Sunburnt Country Music

Early in my interview with Chris Cobb, who has just released his debut album, More Questions than Answers, he speaks about his childhood in Bulolo in Papua New Guinea. ‘Music was very much a part of me,’ he says, then he went on to talk about how there was a local bluegrass scene, and a band in which most players had instruments with two strings only. ‘I got lost in it,’ he tells me, and being surrounded by so much music led him to want to play guitar from a young age – although not the child-sized guitar his father brought home for him! Cobb has lived in music since then, although it hasn’t always been his focus – he worked in the corporate sector for a while, before moving to Queensland’s Sunshine Coast with his wife and children, then deciding to pursue music more fully. This included appearing on The Voice last year and now releasing his debut album, More Questions Than Answers.The album is a mixture of covers and originals, with Australian country music legend James Blundell appearing on ‘Love Letter to Morobe’ and rising star Felicity Kircher on opening track ‘Linger’. The covers are beautifully done, and once you know the reasons why each has been included – as Cobb reveals in this interview – you will further appreciate the richness of his music and story. More Questions Than Answers is an album for those who love the art of singing, and those who want to be taken on a journey. There’s a variety of styles on the album, and all of them radiating from Cobb’s authentic appreciation and understanding of the music that has come before him and that he is immersed in now. Listen to More Questions Than Answers on Apple MusicListen to More Questions Than Answers on SpotifyListen to More Questions Than Answers on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘Saturday night’s the gooseneck party – this is the Sunday after.’ That’s how award-winning country music artist Wade Forster described his new album, The Aftermath, to me in this interview. The album comes fairly hot on the heels of his last, Gooseneck Party, hence his explanation, and he wrote them close together too, recording The Aftermath earlier this year, straight after his 2026 Golden Guitar wins for Male Artist of the Year and New Talent of the Year.Gooseneck Party certainly wasn’t entirely a party album, but of the two The Aftermath is the heartbreaker. There is no wallowing on it, though – it’s a clear-eyed look at mistakes made and an even clearer view of what’s ahead.‘When you’re hungover, you don’t need to tell everyone “I’ve been an idiot”,’ says Forster in this chat. ‘They already know.’ This is, he says, how the self-pity that might have been in some of these songs was taken away and they became about feeling other things. It’s a remarkable collection of songs and, as when I last spoke to Forster, I loved hearing about his songwriting process. He’s mainly a solo songwriter; only two of the tracks on The Aftermath are co-writes (‘Heaven ’57’ with Piper Butcher and ‘October’ with Ellis Undercover), and storytelling is at his core. The effectiveness of his music is not only in the lyrics, though – it’s in the way they’re delivered, and the way he uses his voice to do that. Then there is his live performance, which is quite something – Forster is very much alert to the fact that people spend their hard-earned money to come to a show, and he wants to make it worth their while. This is no doubt part of why he’s already developed a large following overseas – he was about to take off to the USA when we spoke, and he has shows there this month – and also why he picks up more fans all the time in Australia.The Aftermath is out now through Community Music and if you’d like to see Forster live, the dates are: WADE FORSTERTHE AFTERMATH TOUR 2026With The Wet Whistles and Piper ButcherFor tickets and further information head to livenation.com.au Astor Theatre, PerthThursday 22 October Metro Theatre, SydneyThursday 29 October – NEW DATEFriday 30 October – SOLD OUT Fortitude Music Hall, BrisbaneFriday 13 November Hindley St. Music Hall, AdelaideFriday 20 November Forum, MelbourneSaturday 21 NovemberListen to The Aftermath on Apple MusicListen to The Aftermath on SpotifyListen to The Aftermath on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the start of the enterprise that became Sunburnt Country Music, I was a fan of The McClymonts, the band Brooke McClymont formed with her sisters, Sam and Molly. Their country-pop songs were always clever and fun and musically unforgettable, due to their way with a melody and their harmonies. I saw them play live as often as I could. Thus, when Brooke released an album with her husband, Adam Eckersley, I rushed to listen to it and discovered a work that had the excellence that they had both produced separately – Eckersley with his eponymous band – yet had a unique sound and sensibility. The songs on that first self-titled album would not have belonged with The McClymonts or The Adam Eckersley Band – they were definitively Brooke and Adam’s alone. It was an exciting development for a music fan, and it continued with their second album, Up, Down & Sideways, which produced chart-topping, award-winning hits such as ‘Star of the Show’ (written with their daughter, Tiggy) and ‘Memory Lane’.One of the hardest things for any artist to do – let alone two together – is not only be consistent but create something different that is as good or better than what has come before. This involves risk, especially when there is a well-established fan base. And while Brooke and Adam have big, bold personalities, they are serious about their music so the risk is real. In the case of their third album, the newly release Souls on Show, the risk has manifested as a rich album about life and marriage and committing to make the best of both. As with previous albums, they take relatable subjects and apply their talents to them and the resulting songs are so good because they take the risk. They push themselves to make the music better each time. It’s a compliment to their audience, because what also seems true of them both is that they love that connection with their audience. If we show up, they will too, in spades.In this new interview they talk about their creative process and how The Wang, where they host groups of people and perform songs old and new for them, has contributed to it, and their regard for each other as artists and people is so clear. All of this contributes to the quality of the music they produce. Live, Brooke and Adam are never not great, whether it’s with their band or as a duo (including at The Wang, where you can see them up close and free flowing in the best way). I’ve seen their band show enough times to know that it can leave a person high for days, on the quality of the music and the fact that Brooke and Adam always seem to be having the most fun every single time. They are touring in support of Souls on Show and you can find the details here: https://www.brookeandadam.com/ontour.I used to think I was perhaps too biased about The McClymonts, but then decided that I was biased because they were so good. So perhaps I’m biased about Brooke and Adam too – but it’s because they’re so good. In this world, with so much information coming at us, with so many options for our time and attention, they make it easy for us to choose their music by accepting nothing less than excellence in themselves. For those of us who live and breathe music, there’s nothing better.Souls on Show is out now through Universal Music Australia.Listen to Souls on Show on Apple MusicListen to Souls on Show on SpotifyListen to Souls on Show on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Victorian Andrew Swift has released four ARIA chart-topping albums and won three Golden Guitars, in amongst touring regularly – although later it’s been a lighter tour schedule than usual, as he’s now the proud dad of Valentine.Swift has built his fan base with both releases and touring, and the temptation for any artist in that position must be to continue in the same vein with the songs he writes and records. Yet for his latest single, ‘Brick by Brick’, Swift has changed musical direction – although still within country music – to bluegrass. Not just this song, either: his forthcoming album has been produced entirely without electric instruments by his longtime band member (and highly regarded producer) Damian Cafarella.In this new interview Swift tells me that ‘Brick by Brick’ was written nearly two years ago in a co-write at his dining table with his fiancée, Simone Sordello, alongside Gretta Ziller, Melanie Dyer and Jackson James. The lyrics grew out of a shared frustration among the co-writers with someone who'd repeatedly tested their goodwill. ‘This song is by no means a diss track,’ Swift says. ‘It’s just how we were feeling in that moment.’The song was put on the back burner as Swift finished his most recent album, Lucky Stars. Yet ‘I’ve been wanting to do a bluegrass project,’ as he says, tracing the idea back to revisiting his 2015 debut, Call for the Cavalry, on a flight and hearing its Americana roots calling him back.Currently seven songs into the new record, Swift is balancing studio time around fatherhood, working sessions in around Valentine's daycare days. His live shows will lean towards a solo or duo storyteller format in the near term, with plans to rework older favourites like ‘Runaway Train’ and ‘Head Full of Honey’ into the new sound for select performances, including a bluegrass hoedown in Tamworth.You’ll find Swift performing at Groundwater Country Music Festival on Broadbeach on the Gold Coast, held on 17 and 18 October. See below for the full list of tour dates.Listen to ‘Brick by Brick’ on Apple MusicListen to ‘Brick by Brick’ on SpotifyListen to ‘Brick by Brick’ on YouTubeSEE ANDREW SWIFT LIVESaturday 5th September - Noojee Hotel, Noojee VICFriday 11th September - Odessa’s, Creswick VICSaturday 12th September - Bells Beach Brewing Company, Torquay VICFriday 18th September - Golden Vine Hotel, Bendigo VICSaturday 19th September - Young Street Tavern, Frankston VICFriday 2nd October - Sooki Lounge, Belgrave VICSaturday October 3rd - The Bend Classic, Tailem Bend SASaturday October 10th - The Oaks, Albion Park Rail NSWSunday October 11th - Camden Hotel, Camden NSWSaturday 17th October - Groundwater Country Music Festival, Broadbeach QLDSunday 18th October - Groundwater Country Music Festival, Broadbeach QLDTuesday 19th January - Bluegrass Hoedown, Tamworth Country Music Festival NSWWednesday 20th January - The Longyard Hotel, Tamworth NSWThursday 25th March - Friday 9th April - Singapore to Sydney Country Music Cruise**Tickets on sale now and available via www.andrewswift.com.au**For more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When I was researching this interview with Devonport, Tasmania-based country-rock artist Zac Weeks, the New Zealand Gold Guitar Awards – and his success at them – kept coming up, the point where I then went looking for information about where he was from in New Zealand. There was none, and therefore I decided that I’d start the interview by asking about this.It turns out that Weeks is very much from Tasmania but on a suggestion from some New Zealand country music artists he met at the CMAA Academy of Country Music, he entered into the Gold Guitar Awards and emerged as a runner-up in the open singer-songwriter category, which is very good going for a first-time entrant. It was at Academy that Weeks’s latest single, ‘Long Neck Long Gone’, came together. The title had sat in his Notes app for four years; it was a line borrowed from a friend as they were finishing a ginger beer on a night out in Devonport. At Academy Weeks was paired with in-demand songwriter Matt Scullion, and the song took shape within minutes. ‘What about this: “long neck, long gone, she left me alone”,’ Weeks recalls Scullion offering, before the two wrote the rest of the track together.While Weeks has previously recorded with producer Matt Fell, who is also based in Tasmania, he recorded the latest single with Jacky McCormack, who is on the Central Coast of New South Wales. At the time we spoke Weeks was currently touring Tasmania – and he does play quite a lot around the Apple Isle – before heading to the Gympie Music Muster, which starts on Thursday 27 August. He’s already had an action-packed year, and no doubt Gympie will provide even more motivation for him to continue performing and writing – so stand by for future releases!Listen to Zac Weeks on Apple MusicListen to Zac Weeks on SpotifyListen to Zac Weeks on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Victorian artist Madeline Leman’s latest country-folk album, Ripen on the Vine, was recorded in 2023, and while Leman has released some singles since then, the album needed a little more time to emerge – for a very important reason. As she tells me early in this interview, her young son was unwell for several months, so the album’s release was necessarily delayed.Upon release it went to number 4 in the ARIA Country chart and number 5 on the Australia Indie chart, and Leman has also played shows in support of it, no doubt swelling the numbers of fans for her intelligent, often whimsical music that combines beautifully crafted lyrics with rich musicality.Leman grew up in a musical family – her parents met while playing in a band together, and were folk artists. They dubbed her the ‘human radio’ because she would sing so often from such a young age. Piano was her first instrument, and Missy Higgins a big early influence, so Leman began writing songs on piano.She then taught herself guitar and, while at university, listened to a lot of country music. At that time in Melbourne the alt-country/Americana scene was at its height, but it was a folk artist with whom she made the most lasting connection. Sharing a house with folk artist Leah Senior, Leman played her a song she’d written; this led Senior to Leman to play in a folk duo with her. Leman also talks about recording certain songs on the album and the choices that were made musically and lyrically, and we talk about clothes – if you watch the interview rather than listening to it, you’ll see that her clothing choices are as astute as her musical ones!It was a great pleasure to meet Leman, who is a passionate, articulate artist and one whose music is enriching on so many levels. And listen to the end to hear her talk about the line-dancing class she teaches …Listen to/buy Ripen on the Vine on BandcampListen to Ripen on the Vine on Apple MusicListen to Ripen on the Vine on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Georgia Scarlett and Joel Spence are two Queensland country artists who have been releasing solo music independently for several years, and who have now found a creative partnership that has produced two singles which have taken them in a musical direction that is distinct from their own music while preserving their musical identities. The first single is ‘The Wise Folks Say’, which was the reason for our recent interview. The second, released after this interview was recorded, is ‘Honey Let’s Go’.Their story begins at the Song Muster in Gympie, which has now generated several outstanding songs and songwriting partnerships that bring established and emerging songwriters together. Scarlett and Spence were placed in the same writing group and produced ‘The Wise Folks Say’ in a single session. ‘This spark just connected instantly once we started talking our experiences, our journeys through life, some of the wisdom that’s been passed down to us,’ says Scarlett. ‘Every verse is a different life lesson. It has that old-fashioned country wisdom that I really love.’The duo brought the song to producer Kelsey Berrington. The result is a song in which the duo’s voices are given the space to meld and separate as needed, revealing the way they balance and complement each other. Spence grew up in the Lockyer Valley, west of Brisbane, on a cattle and grain property. He has been writing and recording since his teens, and also has an academic interest in the power of music, conducting research into how community-led songwriting and performance can foster healing, cultural justice, and empowerment for First Nations Peoples in remote communities. Scarlett is originally from Bundaberg and grew up learning piano but found that she was better suited to clarinet, and has since added guitar and harmonica to her repertoire. She released her debut solo album, Rhythm of Life, last year. Scarlett and Spence’s collaboration on ‘The Wise Folks Say’ worked so well that they have now released a second single together, ‘Honey Let’s Go’. Listen to ‘The Wise Folks Say’ on Apple MusicListen to ‘The Wise Folks Say’ on SpotifyListen to ‘The Wise Folks Say’ on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jessie Robins grew up in Katherine in the Northern Territory as one of a set of triplets and the daughter of a helicopter mustering pilot, and – as she tells me in this new interview – she has been singing since she was a small child. Creativity also runs in the family as her sisters are also working in creative fields. Robins now lives in Brisbane, where she performs regularly across the city and occasionally on Stradbroke Island, and she has released her debut country pop single, 'I Should Have Known Better'. The song was written with Shannon McArthur, a producer and songwriter living in Austin, Texas who is Robins’s longtime collaborator. They made a connection made through YouTube long before Zoom made remote creative partnerships commonplace.Robins has been writing songs since childhood, and tells me that she still has notebooks from those years and occasionally finds a melody or a lyric she could use now. ‘I Should’ve Known Better’ came about through Robins watching a friend navigate a relationship from beginning to end, and the song sat with her for a couple of years before the timing felt right to release it. ‘Now that those circumstances have passed,’ she says, ‘I felt like it was the right time to move forward.’The song's title implies regret, but the sound does not. Robins was deliberate about this – she wanted something people could put on in the car and feel okay about, not sad. ‘It’s okay to test things and trial things and then come out the other side with learnings,’ she says.The genre of country music isn’t Robins’s natural habitat – she didn’t grow up listening to it. But over her years of performing and studying at JMC Academy in Brisbane, people kept telling her she sounded country. Eventually, she stopped resisting, and the result is this nuanced debut track.Listen to ‘I Should’ve Known Better’ on Apple MusicListen to ‘I Should’ve Known Better’ on SpotifyListen to ‘I Should’ve Known Better’ on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nashdale are a Central Coast country duo – Kerryn Daniel on lead vocals and Brent Murphy on guitars and vocals – who have been playing together for over a decade and releasing original music since 2024. Their third single, ‘Boots Back On’, is out now, and an EP is in the works for the Tamworth Country Music Festival next year.While it seems like the pair came up with the perfect moniker for a country duo, Nashdale is a real place: a small locality outside Orange in the Central West of New South Wales, where Daniel grew up and her grandparents had an orchard. Daniel and Murphy have been performing together for a decade, a collaboration which started when Murphy heard Daniel sing with a friend’s band and, as he tells me in this new interview, launched a plot to steal her! Obviously he had the right instincts, considering how long they’ve been working together, and in the interview it was clear how much respect they have for each other and also how their dynamic would work on stage and in creating music.After several years playing shows on the NSW Central Coast, the enforced inactivity of the pandemic gave them the opportunity to start recording originals together. Murphy has a home studio, and it was there that they started demoing songs with no particular plan. As they told me, they now have around thirty in various stages of development.Their third single, ‘Boots Back On’ came about when Daniel played Murphy that she loved the groove of, and Murphy reached into his stack of old lyric drafts for something that might fit the energy. The song is about acknowledging that something isn’t working and putting your boots back on and getting on with things. There are other releases in the works, including an EP timed to come out around the 2027 Tamworth Country Music Festival. And if you’re a ‘Coastie’, make sure to check out Nashdale live!Listen to ‘Boots Back On’ on Apple MusicListen to ‘Boots Back On’ on SpotifyListen to ‘Boots Back On’ on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Art can emerge at any age, and that’s just as true of younger artists as those who find their creative voices later on. Sydney singer-songwriter Hayden Phillis is not yet twenty years old and has spent his teen years developing his skills as a musician, singer and songwriter, attending the CMAA Academy of Country Music three times – twice as a singer-songwriter, once in the instrumentalist strand, which he describes as one of his favourite experiences, forcing him to rapidly develop piano skills and adaptability in a band setting. His debut album, Too Young, may have been released only last year but Phillis already has a new single, ‘Stick Poke Tattoos’, which was inspired by a friend’s relationship and written using Phillis’s somewhat wry powers of observation. He’s a songwriter who is interested in human experiences, and exploring them through his songs. He writes on buses, at gigs, in the notes app on his phone – collecting fragments, testing them against what he already has, and discarding what doesn’t fit.‘I had the attitude of writing what I see and what I think,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t trying to put myself in a box that everyone will like.’Both the first album and his forthcoming second, which is to be called What Time Doesn’t Know, were recorded at Rabbit Hole Recording Studio on the Central Coast with producer Dingo (Brandon Dodd), a collaboration Phillis talks about in this new interview.He also mentions his upcoming long trip to Nashville, his plans for the 2027 Tamworth Country Music Festival – and his hobby making video games, which is another creative outlet and form of storytelling.Listen to ‘Stick Poke Tattoos’ on Apple MusicListen to ‘Stick Poke Tattoos’ on SpotifyListen to ‘Stick Poke Tattoos’ on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The first time I interviewed country-folk artist Olive Mae she was in a caravan she shared with her husband and children, and they were travelling around Australia, embracing freedom – a concept that is at the core of Olive’s latest single, ‘Country Songs’.Now settled in the south-west of Western Australia, about ten minutes’ drive from the popular Margaret River area, Olive is playing fewer shows on the road but certainly not playing less overall, as we talk about in this new interview.‘Country Songs’ is, Olive says, her first attempt at writing a country song; she previously believed she was writing folk songs – although, as she says in the interview, when one of them ended up being nominated in a country music awards category, she reassessed! The song is partly about how music might have been the path she wanted to take from a young age but instead she followed the advice of others to pursue more conventional paths. ‘Sometimes you’ve got to do the wrong thing just to realise what’s wrong,’ she says. ‘That’s just as important as finding what’s right.’Ultimately, though, art won out, which is partly how she found herself in that caravan, touring the land. ‘I wanted to be free,’ she says, ‘to choose the path that you want to take and not take on anyone else’s thoughts on how you should be living.’ Of course, being free is not as simple as the phrase makes it sound – it requires courage to focus on what you know is right for you and ignore others who are trying to steer you away for their own reasons. As ever, it was a great deal of fun chatting to Olive, who will be at this year’s Gympie Music Muster in August, attending the CMAA Academy’s Campfire songwriting programme. She’s also booked her first Tamworth headline show for the 2027 festival, at the Listening Room at the Community Centre on Thursday 21 January. Listen to ‘Country Songs’ on Apple MusicListen to ‘Country Songs’ on SpotifyListen to ‘Country Songs’ on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Central Coast NSW country-pop artist Ella Powell has been evolving her sound and storytelling over her last few singles, and her latest, ‘Hate My Clothes’, has the most intriguing title yet. As Powell tells me in this new interview, the song began as a feeling rather than a concept. She had a verse and a chorus and took those to co-writer and producer Ben Horsley, who has worked on her last two singles. The title of the song was Horsley’s suggestion, and it is not a song about Powell needing a new wardrobe but, rather, about finding an identity – something that most humans go through in their teens and early twenties, and which can be more pressing for artists in an era when brand is so important and artists are trying to, well, make art. Powell started performing at eight and released her first proper single, ‘Paper Town’, in her mid-teens – it’s a song she tends to keep in her set, despite releasing several singles since, because it brought many fans to her for the first time. She is now in her early twenties and, for the first time, says she knows exactly who she is as an artist and exactly what she wants to make. A year or two of releases are already mapped out, writing sessions are ongoing with Horsley, and production on new material has begun. At the core of Powell’s songwriting is a drive to tell stories. As she tells me, she writes several songs simultaneously to reduce attachment to any one, and is comfortable abandoning material that isn’t working, which is a discipline she has developed over years of writing. Her ideas come from overhearing conversations, scrolling book titles online, and using random word generators as prompts – I hadn’t heard of anyone using that last one, and am now intrigued!It’s always exciting to see what Powell comes up with next, and also lovely to talk to her, so I hope you enjoy this conversation.Listen to Ella Powell on Apple MusicListen to Ella Powell on SpotifyListen to Ella Powell on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The last time I interviewed Michael Cook – known as Cookie – from the Darling Downs (Queensland) alt-country and bluegrass band Rusty Pickups, 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 MusicListen to I Don’t Think About You at All on SpotifyFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the start of this interview I say I’m a Melanie Dyer 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 MusicListen to ‘If She Only Knew’ on SpotifyListen to ‘If She Only Knew’ on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brooke Seabrook 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                  Listen to Brooke Seabrook on SpotifyListen to Brooke Seabrook on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Although Snowy Mountains-raised Kesha Nevé 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/Listen to ‘Better This Way’ on Apple MusicListen to ‘Better This Way’ on SpotifyListen to ‘Better This Way’ on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The latest single from Ally 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 MusicListen to Ally Paterson on SpotifyListen to Ally Paterson on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There’s never a guarantee of what will emerge during an interview – that’s partly why it’s so interesting to be able to talk to all sorts of artists. And even if I’ve interviewed an artist before, there’s always something new to discover. In the case of Jean Elliot, a multi-genre artist from the Hawkesbury region of New South Wales, north of Sydney – which inspired ‘Devil’s Wilderness Theme’ on her EP, Butcher, Lover, Runner – we discovered that we had a strong interest in common: ancient history. Elliot is studying it at university, and I studied it for years. So you’ll hear us digress a little on that subject in this interview … Except I don’t believe it actually is a digression, given the epic, high-stakes nature of storytelling in ancient texts and the way that has influenced Elliot as a songwriter and artist generally.Butcher, Lover, Runner opens with a country-influenced track, ‘Hole in Her Head’, and Elliot then takes us into a song cycle that includes moments of rapture, such as third track ‘Beneath Your Sun’, and bittersweet reflection, as on the closing track, ‘Highwayman’, crossing genres as she goes.‘I never really think about genre when I'm writing,’ she says. ‘The idea pops into my head fully formed and we just try our best to translate it into something tangible.’The landscape Elliot grew up in and around, and still lives in, has shaped the stories she wants to tell and how she tells them. It’s a place I’m familiar with – many Sydneysiders are, as we travel through it to the Central Coast or Newcastle – and a breathtaking part of the world. It’s little wonder that it inspires Elliot, and also that she respects it.‘I’m contributing to a canon of thousands and thousands of years of storytelling about this place,’ she says. ‘I have to do so in an honest and loving way.’ Elliot has been studying philosophy and archaeology, along with ancient history, which all points to a fundamental interest in the intersection of storytelling and the questions about life and how to live it than many of us consider. She has honoured that lineage with her EP, and it was so interesting to learn about what contributed to its making and where she’s going next with her music. There’s also a great story about the building that appears on the cover of the EP – you’ll have to listen/watch to find out what it is! https://jeanelliotmusic.bandcamp.com/ Listen to Butcher, Lover, Runner on Apple Music Listen to Butcher, Lover, Runner on Spotify Listen to Butcher, Lover, Runner on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sibling harmonies are a form of magic – there’s a synergy that happens within families who sing together that makes for unforgettable sounds that are impossible to replicate. Brisbane sister trio Vixens of Fall have been creating that sort of magic for a decade, embracing it in the title of their 2023 debut album, Magick in the Chaos, and in their lives. The latest single for sisters Nina, Wren and Lulu is ‘Midnight Cowgirls’, and might be said to have come about through a form of magic known as manifestation. All three Vixens love to wear the clothing label Tree of Life and have done for years. Then they were contacted by the owner of the company, asking if they’d like to be the faces of a new line called Midnight Cowgirls. The Vixens already had a songwriting session booked with regular collaborator Sally Barris and decided to write a song to go with the clothing line, and their latest single, ‘Midnight Cowgirls’, was born.The song was produced by Rod McCormack, who also produced their first album – and their second, Fox Hollow, which will be released in November and which will feature ‘Midnight Cowgirls’. He’s like family, the sisters tell me in this new interview, which was conducted not long before Nina was due to give birth to her second child.The Vixens are a tight unit, as is evident in this interview and when they perform. One of the wonderful things about them is how clearly they love not only making music together but simply being around each other. There is so much strength in that sort of bond – and unlimited potential. Or magic. Whatever you’d like to call it, no doubt you will enjoy meeting Vixens of Fall.Listen to Vixens of Fall on Apple MusicListen to Vixens of Fall on SpotifyListen to Vixens of Fall on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paper Daisies are a duo from the Gold Coast who have released one single, ‘Heartbreakin’ Cowboy’, and as soon as I heard it I thought, These two are not just starting out. The vocals are glorious and there was this energy running through the song that made it sound like the artists, Britt Grey and Rhea Robertson, were completely immersed in the music.So I was interested to talk to them both, and … WELL. Even though I’d done my research and discovered that Robertson has her own pop releases that have garnered millions of streams, there was plenty that did not turn up, including a wonderful story about how they met – and you can watch/listen to the interview to find out what that is – along with the fact that Grey has a well-established acting career that includes the yet-to-be-released Zombie Plane, featuring Vanilla Ice and Sophie Monk (and the late Chuck Norris). Then there is their friendship, which is gloriously supportive and evident in this interview. ‘The experience of singing together and being immersed in our harmonies,’ says Robertson in this interview, ‘I wish everybody got to experience what it feels like to create music with your best friend.’They not only love doing things together – they both have fully creative lives, and it was inspiring to talk to them about their various ventures and also wonderful to meet such talented people who embrace opportunities and, for lack of a better phrase, look for the light in life. Their single, ‘Heartbreakin’ Cowboy’, was inspired by the experiences of a mutual friend: it was written with multi-instrumentalist Bradley Green and produced by Scott French at Love Street Studios. It’s the first single off their planned EP, and the next single will be released on 9 July. Listen to ‘Heartbreakin’ Cowboy’ on Apple MusicListen to ‘Heartbreakin’ Cowboy’ on SpotifyListen to ‘Heartbreakin’ Cowboy’ on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the Central West of New South Wales, William Alexander won his first Golden Guitar earlier this year in the category of Bush Ballad of the Year, for the song ‘Wild Roan Brumby’, which he wrote with his good friend Pete Denahy. For those of us who have observed Alexander’s career, and listened to his releases starting in 2023, there was no surprise in the award itself – only in the fact that it had taken so long. For three years may not seem like much, but when the talent is as evident as it is in this artist, it feels like more than enough for recognition to mature.In the songs on his latest album, Along the Boundary Line, Alexander has a way of writing about life and work on the land that suggests someone who not only observes and feels and thinks but can articulate the result of all of that. He’s alert to the world, in other words, and curious about it too. Not that he’s always recorded his own songs: he began by releasing cover versions.‘I just always felt like I hadn’t earned the right to be the songwriter yet,’ he tells me in this new interview. ‘I was too busy discovering old songs and absorbing that.’In Along the Boundary Line Alexander creates songs in a traditional style that cover aspects of modern life, marrying a way of life that is much older with contemporary concerns. It’s almost a juxtaposition, until you realise he’s likely documenting his own experiences. As an example: ‘All I Stand to Lose’, which was a single, is about the push and pull of having the urge to go roaming yet cherishing what’s at home, and is the acme of bittersweetness. Yet Alexander doesn’t linger there, instead moving onto the jaunty ‘Horse and Hobble Days’, and both songs are alive with detail. Alexander is also a wonderful singer, both recorded and live, a balladeer who is also a crooner. When I ask him about his voice in our recent chat, he says, ‘I think what you're mentioning is probably just the way I was told to speak as a kid.’ He had, he says, a grandfather who insisted on no mumbling, and it’s ‘coming through in the way I sing’.Along the Boundary Line was recorded largely with just Alexander and producer Lindsay Waddington in the room first, building each song before adding esteemed players including Brendan Radford, Jen Mize and Michel Rose. The result is a collection of songs that immediately allow the listener in and invite them back. Although there’s a distinct lack of yodelling – something that featured on his first album, The Singing Stockman – which I ask him about.They haunt you, these new songs, in the way that they put you in the landscape with its space and silence and also its sounds and the life that’s humming all around you yet not always evident to the eye. That’s achieved through the production, sure, but it all starts with the artist’s intention – with the stories he has to tell and the way he wants to tell them. The album is an outstanding work. It was a pleasure to talk to Alexander about those songs, and much more. Buy Along the Boundary Line on BandcampListen to Along the Boundary Line on Apple MusicListen to Along the Boundary Line on SpotifyListen to Along the Boundary Line on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Towards the end of my first ever interview with Brandon Dodd, who records under the name Dingo (he’s released music under both, including the 2020 album What a Way to Die and Dingo and the Rising River in 2024), I realised that I’d seen him play a solo set right before the pandemic closed the nation, and world, down. Because the pandemic changed the shape of time – or so it seemed – and somewhat made life into a washing machine, I completely forgot about that set until he mentioned playing support for Patty Griffin. For it was at a Griffin show at Angel Place in Sydney that I saw him play, and thought he was terrific, and also wondered how long we might still be able to go to live shows. The answer, of course, came quickly after, and for two years there would be very little live music.Dingo was not idle during that time, nor has he been since, whether making his own music or helping others make theirs. Recently his name has been coming up more and more frequently as a producer, of the exceptional emerging artist Faith Williams and the beloved star Beccy Cole, amongst others; he works out of Rabbit Hole Recording Studio on the Central Coast of New South Wales, which he runs with his partner, Kasey Chambers.Chambers features in a great story Dingo tells in this interview, about learning to sing harmonies, when I asked him about how he’d developed his singing voice. He has plenty of very interesting things to say as we talk about his new single, ‘Autumn’, which is taken from his upcoming album Nightwire. I actually didn’t get to ask many of the questions I’d prepared because the conversation went in other directions, and when I’m interviewing I’d much rather follow the conversation than stick to a schedule. To the single, though, as it’s a lovely one: ‘Autumn’ is a love song built around the imagery of the season – leaves falling, and change as something to lean into rather than resist – and at its centre is the idea that you can fall in love again and again with the same person if you stay open to growth. The song (and forthcoming album) was produced not by Dingo but by the in-demand Jordan Power. ‘The best thing you can do is put the other hats down and just be the best artist that you can be,’ says Dingo when I ask why he handed over the role to someone else. Of the forthcoming album, Nightwire, Dingo says it’s ‘me being in love with songs – being in love with music, being just so wrapped up in it again and loving it for what it is.’ Indeed, this whole conversation demonstrated to me that he’s a man who truly loves being immersed in music, and who remains intrigued by it and by what’s possible with it. Suffice to say the release of that album can’t come soon enough.Dingo is currently on tour with the great Adam Harvey, then he’ll join the Ian Moss and Troy Cassar-Daley double header (dates below). In the midst of that he’ll be at the Deniliquin Ute Muster (details also below). 