Your new album has been described as harking back to the 1970s and 1980s. Is that your favourite era of country music?
Well, that’s when I was growing up. I was becoming an adult at that time and that was the music that I was listening to and I really enjoyed that stuff, because I was learning how to play my music sort of in that style back then. So I wanted to bring out what I learned, what sort of music makes me happy, what style makes me happy.
Do you have a band you regularly play with?
Yes. The fellas who played on this album come from Toowoomba – most of them are Toowomba men.
There’s a good, solid beat on this album which makes me think line dancers are going to love it.
[Laughs] I love that. That tempo, it’s a beat. For me, it’s like the Aboriginal beat – you hear beat. There’s always a beat in all the music that we do, it’s cultural – it’s the beat that makes it happen. It’s in the heart, it’s a beat.
But you could take the beat away and just have your voice and that would stand alone – so do you ever play these songs acoustically, just with you and a guitar?
I do. I do. And that stuff, I wrote it like that to make it easy if I was just by myself, I could sing those songs.
Do you like performing that way?
I used to hate it but now I like it because it sort of makes me sing better if I’m by myself because I don’t have to worry about the guitars and drums covering me up, and you learn how to sing better too.
And you grew up playing rock music as well?
I played everything. I played heavy metal, I played rock ’n’ roll, I played all sorts of music, and I loved it, through the 1980s.
So why did you choose country music to record? Why aren’t you playing heavy metal?
[laughs] Do you know what, this will sound funny – I found all the other music easy. It’s easy to do. For country, it seems like you have to do it properly. Like, not muck it up. With the other stuff, you can muck it up and it doesn’t really matter.
Is that because country music means more to you, or because it means more to the audience?
I reckon it means both ways, probably it means more to me and it will mean more to the people who are listening to me.
Country audiences really listen and they listen to lyrics, and they’re quite discerning about music - sometimes with rock audiences it’s just noise.
Mmm, yeah. That’s it. That’s it … You take a rock gig, for instance – at the end you have to do a really rock song to make people feel good. At a country show, you do them a love song right at the end, people will go back feeling happy. It’s the opposite, I think. [both laugh]
That’s true. You can end on a minor chord and they won’t mind.
They won’t mind, they’ll go, ‘Yeaaaah, that’s what I want’.
What’s your favourite venue to play in Tamworth?
So many. So many. When I first started with my band we just played - I always used to love playing in the street, busking … A couple of years ago I wanted to busk and someone said to me, ‘You don’t have to do it – you’re a star’. I said, ‘I’m not a star. I just want to do it.’ They said, ‘Look, listen – you don’t have to do it. You don’t have to do that any more.’ It seemed to me, because I’d been doing it for a long, and it was one of my dreams not to do it any more, but when it came to the point that I didn’t have to do it any more I just thought it was part of coming to Tamworth in the first place, to do the busking, but also for me it was part of coming to Tamworth to be a country star and winning a Golden Guitar. And I’ve done that. All my dreams have come true.
Well, you can retire now, Warren!
I know. [laughs] But it’s like … The first time you come to Tamworth, you have a dream of owning a Golden Guitar and singing at the Country Music Awards and walking up the red carpet. And I’ve done that. I still have to pinch myself. I come from a place that is 120 ks west of Alice Springs – it’s out in the scrub – and I’m signed to a major record label here in Australia. I’m signed to ABC. Which is, like, huh? I have to pinch myself! [laughs]
I have to say, it never happens by accident, that stuff – I really think –
It’s hard work, too.
It really is. And when it’s going well, when people are really good at it, they do make it look easy. So it can be hard for other people to understand how much work it is. But when one thinks about the logistics of you actually even getting to Tamworth in the first place …
Yeah [laughs].
It’s a long way.
It’s funny – when I talk to people and tell them that I’m signed to ABC, they go, ‘What? When did this happen?’ and I say, ‘Oh, a few years ago.’ Like you say, I probably make it look easy for people because I’m not pulling out my hair, I’m just going low. And then things happen to me. People ring me up and say, ‘Do you want a gig? We’ll fly you.’ And it’s amazing when that happens.
Again, I don’t think it’s by accident. But as you’ve raised the record label I’m going to ask you about it. You used to be an independent artist but I’m guessing things are a little easier now that someone else can take care of the distribution and the marketing and all that stuff.
That’s it, that’s it. I still have to ring them up and talk to them, but it’s a big weight off my shoulders, y’know.
It’s a lot of work purely to get your albums into people’s hands when you’re an independent artist.
Well, yeah. For me, I used to just get frightened taking music to anybody. Over the years you get to know the right people, you give them things and they take them, and it’s just how it happens. I just started to know the right people in the music industry and I just gave them my copies and they went, ‘Yeah, okay, I’ll pass it on to someone’. And that’s how I ended up with ABC Music, because I gave it to a friend of mine and he passed it on to someone and they passed it on to someone and it became that.
You’re on ABC Music, you’ve just got a new record out – is there now a feeling that you have to produce a new album within a year or 18 months?
The amazing thing about it is I’ve got two albums ready to come out with ABC – the one that’s already come out, which is Urna Marra, and next year’s a different one. It’s different to what I’m doing right now.
A different style of country or different subject matter in the songs?
Different subject matter. Altogether it’s different.
I started off by mentioning your radio show – can you tell us about it?
