Shanleigh Rose on tackling scary subjects in song

Cookie from Rusty Pickups on their new album and unique band dynamic

The last time I interviewed Michael Cook – known as Cookie – from the Darling Downs (Queensland) alt-country and bluegrass band Rusty Pickups [https://www.rustypickups.com.au/], there was a donkey outside the studio at Possum Creek, where the band recorded. Naturally, when we spoke again recently about the band’s new album, I Don’t Think About You at All (… some days), I checked in on this unofficial extra band member and also on the band’s recent successes, which included a New Zealand tour.  Rusty Pickups were originally a four-piece, then became a five-piece – and are now back to being a four-piece, as founding member Waylon Katz is heading off around Australia on a months-long odyssey which will count him out of any band activity for a very long while.  ‘Rusty Pickups is a table we’re all lucky enough to have a seat at,’ says Cookie. ‘Right now his chair’s pushed in, but it’s there for him to pull out again when he wants to come back.’ In this interview Cookie talks further about the ‘table’ that is Rusty Pickups and how it has kept providing for them all, which was the main aim. He has set goals and they’ve kept reaching them, not through crossing their fingers and hoping but by putting in the work and taking chances and opportunities.  It was Katz who wrote the album’s title track, drawing on conversations he’s had in his work as a therapist. Some other songs are written by Cookie, and they are what he calls clear-eyed rather than self-pitying: honest assessments of hard things, including addiction, the passage of time and the unexpected depth of feeling for a very small dog he rescued, named Princess Bubblegum.  The story about that dog is an example of why it’s always great to let interviews flow where they want to go – great stories often result. And it’s also why this interview is on the long side, but Cookie is always interesting to chat to, so a longer conversation is usually on the cards.  Listen to I Don’t Think About You at All on Apple Music [https://music.apple.com/au/album/i-dont-think-about-you-at-all-some-days/1894252739?itscg=30200&itsct=music_box_link&ls=1&app=music&mttnsubad=1894252739&at=1001lryz] Listen to I Don’t Think About You at All on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/album/4jPuopO85N3nIwyKFTjrHG?si=u4yZHeApS9O_RDxjKnChNg] For more Sunburnt Country Music: Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/sunburntcountrymusic/] Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/sunburntcountrymusic]  YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@sunburntcountrymusic] website [https://sunburntcountrymusic.com/]  Substack [https://sunburntcountrymusic.substack.com] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Melanie Dyer on ‘If Only She Knew’ and dreams coming true

At the start of this interview I say I’m a Melanie Dyer [https://www.melaniedyer.com.au/] fan, and that’s because she writes songs that can encompass a whole life, as in her recent single, ‘Golden Girl’, or cut right to the heart of something in a devastating way, as in ‘What You Didn’t Say’, from her 2022 album Between You & Me, or just be out-and-out entertaining because of her ear for melody. As she talks about in this new interview, she discovered the magic of what could be created by combining music with chords at a young age. She would lock herself in her room to write a song then emerge at the ad break to perform it for her parents. She was the youngest person accepted into the Talent Development Project at twelve, training in songcraft, stagecraft, performance and networking alongside musicians from across multiple genres.  ‘I’ve spent my whole life doing this,’ she says. ‘I’ve never known a life without it.’ Dyer’s latest single, ‘If She Only Knew’, is a love letter to that girl growing up on a farm in regional New South Wales, learning chords on her mother’s guitar and dreaming of a life in music. The song was written in Nashville. with Karen Kosowski and Emma-Lee, which whom Dyer wrote her hit ‘Memphis T-Shirt’. There were some tears during the writing session for this song which is, says Dyer, ‘equally heartbreaking and cathartic and inspiring and hopeful’. ‘If you really feel like you're destined to do something, don’t give up on yourself. That’s what this song is saying.’ Dyer’s early dreams have taken her all the way to Music City, where she’s lived for over a year, playing live regularly and writing a lot. Given how often Dyer is asked to co-write with other artists, it’s perfect that she’s now in a place where songwriting is woven into the fabric of daily life. And it’s still a source of wonder to her. ‘I hear melodies in my head,’ she says. ‘They just come out. And that’s still this crazy, magic thing to me – inventing and crafting something from scratch and weaving your emotion into it.’ Young Melanie’s dreams have indeed come true, and listening to Now Melanie talk about that, and much more about her craft and her songs, is hugely inspiring. Listen to ‘If She Only Knew’ on Apple Music [https://music.apple.com/au/album/if-she-only-knew/6770787335?i=6770787336&itscg=30200&itsct=music_box_link&ls=1&app=music&mttnsubad=6770787336&at=1001lryz] Listen to ‘If She Only Knew’ on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/album/0r4RDhDUC8ZILYutJkTWti?si=mGcOZ7tVRPWYWSiVAXScrw] Listen to ‘If She Only Knew’ on YouTube [https://youtu.be/6AiDeA-aUTw?si=_62Cdz6yPKidrpxS] For more Sunburnt Country Music: Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/sunburntcountrymusic/] Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/sunburntcountrymusic]  YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@sunburntcountrymusic] website [https://sunburntcountrymusic.com/]  Substack [https://sunburntcountrymusic.substack.com] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Brooke Seabrook on being a wordsmith and new single ‘Took My Town Away’