26th June – Bligh Park Hotel – South Windsor, NSW # 27th June – The Oaks Hotel – Albion Park Rail, NSW # 28th June – The Royal Hotel – Queanbeyan, NSW # Friday 28th August – Gympie Music Muster – Gympie, QLD 15th October - Events Centre Kings Theatre, Caloundra QLD * 16th October - Twin Towns - Tweed Heads, NSW * 17th October - Saraton Theatre – Grafton, NSW * 30th October - Commercial Club – Albury, NSW * 31st October - Civic Theatre - Wagga Wagga, NSW * 6th November - Anita’s Theatre – Thirroul, NSW * 7th November - Blue Mountains Theatre & Community Centre – Springwood, NSW * 12th November - The Art House – Wyong, NSW * 13th November – Glasshouse - Port Macquarie, NSW *  # With Adam Harvey / * With Ian Moss & Troy Cassar-Daley **Tickets on sale now and available via https://www.dingomusicofficial.com/#tour Dingo will also be performing at this year’s Deni Ute Muster, held on Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd October 2026. Tickets are on sale now and available via deniutemuster.com.au.Listen to Dingo on Apple MusicListen to Dingo on SpotifyListen to Dingo on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Suburban Cowgirl, the latest album from beloved country music star Amber Lawrence, topped the Australian album and country album charts open release, and has held its spot. This will be no surprise to anyone who heard the singles leading up to it, including ‘That’s Cowgirl to Me’, which contains the line ‘I am the boss of my own wild frontier’ – which is a true statement when it comes to Lawrence, who has charted her course in country music with hard work, a wonderful songwriting talent and a live show that never fails to leave the audience uplifted. She has constantly chosen to go further into her own wild frontier and leads by example, as a generous performer and artist who lifts up those around her, including emerging artists.If it sounds like I’m a fan – I am. Not because it’s a default position but because I’ve seen Lawrence play live many times, I’ve interviewed her several times, and I love her albums. I also see her at shows around Sydney, so we know each other, well enough that I worked with her on the children’s book that she has released in tandem with the book (this work was in an unpaid advisory capacity, and came about because I work in book publishing and I’m a published author). The book is divine and as inspiring as her music and shows. It could not have been that without everything that has come before in Lawrence’s life and career, nor without the album that is its reason for existing. Suburban Cowgirl is chock full of anthems and singalong choruses. It has tributes to the joys to be found in everyday life (‘This Suburban Lifetime’ and ‘Smallest Years’) and the gratitude we can practise for that, to love of friends and family and home, and of her fans (‘We Ride At Dawn’, ‘Sing Me Home’). It also features a lovely duet with traditional country artist William Alexander (‘I’ve Got a Hankering’).I talk to Lawrence about all of this in our new interview. It is always wonderful to talk to her. She is one of the greats. Listen to Suburban Cowgirl on Apple MusicListen to Suburban Cowgirl on SpotifyListen to Suburban Cowgirl on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mem Davis is a singer, songwriter and – as I found out during this interview – a book editor from the south coast of New South Wales, although she’s currently not there, because she and partner Neil have been travelling Australia in a caravan since September last year, performing as the Mem Davis Duo along the way, with their elderly Boston terrier in tow.The musical life was not one Davis thought she would be leading. As she tells me, she spent years believing she couldn’t sing, having been told so by people close to her. It wasn’t until she was in her twenties that she booked a singing lesson and discovered that, as she says, ‘[e]verything I believed about myself was essentially thrown out the window’. She has been writing and performing ever since, though the happier songs, she notes, only arrived in her late thirties. ‘I realised music didn’t have to be therapy,’ she says.Davis’s latest single, ‘It’s All Just Love’, was produced by Liam Kennedy-Clark, a multi-instrumentalist and, as half of Wicker Suite, a Golden Guitar winner. The song uses bees as a central metaphor for community and the balance between individual responsibility and collective support. Davis attended the CMAA Academy of Country Music and writes regularly at the DAG songwriting retreat, where she has made connections she credits as among the most valuable of her career, a co-write with Luke O'Shea being a particular highlight. A second single, recorded with Kennedy-Clark, is due later in the year, with an album the eventual goal.At the time of recording the interview, Davis and Neil were based in Tamworth, preparing to head to the Northern Rivers. There are shows coming up, including one for the winter solstice in Uralla. Details at memdavis.com.Listen to ‘It’s All Just Love’ on Apple MusicListen to ‘It’s All Just Love’ on SpotifyListen to ‘It’s All Just Love’ on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Some artists arrive with a statement – or a splash, as you prefer – and it’s immediately clear that it’s worth paying attention to them because whatever comes next is likely to be interesting. As is the case with Sydney country-pop artist Amy Solylo.Solylo has released one single, ‘He Wants Me (Dead)’ – and also an acoustic version of the song – and its combination of tongue-in-cheek self-awareness and whimsy offers something different and intriguing. The same combination is there when Solylo performs live, as she’s been doing a fair bit lately at Sydney country music institution Jolene’s, and it’s also clear that she is a born entertainer.As Solylo tells me in this new interview, the single is about being ‘your own biggest red flag’ and came about after she was blocked across all platforms by an ex. Solylo found one remaining avenue of communication – WhatsApp – and used it. The response she received was firm and clear … so she went home and wrote the song. Solylo came to songwriting through a childhood love of reading, and to music through early singing lessons and a hot pink guitar. It turned out that while she’s right-handed at everything else, she can only play guitar left-handed and, as leftie guitarists know, it’s not as easy to find instruments! (Although I can attest that she now has a lovely red guitar, as I’ve seen her playing it live.)It was a great pleasure to chat to Solylo and I look forward to hearing what she releases next – after she’s embarked on her next trip to Nashville, and all the adventure that promises.Listen to ‘He Wants Me (Dead)’ on Apple MusicListen to ‘He Wants Me (Dead)’ on SpotifyListen to ‘He Wants Me (Dead)’ on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jake Whittaker is a Queensland country rock artist who has been releasing music since 2023, appeared on Australian Idol last year, and has now released his debut EP, In My Blood – five tracks of upbeat, good-time country that in this new interview he describes as a deliberate antidote to sad music.‘People work really hard Monday to Friday and they don't want to go out Friday night and listen to sad, dreary music,’ he says. ‘That’s why I write and release stuff that suits that.’The EP was produced by Jared Adlam, one of the most in-demand producers in Australian country music and, in Whittaker’s case, also a close friend since they were seventeen. The songs were road-tested in live shows before being locked in, with any track that didn't land in front of a crowd not making the cut. 'If it’s a good chorus and verse, you'll remember it straight away,’ he says. ‘If you remember it, it’s worth remembering – and it’ll make a good song.’The lead single, ‘Hooked on Her’, was actually the first song written for the project, back in 2023, and sat waiting for the right moment for two years. ‘In My Blood’ was co-written with country star James Johnston on the back verandah at Adam Eckersley's place and completed in about an hour and a half. 'Boots On' emerged from a Sydney writing trip with Sarah Buckley of The Buckleys. ‘Guy with a Boat’ – a song about a man trying to convince himself and his partner that purchasing a boat was entirely necessary – was written with Brooke McClymont and Adam Eckersley at their property in a shed, over a couple of beers.Last year Whittaker appeared on Australian Idol, which brought its own particular challenges. While Whittaker is an experienced live performer, comfortable on stage, the Idol format required a different set of instincts. And there’s quite a story about how his audition song ended up being ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ …Since Idol Whittaker has been focused on building momentum with live shows and new recordings. In this interview we talk about his support slot with The Wolfe Brothers (those shows are now past – unfortunately I wasn’t able to work fast enough to post this interview before they took place), plus Horsham Regfest, Townsville Country Fest and the Gympie Muster.  Listen to In My Blood on Apple MusicListen to In My Blood on SpotifyListen to In My Blood on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kaylee Bell is from Aotearoa New Zealand and spent several years living in Australia, which means we can probably claim her … or at least share her! And she is certainly one of Australia’s favourite country music artists as her recent second win as CountryTown's Female Artist of the Year award proved. Her latest album, Cowboy Up, was released last year. Her new single is 'Me For Me', and even though Cowboy Up was released not that long ago, in this new interview Bell says she had more to say, because she’s lived a lot since she wrote that album.‘You've got to live to write,’ she says. ‘Songs might come in the couple of hours you’re in the room, but they’re born and living with you for a long time before they finally come out.’'Me For Me' was written with Tom Jordan and Phoebe Jasper,  who records under the name Navvy, and in the interview Bell talks about how the song came about, as a relaxed writing session with friends who were home over the summer, in which songs started flowing without pressure or agenda. ‘I feel like we've started almost a whole new record by accident,’ she says. The song itself is about knowing your worth, waiting for the right person, and loving that person for who they are in return. There were other songs that emerged from those summer sessions and they are likely to follow ‘Me For Me’.This is a wide-ranging conversation that takes in Bell’s recent Christmas single, the demands of being in the music industry, and how she’s used visualisation in her career (and what it has to do with sport). ‘The music industry humbles you in a way no other industry possibly could,’ she tells me. ‘One day you're on the mountaintop, next day you’re still working out what's going on.’We recorded this interview before Bell headed to Nashville to perform at CMA Fest, which has now happened, but I’ve left in that part of the interview as interviews are watched and listened to often years after the fact, so there will always be something that is out of date!‘Me For Me’ is out now.Listen to ‘Me For Me’ on Apple MusicListen to ‘Me For Me’ on SpotifyListen to ‘Me For Me’ on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There’s a very healthy country-music scene in Western Australia, and not just in and around Perth. I’ve interviewed artists from as far north as Broome and as far south as Margaret River and several spots in between. Darren Gillis is a country rock artist from Western Australia's Wheat Belt, and I hadn’t interviewed him before we had this chat about his new single, ‘Hell of a Time’. The interview was recorded a few weeks before the single’s release, and I had a cold at the time (hence my voice sounding quite scratchy), but the conversation was invigorating enough to help me forget all about that, because Gillis is so clearly passionate about music and the important role it’s played in his life and his wellbeing, as he talks about. Gillis has honed his skills as a performer and storyteller by doing a lot of live performance. In 2024 he Gillis took a gap year from work, loaded his guitar into a caravan and set off, first through his local area, then north to Shark Bay and east to Tamworth in New South Wales for his first ever festival, and eventually as far as Noosa Heads in Queensland. Four and a half months on the road, swapping live music for accommodation and playing pub gigs to fund the next leg of the journey. ‘I said yes to everything,’ he says. The caravan park crowds turned out to be his most important audiences – people pulling their chairs in close, actually listening, giving him real feedback on his original songs. This gave him confidence to keep writing songs, as he’d been doing since 2020, when a relationship breakdown left him isolated in a small town and he turned to music to work through it. Some of those songs have since been released. 'Cuss the Black Dog', which drew on both his personal experience and the losses of colleagues in his frontline work, became a finalist in the Western Australian Music Song of the Year award, and prompted lengthy, candid conversations with audience members, including veterans, domestic violence survivors, a sixteen-year-old who drew him a portrait after the show.His latest single, 'Hell of a Time', is a song about choosing to let go of whatever the week has thrown at you and be present with the people around you. It will be one of ten tracks on his debut album Rise and Fall, due in August. Gillis has several shows coming up include the Mandurah Country Music Festival in October alongside Kaylee Bell, the Wolfe Brothers and Max Jackson, plus the Boddington Rodeo in November.