.
Had she been a
performer, or did she play for her own enjoyment?
She had been but she didn’t make a career out of it. She
played in her local bars and that kind of thing. But my life whole life I’ve
been told that she should have done more with it, but just her personality –
she was quite a humble lady, I think she was quite content with where she took
it, it was just a hobby for her. But she could have gone places, is what I’m
trying to say [laughs].
Being told that she
should have done more with it – was that a spur to you to think, I’m going to do more with what I have?
I think subconsciously yes and I think it probably still
drives me now. She passed away a couple of years ago but I am still really
driven by the presence she had in my life, and I feel like she would be really
proud of me.
It’s sad that she
can’t be here to see where you are now – but she would have seen you when you
started out. You essentially gave yourself your own start – you were organising
shows and you funded your album. Are you glad that you did it that way?
I am. To be honest, I had no choice – the whole fairytale of
record companies with people coming along and picking you up is pretty few and
far between these days, so I feel like any artist, any musician, who wants to
pave their way in a career in music, you have to have that drive to do the hard
graft yourself. You have to be careful because it is really draining. I got
quite burnt out a couple of years ago because I was just going so hard. I think
that for so many it is the only path to take. But I’m really thankful for my
journey so far. I have learnt so much – so many life lessons that I feel that I
had the chance to learn earlier than I might if I’d worked nine to five, if you
know what I mean. I’m really thankful for that, I feel like it’s really helped
me and I’m in a stronger position in my twenties, right now, to take on life in
general.
Because you’ve had to
be so self-reliant, and make some pretty grown-up decisions, and if you’d had a
record company they’d have made those decisions for you.
Exactly. And it really toughens you up and you have to be
really thick-skinned in this industry because every time you stand up on stage
you’re putting yourself out there to be judged. It’s definitely helped me doing
it that way. The feeling of satisfaction after putting on my own tour in New
Zealand – it is so much work. Just
getting up and performing is one thing, but I would literally turn up the
morning of the show, set everything up, put out tables and chairs. I would have
put up all the posters around the town and organised all the staff, and I’d
have an hour to go shower and get ready then I had toswitch into my ‘Okay, I’m an artist now’, and get out there
and put on the best show that I could. And at the end of the night I’d
finished, I’d do my meet-and-greets, my signings, then I’m on the end of a mop
wiping up the floor. But the feeling afterwards if it was an amazing night, a
sell-out crowd and everyone was loving my music and having a good time – that
makes it all worth it for me. That is why I do what I do: I love to make people
happy through my music.
What you’ve just
described reminds me of Slim Dusty and Joy McKean’s tours around Australia
where there would pull up the caravan, they’d go into the hall – not many
people do it and it is a lot of work. Kudos to you for making it through.
[Laughs] Thanks. I always share my stories of that kind of
thing. I’m not ashamed of how hard I’ve worked. If I can share that and it
might inspire somebody else, that makes it worth it for me.
Also, doing it that
way probably brings you a lot closer to your fans than if someone else was
organising that tour. If you have a record company there can be a gatekeeper
between you and your fans. I tend to find that people who are like you –
self-funding and organising things themselves – they can really feel that
relationship with their fans a lot more strongly.
One hundred per cent. I feel such a huge connection with my
fans because I share the hard reality of what I do. I try not to put on a front
as an artist and be, like, ‘My life’s amazing’ [laughs]. I’m just like
everybody else: I have a dream, I have a passion and nothing comes easy, you
have to work hard at it. I feel like I would be letting my fans down if I
didn’t share my stories with them, because it would put across a false [front]
and I don’t think that’s very inspiring at all.
And there is no
substitute for hard work, really – you could have all the talent in the world
but what tends to separate people who have careers in the arts, in particular,
is hard work. You just keep at it and you don’t give up.
You do, exactly, and I think that it’s constantly testing
you with how bad you actually want it, as well. Obviously if it gets too hard
and you give up, that’s as much as you wanted it. But I think if you can keep
battling through – it’s not just music, it’s anything in life, any passion or
dream anybody might have – that’s what I keep telling myself if I feel weight
down with my workload, I think, No, I
want this and I’m going to keep pushing through. [laughs]
I actually feel
inspired talking to you – I can go off and conquer the world now! [Laughs]
[Laughs] That’s good! Some people call me crazy. My friends
think I’m crazy.
And I suppose the
other thing about success is that it does breed more work because you have to
maintain that level of commitment. You’ve been working, working, working the
last few years. There will come a time, though, when you can think, I can cruise on this for a while.
‘I can have a break now,’ yeah [laughs]. I’m hoping. I think
it’ll happen. I’ll know when the time is right. I think the problem is that the
more I climb the ladder, the more I want to keep climbing [laughs]. I’ll
probably just keep going and going and going. But I do try to give myself some
time off. I learnt that the hard way when I burnt out – my body got to the
point where it was, like, ‘You have to stop.’ And ever since then I’ve tried to
learn to have a little bit more balance in my life. I think that’s something
everybody has to go through, to find that balance between work and play.
And it is hard
because performing takes a certain amount of energy and it’s not like you can
put it in a bucket and say, ‘Well, that’s how much energy I’ve used up’. It’s
just one of those things you feel and some nights are harder than others.