Brooke Seabrook [https://brookeseabrook.com/] is a balladeer from Queensland who recently won the Barry Thornton Young Award, which supports Australian bush and heritage artists. Her latest single is ‘Took My Town Away’, produced by Lindsay Waddington.  Seabrook describes herself not as a songwriter but as a wordsmith – and the distinction matters, as she talks about in this interview. For Seabrook came to music through bush poetry, and it runs in her blood. Her grandmother Albertina, born in 1902, was a storyteller and poet, and Seabrook had early influences in the form of AB ‘Banjo’ Paterson and Henry Lawson.  As she recounts, Slim Dusty was a constant in the family home, as were Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, Charlie Pride and Tom T. Hall. John Williamson has also had a big impact, and it was a song she wrote for Williamson called ‘Who’ll Sing Australia Now?’ that led to the Thornton Young Award, which will take Seabrook to the CMAA Academy of Country Music next January. Seabrook has increased her creative output in recent times, partly because one of her two sons died a few years ago, and writing became a way of managing her grief.  ‘As long as we’re still singing and talking about it,’ she says, ‘we’re not forgetting these people.’ The new single, ‘Took My Town Away’, was written about changes to Seabrook’s home suburb of Goodna, which, like so many places, has changed greatly in recent times. The track features backing vocals by Golden Guitar winner William Alexander, who also records with Waddington. Seabrook has also recorded at Rabbit Hole Recording Studio on the Central Coast of New South Wales with producers Dingo and Kasey Chambers, and mentions that she actually has a whole album ready to go, but that she has no current plans to release it. It is, she says, waiting for its moment. Meanwhile, Seabrook performs live regularly and will be supporting Luke O’Shea in Ipswich on 1 August, then performing at the Gympie Music Muster.  Listen to Brooke Seabrook on Apple Music [https://music.apple.com/au/artist/brooke-seabrook/1831232031?itscg=30200&itsct=music_box_link&ls=1&app=music&mttnsubad=1831232031&at=1001lryz]                   Listen to Brooke Seabrook on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/artist/2RUleDF740INQtFzHWJRAT?si=mOKWpcGRRfe41-E0u8ZWGA] Listen to Brooke Seabrook on YouTube [https://youtu.be/Q6Au7KAioe4?si=z1yqbSvtv1HTn4RH] For more Sunburnt Country Music: Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/sunburntcountrymusic/] Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/sunburntcountrymusic]  YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@sunburntcountrymusic] website [https://sunburntcountrymusic.com/]  Substack [https://sunburntcountrymusic.substack.com] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Kesha Nevé is … Better This Way