‘Hell of a Time’ is out now.Listen to ‘Hell of a Time’ on Apple MusicListen to ‘Hell of a Time’ on SpotifyListen to ‘Hell of a Time’ on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Many Australian music fans will know of Wagga Wagga-born Darren Coggan from his hugely popular shows featuring the music of John Denver or Cat Stevens (and he has a great story at that – you’ll have to listen to the interview to find out what it is!). These – along with his work in musical theatre, and as an actor – have kept him busy and touring the country for several years. However, Coggan had his start in country music. He’s a winner of Toyota Star Maker, and a contemporary of Beccy Cole, Adam Harvey and Felicity Urquhart, even touring with those three as the ‘Young Stars of Country’ several years ago, and again for a reunion show in 2019.In recent times Coggan has recorded music with his daughter, Olivia, and he’s now returned to original music with the moving single ‘Always Believe in Love’. As he tells me in this recent interview, the song came to him in a dream. Its message wouldn’t land, though, if Coggan didn’t walk the talk, so to speak. This is a man who loves what he does, is passionate about it, takes nothing for granted and is grateful for every opportunity. He has fully committed himself to music, and to bringing joy to audiences, and that’s what he’s doing this year too with an extensive Australian tour (dates below). It was a great pleasure – and hugely interesting – to talk to Coggan about his life and career thus far. I hope you enjoy listening to or watching this chat, and finding out more about this in-demand Australian entertainer, whom you can also catch on TV (if you’re in New South Wales) on Sydney Weekender. NB: There was the occasional wi-fi glitch in this interview, so the audio is off in some places.SEE DARREN COGGAN ON TOURFriday June 12 – West Gippsland Performing Arts Centre – Gippsland, VICSaturday June 13 - The Wedge – Sale, VIC Friday June 26 – The Jetty Theatre - Coffs Harbour, NSWSaturday June 27 – The Players Theatre - Port Macquarie, NSWThursday July 2 - The Powerhouse – Liverpool, NSW Wednesday July 22 - Ingham Theatre – Ingham, QLDThursday July 23 - Proserpine Entertainment Centre – Proserpine, QLD Saturday July 25 - HOTA - Surfers Paradise, QLDSunday July 26 - Majestic Theatre – Pomona, QLD Friday August 14 - Warners Bay Theatre – Warners Bay, NSW Saturday August 15 - Jetty Theatre - Coffs Harbour, NSWSunday August 16 - Coronation Hall - Coutts Crossing, NSW Saturday October 3 - Redcliffe Entertainment Centre – Redcliffe, QLD Friday October 9 - The J Theatre – Noosa, QLD Saturday October 10 - The Events Centre – Caloundra, QLDFriday October 16 – The Estate – Camden, NSW **Tickets on sale now and available via https://www.darrencoggan.com/Listen to Darren Coggan on Apple MusicListen to Darren Coggan on SpotifyListen to Darren Coggan on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sometimes we choose to change our circumstances and sometimes they get changed on us, and how we respond to those changes reveals who we are and also shows us the way forward. For Cassie Leopold founding member of Darlinghurst, there’s been a lot of change in recent times: the band went from being a four-piece to a two-piece, with Leopold and Pagan Newman, and now it’s Leopold on her own. While all that was going on, Leopold face a major health challenge which meant she had to focus on other things. She’s emerged from that, and from the fluctuations in the band, with a new direction for Darlinghurst and being, as she says in this new interview, the leader for the first time. She still has a band, but she’s the one who determines which songs they play and record. Leopold has been a musical performer from a very young age and performance is in her very marrow, as she says: ‘The only place I ever felt okay was on stage – for this 20 minutes, 30 minutes, or the three minutes of one song, it's my time.’She was a member of the Young Talent Team – a contemporary of Dannii Minogue’s – and learning what she describes as the triple threat of singing, dancing and acting. She sang backing vocals on an Olivia Newton John album after stepping in at the last moment for a sick colleague. She was signed in a girl group at seventeen. For most of her career, Leopold’s skill was stepping in, filling a brief, and delivering what was needed. ‘I was very good at doing that,’ she says. Taking the reins is a different skill entirely, and one she has arrived at in her own time. Now the responsibility is hers, and so is the freedom to decide what happens next, and it was so interesting to talk to her about all of it.The latest single from Darlinghurst is ‘Pour Me Another One’, and we talk about that as well as what’s ahead in this exciting new musical adventure she is on.Listen to ‘Pour Me Another One’ on Apple MusicListen to ‘Pour Me Another One’ on SpotifyListen to ‘Pour Me Another One’ on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Allan Cameron is a solo artist, songwriter and guitarist who was a founding member of SaltbushSix, Keith Urban’s first backing band. He has been releasing music independently for several years, and his latest single is ‘Worn Out (Australian Made)’, an anthem that is fundamentally about resilience – and worn in rather than worn out, as Cameron says in this new interview.The song grew from a period of genuine questioning. After grappling with the demands of being an independent artist in the streaming era, Cameron found himself asking whether he wanted to keep going. ‘I asked myself, can I keep doing this?,’ he says. ‘Do I want to keep doing this? And the short answer – the long answer – was yes.’The process of getting to that yes became the song. Its central turn of phrase, ‘I’m not worn out, I’m worn in’, highlights the power of a single word to change meaning.The song went through many drafts, filling pages of Cameron’s lyric book, before arriving at its final form, which is also a celebration of Australian identity. Part of reason for that comes from Cameron’s own recent discoveries about his ancestry, learning that his grandmother was of indigenous heritage, adding that thread to a lineage that also includes Scottish and English roots. The first drafts of the song engaged more directly with this personal history before Cameron broadened its scopt to speak to Australians generally. ‘This land is the same, we’re all here to dream, we are Australian made’ is where he landed.Beyond the new single, Cameron has been releasing music that includes last year’s instrumental, ‘Waxing and Waning’; recorded in open G tuning, it found its way onto playlists around the world. ‘Grandfather’s Guitar’ paid tribute to the instrument that first sparked Cameron’s musical life – and his collection of guitars, which now runs to just over forty instruments. This section of the chat is mainly for guitar aficionados, but I do like to throw in the technical questions when I can!Cameron plays regular cover gigs around Brisbane and Queensland, and has another single planned for later in the year.‘Worn Out (Australian Made)’ is out now.Listen to Allan Cameron on Apple MusicListen to Allan Cameron on SpotifyListen to Allan Cameron on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Trent Richardson hails from Central Queensland, where he grew up on a property running camel rides, racing camels, ostriches, goats and sheep. He picked up a guitar three years ago, taught himself to play, and is now releasing his seventh single. In between, he made the semi-finals of Australian Idol in 2024 after an audition that was, extraordinarily, his first ever public performance, as he talks about in this new interview.Richardson had always suspected he could sing. A few people had told him so over the years, but an equal number had told him he couldn’t, and he’d believed the latter. It wasn’t until he reached his mid-twenties that he decided to find out for himself … and the way he found out was by auditioning for national television. He'd never written a song. He'd never played a gig.‘I threw myself in the deep end,’ he says. The judges told him he was the weakest vocalist in the competition. He made the semi-finals anyway, performing everything from Matchbox Twenty to Michael Bublé to Rihanna along the way, and came out the other side with a clearer sense of who he was as an artist than any conventional path might have given him.His latest single, 'Run to You', was actually the second song he ever wrote, begun three years ago with co-writer Dan Pam, set aside during the Idol journey, and only recently finished and recorded with producer Stuart Stuart, who has worked with luminaries such as Amber Lawrence. It’s a song about the grass not being greener, written from the perspective of someone who walked away from a relationship and later regretted it. It sits alongside a catalogue of upbeat, life-affirming country-pop songs that reflect Richardson’s genuine and hard-won appreciation for being here at all. ‘Life’s too short,’ he says. ‘It’s a blessing to be here.’His positivity is not so much infectious as influential and it seemed to me that he is someone who, once committed to something, gives his all. And it’s in giving his all that he not only develops his passion but comes to be very good at whatever he is pursuing. Since Idol, Richardson has been building independently: chasing gigs, learning stagecraft, booking shows and working out what an hour-and-a-half set looks like when you started out singing for sixty seconds on television. He is a new father to young son Archie, and is performing at Biloela Winterfest in July. A seventh single is due on 10 June.‘Run to You’ is out now.Listen to Trent Richardson on Apple MusicListen to Trent Richardson on SpotifyListen to Trent Richardson on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shanleigh Rose is an award-winning singer and songwriter from the Sunshine Coast hinterland in Queensland who has been releasing music for five years. Her latest single, ‘Like My Mama Loves Tobacco’, is the most personal song she has put out – and, as she tells me in this new interview, the one she almost didn’t.The chorus was written when she was sixteen, in a music room at school, after discovering the songwriting of Melody Moko and Fanny Lumsden. She wrote it, filed it away, and didn't quite know what it was about. A few years later, after a break-up, she understood. ‘What I feel for this person is actually more like an addiction than love,’ she says. That realisation gave her the metaphor at the centre of the song, with the tobacco of the title standing in for the kind of relationship you know is poisoning you but can’t walk away from. ‘You’re poison, but it’s all I’ll ever want’, she sings in this powerful tune that has already won the lyrics-only section of the Tamworth Songwriters Association Awards before the melody was even finalised. It was the response from other songwriters at the awards night convinced that convinced Shanleigh to release the song. ‘Like My Mama Loves Tobacco’ was produced by Michael Muchow who, in a lovely piece of symmetry, is Melody Moko’s producer (and husband), with vocal production by Nyssa Ray, who pushed Rose through four hours of takes to find her most emotionally open performance. ‘You can be sadder,’ Ray told her. ‘You can have more emotion.’Rose has also recently released ‘Down to Your Grave’, a collaboration with Cate Jamieson and Bethany Walsh, written and recorded as a university assignment that the three decided the world needed to hear. More collaborations and more original releases are planned, alongside a growing focus on stagecraft and the live experience. Shanleigh plays regularly across Southeast Queensland. Keep an eye on her socials for details.‘Like My Mama Loves Tobacco’ is out now.NB: At around the 22-minute mark, I had a coughing fit and had to pause the recording, so after that point my voice sounds different. Thanks to Shanleigh for patiently waiting out the coughing! I’ve had a cold and persevered with interviews as I don’t want to cancel on the artists – and thankfully they do most of the talking – but it does mean my voice sounds raspy and sometimes shaky.Listen to ‘Like My Mama Loves Tobacco’ on Apple MusicListen to ‘Like My Mama Loves Tobacco’ on SpotifyListen to ‘Like My Mama Loves Tobacco’ on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jayne Denham’s two most recent albums, Wanted and Moonshine, both reached number one on the ARIA country chart. She is one of Australia's most dynamic live performers and most beloved country rock artists. Her new single is ‘Hillbilly Halo’, and it is the beginning of something considerably larger.As Denham tells me in this new interview, her management arranged a meeting with Nashville producer Marti Frederiksen – known for his work with Aerosmith, Carrie Underwood, Faith Hill, Sheryl Crow and Def Leppard – with the understanding that they would write and record one song together, and then decide whether to continue. The song was ‘Hillbilly Halo’, co-written with Australian songwriter and Nashville resident Kylie Sackley. Denham loved the result, assumed it might be the only song they made together, and planned to release it as a single regardless. Then Frederiksen said he wanted to do more. Denham ended up spending two months in Nashville across three trips, recording a full album.Frederiksen’s brief from the start was clear: write and produce for a big live crowd, stadium-ready, anthemic. ‘Hillbilly Halo’ delivers exactly that: it’s a country-rock party song about the good girl who loves to bend the rules just enough, built around major chords that give the chorus its lift. But the more significant development for Denham may be what happened in the recording booth … Frederiksen pushed her vocals into territory she hadn’t previously reached, raising keys and urging her through takes until she hit a note she didn’t know she had. ‘The desperation in my voice actually matched the lyric,’ she says. It’s now one of her favourite vocal performances she’s ever committed to record. As for the other songs she recorded in Nashville: singles will be released every four weeks, with the album due in January. Then, Denham says, it will be time for a big show.As Denham tells me: ‘Marti said, “Your songs need to be anthemic for a big crowd – let’s write and produce so that when it’s live, it totally nails and kicks it out of the park.’