Sunburnt Country Music

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 thr...

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...

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, peop...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 tim...

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...

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...

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-...

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 nig...

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',...

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’. Th...

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.  Ho...

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.&n...

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...

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 perfo...

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 d...

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...

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 h...

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...

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 C...

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...

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...