I do my radio show on CAAMA – Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association – if you just go onto CAAMA Radio, onto the web, caama.com.au - I do my shows from 8 till 12 [Central Australian time] from Mondays to Thursdays.
And do you enjoy doing that?
I love it because it’s part of music. This is what I do in life. I do music and I sit here and create my own world through music. It’s so good.
Does it feel like your whole life has been music? I know your father was a musician as well.
It’s everything. I reckon from the moment I was born. Because at Hermansburg, the old mission, we used to have music all the time. And I grew up born into music and I’ll probably go out with music. This is it. My life is music.
Which is a beautiful way to live.
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
You have a few shows coming up at the festival. You’re playing with The Wolverines.
That’s going to be madness, that one. I’m really looking forward to that show – it’s going to be mad.
Are you supporting them for all of their shows?
Yes, I’m doing thirteen of their shows.
Those shows are usually really late at night, aren’t they?
There’s one in the afternoon, from 2 to 4, and then one from 9 till 12 or something.
Well, you’d better have an afternoon nap!
[laughs] I know! And in between that I have to a couple of shows with Ted Egan. That’ll be really soft compared to The Wolverines …
You’re not going to have time to go and sit in on anyone else’s shows – because I know at Tamworth what tends to happen is that musicians who are between shows might go to someone else’s gig and get up for a few songs or something
Well, Troy Cassar-Daley usually invites me to go and do a song with him. I’m thinking I probably won’t be able to do that.
No, I think you’ll be far too busy! Which is great. Back to this idea of ten people being your ideal number of audience members - when I was listening to it, it seemed like it was … I don’t know if intimate is the right word, but it sounds as if you’re singing just to the listener. A lot of it is quite romantic, and revealing. It feels like a personal album,
Well, that’s what I wanted to do. Someone pointed out to me – this writer – he said that if you write something on the romantic side, people will stop and listen or look at it, like a flower on the wall. They won’t look at a picture that’s big and things. If you paint one flower, people will stop and look at it. It’s simple – make it simple, so people can understand it.
That’s a very nice idea. I think that’s true. When I had your album on, there was the odd romantic song and I pricked up my ears because it really sounded like it was coming from the heart. It’s one thing to write those songs – it’s another thing to deliver them and mean it.
Those songwriters carry their hearts on their sleeves. Those sorts of songs sometimes come out without you knowing it. Like love songs. Because everyone’s a romantic. Every single person in this world is a romantic. [both laugh] They are! I sometimes stop and think, ‘My god, I’m from the bush, I’m a traditional person – how do I write these sorts of songs that are, you know … [whispers] romantic. When I’m a bush man.’ [laughs]
But you have, so clearly you’re right – yes, you’re a romantic too.
Oh yeah, everyone is. For Aboriginal songs – culture songs – there are a lot of romantic traditional songs. So many. There are so many traditional love songs.
Maybe one of the things you can do when you’re performing is introduce those to a broader audience, if it’s appropriate.
Well, yeah - I have bigger plans – I have big dreams. I want to do this, I want to do that. I want to be the most famous black man in Australia, y’know? I want to do all this sort of stuff.
Well, why not?
Yeah. I have dreams. I just want to make Australia a better place. For me, that’s my dream. I love this country. I love the people that live in it. I love this place. It’s my country, you know?
One of the things I’m interested in is that country music is very popular in indigenous communities – has that come about because of Australian country music or all country music that’s popular?
All country music. The American country music out here in the bush is so big. It’s huge. I met this fella called Tracy Burns years ago and he was having a hard time doing a tour in the cities, and I said, ‘Look, the mistake they make is that when they bring the big stars to Australia, they just try to keep them in the cities. You bring them out bush – you put them in Alice Springs or something – people from all over the place will turn up and Alice Springs will be full.’ I told Kenny Rogers the same thing.
Did he listen to you?
Yes, he did. He said, ‘I can’t help it. The people who look after our gigs take me to the places.’ I said, ‘Come out to the bush. You have a gig somewhere, people will turn up from all over the place.’
Why do you think it is that country music’s so popular in indigenous communities?
Country music like old Slim Dusty, he used to sing about the stockmen ... A lot of the people out here – well, I was on one of the biggest cattle stations in Australia and we grew up that way. My dad was a bit of a stockman, another of my uncles and my cousins, they work on the stations. And we know what old Slim was singing about. And what the new country artists, the Americans, sing about, like driving the truck and going to the pub, that’s what people do out here, and it’s so easy to associate with them. Like old love songs – it’s a part of our lives, we live that.
Country music is also a storytelling genre, more than, say, rock or pop, and also a lot of those stories are about the land. You get a lot of songs that describe the land in a meaningful way – they actually describe how people feel about the land. I find that when Australian country songwriters write about the land, I can completely relate to it, because that’s how I feel about it. Do you feel that, that it’s a storytelling culture?
Oh, it is. For me, if I write a song about my place, I do - I write about my place. Albert Namatjira did it when he painted, but nobody believed the colours that he painted, they said, ‘No, you’re making them up.’ But, no, he wasn’t making them up – it’s for real, because we live out here and we see it every day. We can see the harshness of the country and we know how hard it is, but we know how beautiful it is at the same time.
For Part I of this interview, please click here.
For Part III, please click here.
Warren H Williams's official website: www.warrenhwilliams.com
Warren's gigs in Tamworth: www.tamworthcountrymusic.com.au