‘Hillbilly Halo’ is out now. And a note about this interview: I had a heavy cold, so my voice sounds scratchy. Listen to ‘Hillbilly Halo’ on Apple MusicListen to ‘Hillbilly Halo’ on SpotifyListen to ‘Hillbilly Halo’ on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Beth Lucas is an award-winning country music artist from Queensland who has been releasing music for several years. She has a new single, 'What I Deserved', and it is one of the most personally courageous songs she has written.Lucas grew up on the Sunshine Coast and has been based in the Brisbane area for around two decades, and part of its appeal has long been the possibilities it offers her as a musical artist. Her path to country music was not direct. She came from the emo and alternative scenes, playing in bands, and it was only after having a daughter and stepping back from music that she returned with a new perspective and a clearer sense of what she wanted to write, as she tells me in this new interview. ‘Old bandmates were basically like, your songs are pretty much country, so just make them more country,’ she says. That was six years ago, and she describes the time since as the most successful period of her musical life.‘What I Deserved’ is a song about first love and its aftermath – specifically, about a mistake Lucas made at sixteen, the weight she has carried since, and the long process of forgiving herself for it. She is careful to take responsibility for her own part in the story; ‘I know that I got what I deserved’ is not a line of self-pity but of reckoning – and then, ultimately, of release. The song won the 2026 Geoff Mack Commemorative Award before it was even released, and has become one of the songs in her live set that audiences connect with most.Lucas has twice attended the CMAA Academy of Country Music – the second time on a Keith Urban Scholarship – and has a string of competition placings to her name, including winning the country music section of the Brisbane-based Ekka Talent Search. She is also one third of Three Birds & the Truth, which she formed with Amber Kenny and Jo Caseley following the 2023 Academy. An EP is in the works for the end of the year, with a new single in production in the meantime.‘What I Deserved’ is out now.Listen to Beth Lucas on Apple MusicListen to Beth Lucas on SpotifyListen to Beth Lucas on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the start of this interview with country-pop artist Rachael Fahim, I say that she released her first album, Iconic, in 2019. Later in the chat she mentioned that Iconic was technically an EP, which makes Who You Are – released today, 1 May – her debut. The reason why I called Iconic an album is because it has seven songs, and they’re substantial songs. So to me it’s always felt like an album.Substance is also apparent on Who You Are. Fahim has the ability to create songs that are eminently danceable but which also make you stop and think. There’s a lyric that evokes a feeling, or it’s the nuances in her vocal, and always the sense that she’s not hiding herself in any of these songs, not trying to be the upbeat artist who’s always about a good time if a good time has not been had. That means we know we’re getting a sense of who she is and what she wants to tell us in these songs, which makes us connect to them more.The album is the result of several years of writing, as we talk about. It’s also being released about a year after Fahim decided to leave full-time employment and commit herself fully to music. In that time she has played dozens of dates supporting Pete Murray on a national tour, and there have been plenty of other shows in that time. In other words: creating the time and space for more music in her life has worked.Having seen Fahim live, it’s no surprise that these opportunities are coming her way. Now hearing the new album, she’s offering even more reasons for audiences to seek her out. The songs on Who You Are are entertaining and memorable, and while I still maintain that Iconic should be called an album, as a debut album this is a powerful statement.Who You Are is out now through Universal Music Australia.Rachael Fahim is touring the album, with dates in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Newcastle, Gosford and Wollongong. Details at: https://www.rachaelfahim.com/#tourListen to Who You Are on Apple MusicListen to Who You Are on SpotifyListen to Who You Are on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nikisha Priest is a country rock artist from the Lake Macquarie area of New South Wales who, at twenty years old, is already drawing on a remarkably deep well of musical training. Her new single is 'Ace of Spades' – and no, it's not a cover.Priest began singing lessons at six, privately with a family friend who within a year concluded she couldn't teach her anymore and referred her to the Conservatorium of Music in Gosford. She studied there from seven to fourteen, classically trained in voice. Through high school she attended a Big Picture Academy, a project-based learning programme that allowed her to structure her studies around music. At twenty, she has already attended the CMAA Academy of Country Music, appeared on Australian Idol – where she sang Pink's ‘Trouble’ a capella outside her mother's hair salon, without notice, for her audition – and released her most fully realised single to date.'Ace of Spades' was sparked by a car park moment. Priest was thinking about the Motörhead song, wondering how other artists had approached the same title, when she noticed a playing card sticker on the car next to her. She took it as a sign, went home and wrote the song. Research into the card’s symbolism gave her the song's backbone – the Ace of Spades as a death card on one side, new beginnings on the other – a theme of transformation, leaving behind what no longer fits, and stepping into something new. ‘The song kind of just wrote itself,’ she says in this new interview, which was recorded while Priest was at a SHE Songwriting Retreat, run by Lyn Bowtell. The single was produced by Simon Johnson at Hillbilly Hut, with whom Priest has worked since a school-age work experience placement, and the video was shot in a single day at Full Throttle Ranch in Buttai near Newcastle by videographer Jeremy Minett of Eyes and Ears Creative.When she’s not making music Priest is looking after her five pets – and I asked her about these, partly because I know so many people have cats and dogs and love a good animal story! And it turns out that Priest’s pets are thematically named – although you’ll have to watch or listen to the interview to find out what the theme is …‘Ace of Spades’ is out now.Listen to ‘Ace of Spades’ on Apple MusicListen to ‘Ace of Spades’ on SpotifyListen to ‘Ace of Spades’ on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ella Hooper is one of Australia's most beloved musical artists and one of its finest live performers. Best known as the frontwoman of Killing Heidi, the band she fronted with her brother Jesse from the age of sixteen, she has since released two acclaimed solo albums. Her 2023 country-leaning record Small Town Temple marked a significant creative turn, and she has followed it with two singles: last year's ‘Growing Up is Hard to Do’ and her latest, ‘I Got Eyes (On You)’. Hooper has other quivers in her bow, appearing on television shows such as RockWiz and also MCing events – it was in the latter capacity that I most recently saw her in person. In fact, we’d had at least a couple of chats in person but I hadn’t interviewed her. Well, that is now rectified with this conversation.Small Town Temple is a glorious album – personal and deep, also joyful and rich and entertaining. Given we didn’t have a chat about it at the time of release, I wanted to ask some questions, as well as talking to Hooper about her latest singles. This is also a conversation about creativity and discovery, about Hooper moving away from the mould that was set for her in her teens, with the success of Killing Heidi, and how she has navigated the surreal circumstance of growing up in the public eye.If you haven’t encountered Hooper before, you need to know this: she is warm and funny and passionate, and having a conversation with her is one of the most interesting things a person could do. My impression of her is always that her heart and mind are wide open – she wants to have all the chats, hear all the music, read all the books. She makes no judgements and she is always curious. Given that growing-up experience I just mentioned, and how it might have instead caused her to be guarded and cautious, that’s an extraordinary thing in itself. Then we factor in the music she makes and what she’s like as a live performer and it all adds up to her being an exceptional artist who is not only worth listening to but being inspired by, because anyone who embraces life the way she does tends to have that effect. So I hope you enjoy this interview with Ella Hooper as much as I did, and I really do urge you to see her play live if you can, because she is so very good at it. She has solo shows coming up:Friday 1 May – Manning Entertainment Centre, Taree NSWSaturday 2 May – Avoca Beach Theatre, Avoca NSWSunday 3 May – Dangar Island, near Brooklyn NSW - NB: midday showSaturday 9 May – Portland Arts Centre, Portland Vic. – NB: SOLD OUTListen to Ella Hooper on Apple MusicListen to Ella Hooper on SpotifyListen to Ella Hooper on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The music of Sydney-based singer-songwriter Justine Eltakchi came to my attention because she released a country music single, ‘If I Could’, with Timothy James Bowen. She isn’t a country artist per se – in that it’s not one of the genres she has mostly written in, for artists such as Casey Donovan and Abby Christo. But truly Eltakchi could create songs in pretty much every genre and be great at it, because it becomes clear from the first time you listen to her debut album, Big Dream Baby, that she is an artist with not only exceptional songwriting skills but a voice to match. And, beyond that, the willingness to show us her heart and bring us her stories as a way of fostering connection. There’s a bravery in that, in an artist showing us – rather than telling us – that her ambitions are as big as her talent. Because it is a big ambition – a big dream, of course – to want to connect with others, on any level. There’s no guarantee they’ll accept what you’re offering, or accept it in the spirit in which it’s offered. They may not understand. They may reject you. That risk creates a vulnerability for the artist, and it’s also there in Eltakchi’s songs – in both lyrics and vocal delivery. What’s most there, though, is a love of life in the details and the big themes. The title song has already been released as a single, as has ‘Daughters and Sons’, which Eltakchi recorded with Donovan, ‘Petals’ and ‘Six Weeks of Summer’. There’s a lot more to explore on this album, and you will want to listen to it over and over, for its musical and lyrical richness. In speaking to Eltakchi about it, it became clear that the richness has developed over many years, from a robust musical upbringing, and from not only that open heart but open mindedness. There are many genres on this album because she has chosen the style of music that is best for the song, and given herself the freedom to do that – or, probably more likely, taken it, because being eclectic is not often the path travelled when artists have pressure to sound a certain way. I loved talking to Eltakchi about her background and her work as a songwriter for others and creator of songs for herself. I’m sure you’ll enjoy meeting her too. And if you’re in Sydney she’s launching Big Dream Baby at Lazybones Lounge in Marrickville on 30 April, with special guests appearing in her set. Big Dream Baby is available now. You can find it on Bandcamp. For more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melanie Dyer is one of Australia’s most-streamed country music artists, and she’s also been nominated for three Golden Guitars and three APRA AMCOS Most Performed Country Work awards. Currently resident in Nashville, Tennessee, Melanie has released a new single, the heartfelt ‘Golden Girl’.Dyer has long been an in-demand co-writer – you can find a playlist of songs she’s co-written on Spotify, and the list of artists who have recorded one of her songs includes Amber Lawrence, James Johnston and Hayley Jensen. She has the skill of writing melodies that are memorable but not obvious, and lyrics that are accessible and which can also go places you don’t expect. This is also true of songs she writes to record and release herself.The latest of these is ‘Golden Girl’, which was inspired by her parents’ love story in their – and her – home town of Inverell in New South Wales. Her mother worked at the Golden Fleece truck stop – hence the title of the song; the music video – which was filmed by Dyer’s partner, Jackson James – features that truck stop and an old Holden car with a story, which Dyer reveals in this new interview. 