So, so true. It’s definitely been one of my biggest
challenges.
Before I move on to
talking about the This Crazy Life tour, I’m curious about the New Zealand
country music scene. Is there a lot of media support? Is there any way to get
the word out? Is there much of a country music scene?
It’s not as big as Australia but it is heading in a positive
direction, and I feel like what’s going on in Australia is really influencing
and helping the industry from New Zealand as well, which is really cool.
There’s quite a connection between the two now. So many artists are coming out
and playing in New Zealand and a handful of Kiwi artists are coming over here
as well and performing. The media has been a really huge challenge for me to
get the support of mainstream media in NewZealand. There is quite a mentality – a lot of the media are
really good but the mainstream radio over there are really traditional and old
school [with country], like still stuck in the Johnny Cash days. And I love
Johnny Cash, he’s an absolute legend, but you and I both know that country
music has evolved so much in terms of its sound, and the rock/pop influence as
well. So it’s just cottoning on in New Zealand now – I feel like Australia is a
little bit ahead. You have massive festivals here which you can play, which is
amazing, and a lot of American headliners coming out to perform here. In
December, for the first time, Carrie [Underwood] and Keith [Urban] are doing a
show in New Zealand, which is amazing. But in terms of selling my own shows in
New Zealand, honestly I have relied purely on social media and posters and
fliers, and that seems to have worked. I haven’t really needed any more than
that. I guess I’ve learnt not to rely on other media aspect so much. But
there’s a really awesome group of talented artists in New Zealand that are
starting to make waves. I’m actually involved in a New Year’s Eve festival
called Top Paddock Festival, which is really showcasing that new country, and
that’s really successful so far.
We have Tamworth,
too, and I don’t know what Australian country music would look like without
Tamworth because it’s a focal point every year and it’s a way of bringing
people together every year. I don’t know if every country needs a festival like
that, but certainly here it’s been very useful.
That festival vibe and the bringing together of a group of
fans, it’s definitely an awesome vehicle to help drive the industry forward and
that’s something that I’d love to see happen in New Zealand. I can really see
an awesome connection now between the two countries in terms of the country
music industry, which I think is a really exciting thing, and hopefully it will
help each country in different ways.
Now in 2011 you were
offered an Australian deal but you went to the United States instead – was that
a difficult decision?
I tend to go a lot by my gut feeling. I think I was
nineteen. It was a difficult decision; I was feeling a little bit confused
about what to do, but my gut feeling was just screaming, ‘Don’t tie yourself to
a contract yet! The first offer that’s come along, don’t.’ I just felt really
strongly that I needed to explore a little more and I had my sights set on
getting to America and just seeing what the scene was like over there, because
my whole life I’ve been influenced by American country music – those artists
have been my inspiration. Dixie Chicks, Shania Twain – although she’s not
American, she’s Canadian. But they were massive [for me]. So I felt a real pull
to go to America. And it was amazing. I had some awesome opportunities over
there. I had an American management company for a while and that really helped
me, and I’ve made some amazing connections over there. If I could turn back
time I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Then your gut was
right.
Yes, I honestly think it was. [laughs]
So now we come to the
present day where you are joining the Wolfe Brothers and others on tour. When
you were invited was it put to you as a mini-festival?
It was definitely pitched to me as a mini-festival. There
was going to be six or seven acts, Australian tour. That’s all they had to tell
me and I said, ‘Yep, I’m in!’ It’s come around so fast and I’m so excited. I
think it’s going to be such a great tour. I don’t know everybody on the tour –
there’s a couple of acts I haven’t met. But I’ve listened to their music and
we’re all really on the same page in terms of the new wave of country pop,
country rock. I think it’s just going to be a party [laughs]. It’s going to be
so danceable and high energy. The Wolfe Brothers are just so amazing. I’m
really excited to be a part of it. It will be a really good feel show.
And a different kind
of show for you because you won’t be playing a full set – you’ll have a handful
of songs that won’t change. When you’re used to changing your own set list if
you want, is it hard to not be able to?
I’m actually a shocker – I just pick my songs and I don’t
think about it, I just throw myself into the deep end. [laughs] I’m pretty
happy with the songs I’ve chosen, though. I guess it’s a bit of a scary
prospect because I’m performing with a band I’ve never performed with before as
well, and a couple of the songs I haven’t even performed live myself because
they’re new and they haven’t even been released yet – the single is being
released this Friday [7 October].
It is a great idea to
release a single, ‘Gimme the Beat’ just as the tour is starting – are you
feeling happy about it?
I am feeling so happy. It’s very pop influenced. I’m a rural
girl – all my music is always going to stay true to my country roots. But, as
we discussed before, there’s a lot of pop coming into country music and I’m all
about remaining really competitive with what’s happening in the international
market because I think it reflects what’s going to happen here, and it’s what I
love as well. So I worked with a producer who’s actually a pop producer with a
secret love for country music. We made an amazing team and I’m so excited about
this song. The difference with performing this one live is that there’s a lot more
going on in the song than your typical country song, so translating it in a
live environment can be a little more challenging. But I’m really excited to
see how it sounds playing live.