Although Snowy Mountains-raised Kesha Nevé [https://www.keshaneve.com.au/] was the winner of this year’s Australian Idol, I did not know what to expect when I interviewed her because … I didn’t see any of this year’s season! I caught up on the musical side of things by watching clips and research revealed that she had grown up in Jindabyne, a town in the Snowy Mountains region of New South Wales that is known as the gateway to the nearby ski fields of Thredbo and Perisher in particular. Also that she started singing and performing at a very young age, that she’d spent time around the rodeo scene and worked on a farm in New Zealand for a year.  What research did not reveal – what can never be known until an interview starts – is what an artist is like to talk to, so I discovered in the moment that she’s an absolute delight. Smart and funny and self-aware, close to her family and committed to pursuing her dreams.  We sometimes talk about ‘following’ a dream but that implies a dream can become real if only a person follows long enough. Nevé has worked to make her dreams manifest in life, not just in terms of the time she’s put into developing as an artist but developing as a person, which can only benefit her artistry.  So this is a chat about music and about sport – as her life has been rich in both – about family and Idol and the tour she has coming up. It’s also about her debut country-pop single, ‘Better This Way’, which was written with Ruby Rogers, Lara Frew and Phoebe Sinclair in Nevé’s first ever professional songwriting session. The session began with two hours of conversation and Nevé telling the story of a relationship she’d only recently come out of, before a song emerged that charts the moment the rose-coloured glasses were finally gone, the relationship was done, and she knew she was ‘better this way’. Nevé is going on tour with fellow Idol contestant Kalani Artis. For dates and tickets, go to https://www.keshaneve.com.au/tour-dates/ [https://www.keshaneve.com.au/tour-dates/] Listen to ‘Better This Way’ on Apple Music [https://music.apple.com/au/album/better-this-way-feat-kesha-oayda-radio-edit/6779013204?i=6779013207&itscg=30200&itsct=music_box_link&ls=1&app=music&mttnsubad=6779013207&at=1001lryz] Listen to ‘Better This Way’ on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/album/3M8yLdQWmAMalLfHlvBST4?si=ZI78hX8VRpiiXKZIl-vwdw] Listen to ‘Better This Way’ on YouTube [https://youtu.be/3X1NzF9HrF4?si=XHqRIpe9etieRmap] For more Sunburnt Country Music: Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/sunburntcountrymusic/] Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/sunburntcountrymusic]  YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@sunburntcountrymusic] website [https://sunburntcountrymusic.com/]  Substack [https://sunburntcountrymusic.substack.com] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Ally Paterson on her Gold Rush single, ‘Dig’, and life on the land

The latest single from Ally Paterson [https://www.instagram.com/ally.j.paterson/], a singer-songwriter from the Ballarat area in Victoria, went on, is called ‘Dig’ and it was born at Sovereign Hill, Ballarat’s living museum of the Gold Rush era. As Paterson tells me in this interview, the rhythmic banging of an old battering ram sent her imagination straight to the men who had worked the claims: Irish migrants, Chinese labourers, people who had crossed the world on the bare promise of a lucky strike.  ‘I was inspired by the hardy, wiry gold miner man who’d come from way across the world and was just digging without any guarantee of success,’ she says.  Digging for gold also turned out to be an apt metaphor for this interview. Not because I had to dig necessarily but because gold kept turning up. The longer we spoke, the more I discovered very interesting things about Paterson, such as that she spent several years singing jazz in late-night venues in Melbourne before she and her husband – who have four children – decided to move to the land. Neither of them had any experience with that work, and it has become a lifestyle they love and a connection to the land that inspires Paterson’s writing. Paterson’s earlier experience as a jazz singer explained something I heard in her singing voice: real power and nuance and such a great tone. She’s a really wonderful singer, and ‘Dig’ has great impact because of that and the story she tells in the song.  The song was produced by Matt Fell at Wilder in Tasmania, as was ‘Working Like Dogs’, her first single. More releases are planned, as Paterson is as committed to music as she is to the other parts of the rich life she has created.  Listen to Ally Paterson on Apple Music [https://music.apple.com/au/artist/ally-paterson/1848079271?itscg=30200&itsct=music_box_link&ls=1&app=music&mttnsubad=1848079271&at=1001lryz] Listen to Ally Paterson on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/artist/3uIYubppw5bnoFWTYydOu0?si=FEeqVBhpQzqQeeGcoBbv-g] Listen to Ally Paterson on YouTube [https://youtu.be/inFpHOr1_mw?si=qWZ5n_rTCqEEPBUc] For more Sunburnt Country Music: Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/sunburntcountrymusic/] Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/sunburntcountrymusic]  YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@sunburntcountrymusic] website [https://sunburntcountrymusic.com/]  Substack [https://sunburntcountrymusic.substack.com] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.