'Golden Girl' was produced by Grady Saxman. ‘It’s really written by my parents and their love story,’ says Dyer. ‘Bringing that to life in Nashville was a really cool way to have that hybrid of where I'm at in my life between Australia and Nashville.’The song was recorded as part of a full album tracked in a single day in Nashville, with all musicians live in the room simultaneously – a first for Dyer, and an experience she describes with barely contained disbelief. The album is due to roll out soon, with Dyer carefully selecting singles to give each song its own moment.Dyer and James moved to Nashville about a year ago and have flourished since, with Dyer recently performing at SXSW in Austin, Texas, and playing and writing regularly in Nashville. There’s a solid community of Australians living there too – plus Dyer had been visiting for a decade before she moved. It’s stood her in good stead as she settles in. While she’s there for the long haul, we’re lucky to still have her songs being released here – she’s a valuable part of Australia’s country music community too, regardless of where she lives. ‘Golden Girl’ is out now.Listen to ‘Golden Girl’ on Apple MusicListen to ‘Golden Girl’ on SpotifyWatch the video for ‘Golden Girl’ on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A fair while ago I separately interviewed first Alex Laska then, months later, Fergus Linacre, the two founding members of Kingswood. At the time I hadn’t seen the band live, but I certainly like what I heard of their recorded music (which includes a Christmas album – I recommend it!). At the Tamworth Country Music Festival in January 2024 I saw them play on the back of a truck in the car park of the Tamworth Hotel. Suffice to say my hair was metaphorically blown back by that gig, and I was hooked on Kingswood live. Since then I’ve seen them play in a variety of venues, and each time it has been one of the best shows ever. The reasons why they’re a great live band were evident in the documentary Claptrap, which was released last year. Some of these will be the same reasons why they’re great recorded too, and they are to do with the longtime creative relationship between Linacre and Laska. But the treat for fans is that Kingswood live and Kingswood recorded are different entities, each of them exceptional. Which means that being a fan of Kingswood is a full-spectrum experience. And I do not pretend to be impartial about this band – I can’t be, and I declare my fan status early on in this interview with Linacre as he was sitting backstage at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney, in between shows with American band Counting Members, with Kingswood band members coming and going behind him (as you’ll see if you watch the video version of the interview).We talk about the band’s latest single, ‘Faith’; their upcoming album, Midnight Mavericks, which is due for release on 22 May; how Linacre and Laska write songs, and also about Peggy, their tour bus, which is well known to fans. At the end we chat about a project that is Linacre’s alone.If you’re new to Kingswood, this interview will give you an insight into why the band is so strong in all aspects, and also what to expect if you see them live or hear them recorded. If you’re a fan, hopefully you learn something new that will make you even more excited for the new album and tour.Listen to Kingswood on Apple MusicListen to Kingswood on SpotifyListen to Kingswood on YouTubeKINGSWOOD – TOUR DATESFriday May 15 - Rosemount Hotel, Perth, WATicketing: https://rosemounthotel.oztix.com.au/outlet/event/fe6b25ca-0747-4d4d-9479-c4bd09dbe874 Saturday May 16 - The Gov, Adelaide, SATicketing: https://tickets.oztix.com.au/outlet/event/785edc31-2119-437d-9e8d-b8696d56d224 Friday May 22 - The Corner Hotel, Melbourne, VICTicketing: https://tickets.cornerhotel.com/outlet/event/2475f2e5-d9a8-41be-a496-4c1af3915095 Saturday May 23 - Savannah Sounds Festival, Port Douglas, QLDTicketing: https://www.savannahsounds.com.au/tickets/savannah-sounds--port-douglas-2026/ Thursday May 28 - Lefty's Music Hall, Brisbane, QLDTicketing: https://tickets.oztix.com.au/outlet/event/2c5efb83-1058-45d6-843c-235e4ef02dcd Friday May 29 - The Factory Theatre, Sydney, NSWTicketing: https://moshtix.com.au/v2/event/kingswood-midnight-mavericks-album-tour-2026/192299 Saturday May 30 - Full Throttle Ranch, Hunter Valley, NSWTicketing: https://www.stickytickets.com.au/H0Y94A Friday June 19 - Tanks Art Centre, Cairns QLDTicketing: https://www.ticketlink.com.au/ticketlinkEvents/popular-music/kingswood Saturday June 20 - Cooktown Discovery Festival, Cooktown QLDTicketing: https://cooktownexpo.com.au/For more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whiskey Jack is a singer-songwriter from Perth in Western Australia and Kiera Jas is an artist from Margaret River, south of Perth. Separately they have very successful solo careers, with Jack’s single ‘Wild Card’ named WAM Country Song of the Year in 2025 and Kiera the winner of the 2023 Nannup festival award. Together this alt-folk duo have released the single ‘Old Expressions’ last year and they now have a new single, ‘Remain Strange’.  The duo met when, as Jack tells me in this interview, they kept being put on the same bill for shows. They’ve since gone on to create their own shows, including the wonderfully named Soak in the Folk. There’s a vibrant live scene in Perth and Fremantle, so we chat about that, as well as about their development as musicians – Kiera started on the ukulele, Jack on guitar – and their songwriting influences. Jack says he’s a ‘word nerd’ and songwriting is what he likes most in the music journey, and there’s a neat play on words in ‘Remain Strange’ which he confirms comes from him.This was such an enjoyable conversation to have, partly because it’s always interesting to hear how collaborations evolve, and it’s clear that this is one that in some ways seemed destined but which the pair are maintaining through diligence, curiosity and determination to try new things. They’re quite different artists musically, and also in personality – Kiera is more embracing of live performance, for example – but that’s the friction which helps make great art. A note: there’s some background noise during the interview. I don’t tend to ask artists to make sure they have nothing else going on in their households because we’re not in a studio and these are the sounds of life, which are welcome. Listen to ‘Remain Strange’ on Apple MusicListen to ‘Remain Strange’ on SpotifyListen to ‘Remain Strange’ on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mackenzie May is an artist from Central Queensland who, at just twenty years old, is already having a landmark year. In January she was a Toyota Star Maker Grand Finalist at the Tamworth Country Music Festival, she performed at CMC Rocks with a full band, and she has just released her debut EP, All the Little Things — a seven-track collection that represents her most substantial statement yet.May grew up absorbing her grandparents' record collection – Slim Dusty, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings – and started playing guitar at eleven or twelve. Her first live performance came at thirteen, when her cousin invited her to sing at an open mic night. She sang 'Tennessee Whiskey', loved it, and hasn't really stopped since. By fourteen she was playing pub gigs, her parents in tow. All the Little Things brings together three previously released singles – 'Little Things', 'Old School Love' and 'I'll Take It All' – with four new tracks, including a song about the financial realities of a music career and a deeply personal closing track written for her family following the death of her nan. ‘I wanted something that would just represent me as a person the most,’ she says. The EP was produced by Jared Adlam, with whom May has recorded every song she has released, and who she books up to a year in advance given his busy schedule. 'Be Careful You Fall in Love With', written with Sarah Buckley – a collaborator she met at the Academy of Country Music – was the song she performed at the Star Maker Grand Final.May attended the Academy of Country Music in 2023, an experience she credits with preparing her for the realities of a professional music career, from performing with a band to songwriting. Fellow graduates Mackenzie Lee and Keely Ellen have also gone on to high-profile moments this year, pointing to what was clearly a strong cohort.All the Little Things is an impressive debut EP, showing May’s astuteness as a songwriter and her willingness to go for more: to reach deeper into herself and also be ambitious about her storytelling. It was a pleasure to chat to her in this new interview.  All the Little Things is out now.Listen on Apple MusicListen on SpotifyListen on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mack & Cook are Lizzie Mack and Murray Cook, two of the best credentialled musical artists in the land. As a duo they released their first single, 'Time Goes By', last year and their latest single is 'A Sign of the Times'.The two have a long history together, most recently as the driving force behind the Soul Movers, now performing as Murray and the Movers. Mack & Cook came about partly as a practical solution – a way to play smaller stages and perform songs from their fifteen-year, four-album catalogue that were never quite right for a big festival line-up. ‘Fifty or so songs have never really been played live because they're not bouncy and big and in your face enough for a big festival stage,’ says Mack. It also gives them room to be, as she puts it, a little more personal and a little more political.'A Sign of the Times' is the latter sort of song. Written after a conversation early in the new year, the song grew from Mack & Cook's ongoing commitment to reconciliation and their frustration at the lack of progress since moments like the Apology and the Sorry Day bridge walks. The song is addressed, in part, to members of the Stolen Generation still alive today, an acknowledgement of what has been lost and an expression of hope for what could still be achieved. Lyrically it went through many revisions – Mack describes agonising over what to keep and what to cut – while the music came together quickly, continuing a recent pattern for the duo.Both singles have circled the theme of time, something the two say was not entirely conscious but not entirely surprising either, given where they are in their lives and careers. The richness that comes with that experience is evident in their live shows, which are booked through to the end of the year. And a note: this interview was recorded in March, and some show are mentioned which are now in the past. That’s because I can’t always publish interviews quickly! But there are also future shows mentioned.‘A Sign of the Times’ is out now.Listen to Mack & Cook on Apple MusicListen to Mack & Cook on SpotifyListen to Mack & Cook on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As it’s been a little while since I’ve had a chance to bring you some news, some of these releases are from March.  Melbourne duo The Smith & Western Jury have released their foot-stomper 'Rolling the Dice'. The song was inspired by a trip we took to Joshua Tree in California, where a trailhead sign warned: ‘Don’t die today’.  Wagga Wagga artist Nathan Lamont is at the vanguard of country-pop in Australia and he’s released another infectious song in the form of ‘Into It’. Nathan is a great singer and his songs are guaranteed earworms. Pete Denahy is one of Australia’s favourite country music artists. He got his start in Slim Dusty’s band and his solo releases are a combination of high-standard bluegrass as befits this legendary fiddle player, and songs that deploy observational humour in an unforgettable way. His latest release, ‘I Didn't Notice Her Hair’, is in the second category. It’s under two minutes long and that’s all it needs to both deliver the story and have you howling. I recently interviewed young artist Mackenzie May about her EP, All the Little Things, which contains seven songs, all very well done. It is out now and the interview will be posted soon.  Melbourne alt-country four-piece Elly McK & the Unbelievers are one of my favourite live bands. Their latest single, 'I Am the River', was written with the wonderful Lyn Bowtell. The band has live shows coming up and I do recommend you catch those. Jade Gibson is an artist who releases country rock and country pop. She just performed at CMC Rocks and around the same time released the gutsy single ‘Smoke Me Out’, which is really compelling and memorable.  Gig wise: if you’re in Sydney, famed country music bar Jolene’s in the city is having its fourth birthday party on Saturday 17 April with a line-up that includes Missy Lancaster and Charlie Finn. Details on their website and socials. There are tours coming up by Dylan Wright, Max Jackson, Brad Cox and Henry Wagons. Catherine Britt has shows coming up both as herself and as half of The Pleasures with Lachlan Bryan.  As a reminder: live music is live magic, and we all need some of that in our lives. For more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sara Storer has won 22 Golden Guitar Awards, amongst many other accolades. Last year she released her eighth studio album, the outstanding Worth Your Love. Shane Nicholson has won ARIA Awards and 18 Golden Guitars, and in addition to making his own wonderful albums, he produces others. Shane Howard is one of Australia’s most esteemed musical artists. He founded the band Goanna in 1977, became a Member of the Order of Australia in 2016 for his service to the performing arts, and is generally what might be referred to as a dead-set legend. A show featuring just one of these artists would be a treat, and I can attest to that from personal experience. However, the three of them are uniting for a show called For the Sake of the Song, which is my pick for musical event of the year because the riches it promises are untold.  I’ve interviewed Shane N and Sara separately, several times, but this was my first time interviewing Shane H. It was an interesting challenge to prepare for this interview, because how often does one have the chance to talk to THREE extraordinary individuals at once? It was also an immense privilege.  As Shane N reveals in this interview, the idea for the show was his, and Sara and Shane H were his first choices as collaborators. Despite Shane N being one of the best-connected musicians in the land, the band who will back all three artists in this show has members who have primarily worked with Shane H.  The openness to change and collaboration, the sense of curiosity that is fundamental to all three artists, has always been there in their individual work and it is what drives this show. They want to find out what happens when they’re all in the same place at the same time. So do I. How could anyone not want to find that out? These three are geniuses and also fun and, as I know from seeing Shane N and Sara in their own shows, excellent live.  I hope you enjoy watching or listening to this wonderful trio talking about their show, and I certainly hope you give yourself the treat of going to see it. The dates are below, and more may be added in time.  SHOW DATES:Tuesday 12th May - The Street Theatre - Canberra, ACTWednesday 13th May - The Concourse Lounge - Chatswood, NSWThursday 14th May - Memo Music Hall - St Kilda, VICFriday 15th May - Theatre Royal - Castlemaine, VICSaturday 16th May - Queenscliff Town Hall - Queenscliff, VICSunday 17th May - Archies Creek Hall – Archies Creek, VICTickets on sale now and available via:https://www.laing-entertainment.com.au/current-tours-events  For more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bud Rokesky is a singer-songwriter from Brisbane who released his first album, Outsider, in 2023, and if you’re a fan of that album you’ve probably never stopped listening to it, because there’s such richness in it. Then he embarked on a project in 2024 to release two singles a month, and released an album’s worth of material. Now he has a new album, Dusk, with all-new songs – none of them from the 2024 project – and he has given us another LP to fall in love with. In between those releases he’s been touring, both his own shows and playing supports for other artists. Rokesky on stage is light in his banter and commanding in his performance. And what really stops everyone in their tracks, on the recordings and in the performances, is his voice and this sense that it comes from the deepest well, but that the well isn’t a place of darkness so much as understanding of the vagaries of being human.This is not music that you can put on in the background and expect to not be drawn into. That’s because Bud Rokesky is here to break your heart and hold a mirror up to your foibles, and challenge you to go with him as he charts the human experience. That’s an artist who rewards close listening, repeated listening, attention, and a willingness to go with him on the road to …Well, where is that road going to? From my perspective it’s a road to meaning, in a spiritual sense. Rokesky is an artist who inspires that sort of response. If you listen to this album – really listen – you’ll find him on that road and you’ll discover that he’s made it easy for you to go with him. That voice and all it embodies will carry you along. You can find this in just one song, too. If you listen.So he’s not background music. He’s foreground and will always be. An artist striving for excellence and finding it. If you want music that you don’t have to pay attention to, there’s plenty of that. Bud Rokesky is not making it. He’s making music for people who really love music, who are seekers in many senses of that word; people who love language and the subtleties of the singing voice and who want to be moved by art. It’s a calling; a vocation. We’re lucky that he’s sharing it with us, and I was lucky to have the chance to talk to him about it in this new interview. Dusk is out now through Warner Music AustraliaListen to Dusk on Apple MusicListen to Dusk on SpotifyBud Rokesky on YouTubeBUD ROKESKY AUSTRALIAN TOURTickets are on sale now HEREFriday 1 May - Bootleggers, Sydney NSW *Saturday 2 May - Meatstock Fest, Sydney NSWSunday 3 May - Full Throttle Ranch, Buttai Valley NSWFriday 8 May - Shotkickers, Melbourne VIC ^Saturday 9 May - Shiraz Republic, Cornella VICSunday 10 May - Royal Mail Hotel, Birregurra VICFriday 22 May - Junk Bar, Brisbane QLD #* with supports from Lady Lyon & CJ Stranger^ with supports from Rupert Bullard & Bad Traffic# with supports from Hayley Marsten & Jarith HughesFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sunburnt Country Music began in earnest – under another title – in late 2011, but its roots were in 2003, when I was in a country music covers band and we played the Tamworth Country Music Festival. One of the songs in our set list – possibly the only Australian song, come to think of it – was ‘Lazy Bones’ by Beccy Cole. It first appeared on her second album, Wild at Heart, released in 2001. It would go on to become a staple of her live set with its extended coda containing a tale – based on truth – that would change each time. ‘Lazy Bones’ live was the essence of Cole’s brilliance as an artist: her facility with language, her tongue-in-cheek self-awareness and attention to detail that, combined, could generate songs both comedic and sincere that would become beloved.‘Lazy Bones’ was my introduction to Australian country music, and I would go on to inhale Cole’s albums, then those of artists who were associated with her. From there, a whole world opened up and eventually it led to me covering Australian country music, which is what you’re seeing and reading here. In other words: no Beccy Cole, no Sunburnt Country Music.‘Lazy Bones’ has been retired from the live set but Cole’s brilliance is, thankfully, still very much present, and evident on her latest album, Through the Haze. Born of hard times, which she talks about in our interview – conducted in person at ABC headquarters in Sydney, on the day of the album’s release – it features eleven songs written by Cole alone, and one with Lyn Bowtell, along with a 20th anniversary edition of ‘Poster Girl’, a signature song.Through the Haze is Cole returning to herself, as we also talk about, and offering hard-won wisdom along with the wit that is so much a part of her songwriting as well as her live performance. She has always been unflinching with herself and with us; she offers her heart and her experiences and makes it clear that we can take them or leave them, but she’d really rather we take them because, through the haze of everything that’s happened to her, we’re the reason she keeps going. Old fans of Cole’s will love this album. I hope she finds many new fans too. She deserves to, because she’s an icon who doesn’t stand there demanding we polish her marbled feet. She keeps showing up, making music, getting better all the time, thereby encouraging us to do the same.Through the Haze is out now through ABC Music. Beccy Cole has announced some album launch shows, with more to follow, and I really do recommend you see her live, where she is in her absolute element:May 7 - Lazybones Lounge, Sydney NSWMay 8 - Full Throttle Ranch, Buttai,Newcastle NSWMay 9 - The Baroque Room, Katoomba NSWListen to Through the Haze on Apple MusicListen to Through the Haze on SpotifyListen to Through the Haze on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Savanah Solomon is a singer-songwriter from Western Australia who has released the singles 'Magnolia' and 'I Don't Know You Anymore', as well as the 2023 EP Where the River Meets the Sea. Her latest single is 'Someday Somewhere', and it is a warm, hopeful song with more than a few great lines in it.The song was written a couple of years ago, during a period of involuntary limbo. Solomon had just found out she'd secured a fly-in fly-out job, but the start date was months away. With no income, no momentum and a lot of waiting, she turned to pen and paper. What emerged was something close to a personal mantra – a song about sensitivity as a strength, about humour as a survival tool, and about trusting that good things come to those who keep showing up.One line in particular lands with the elegance of something that sounds obvious only after someone else has said it: Worry is a waste of the imagination.'Someday Somewhere' was produced by Josh Dyson at Villa Studios in Western Australia; Dyson also plays bass in Solomon's live band and contributes much of the instrumentation on her recordings. The video, directed by Emma Smart, was filmed near Solomon's home and features Solomon riding her father's red lawnmower down golden roadside fields, dressed in a blue op-shop jacket that she'd bought two years earlier with no specific plan, just a feeling it would come in handy. It is, as intended, an exercise in pure joy.Watch the video: https://youtu.be/xizjqiA020o?si=2mkWASRCYi5BocA-Since releasing 'Magnolia' last year, Solomon has expanded her reach considerably, supporting Kingswood in Albany, playing Melbourne's Newport Folk Festival (to which she's returning in June), and completing a run of shows in Esperance and Nannup. An album is on the horizon – a blues and folk-leaning collection focused on storytelling – though Solomon is letting it develop at its own pace. More singles are in progress in the meantime. ‘Someday Somewhere’ is out now.Listen to Savanah Solomon on Apple MusicListen to Savanah Solomon on SpotifyListen to Savanah Solomon on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Camille Trail released her debut album River of Sins in 2021 and the EP Magic Trick in 2024. She is known for her thoughtful, articulate and often unflinching lyrics, delivered in a warm, distinctive voice. Her new single 'Postcard' marks a deliberate shift in direction while still being distinctively her.After a big 2024 that included a UK tour and appearances at Folk Alliance in the United States, Trail spent last year recharging and writing. Personal changes fed into creative ones, and she found herself drawn toward something different – brighter, more energetic, more fun. ‘I love writing my vulnerable, sad songs,’ she says in this new interview, ‘but most of my songs are sad and vulnerable, and it was exhausting. Every night I just wanted to have fun, dance on stage.’ Her latest single, 'Postcard', was written and recorded with producer Garrett Kato across three days in the studio, emerging on the final day when Trail arrived with a verse idea she'd developed the night before. It's not a country tune – but I’m never that strict about such things, especially when I’ve covered an artist before for their country music and I’m interested in whatever they do next. Instead of being country, ‘Postcard’ is an upbeat, indie-pop flavoured track with the characteristic Camille Trail sleight of hand: there’s a melody that makes you want to move, then you notice that the lyrics are doing something more searching. ‘I'm scared to be alone’ sits in the middle of what sounds, on first listen, like a carefree summer song. ‘I'm such a sucker for juxtaposition,’ says Trail. ‘That's the whole metaphor of life.’Trail grew up on a farm in Queensland and still keeps cattle – an arrangement that has, on more than one occasion, served as emergency music funding (as she says: ‘I’ll sell a cow’). That grounding in the physical world informs how she writes: melodies come first, words follow in something close to stream of consciousness, often arriving most freely in the car. Two further songs recorded with Kato are due for release later this year, both in the same fresh, forward-facing direction as 'Postcard'.‘Postcard’ is out now.Listen to Camille Trail on Apple MusicListen to Camille Trail on SpotifyListen to Camille Trail on YouTubeFor more Sunburnt Country Music:InstagramFacebook YouTubewebsite Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.