Sunburnt Country Music

Shane Nicholson has released 11 studio albums and 1 compilation of B-sides, won 3 ARIA awards and 16 Golden Guitars. His most recent album, Living in Colour , won the Golden Guitar for Album Of The Year as well as Alternative Country Album Of The Year, and the single 'And You Will Have Your Way' won Single Of The Year and APRA Song Of The Year awards. Living in Colour was also Nicholson's seventh...

Brooke McClymont is one third of top-selling, award-winning Australian country music trio The McClymonts who have over five #1 ARIA Country Albums, 40 million streams, two ARIA Awards and fifteen Golden Guitar Awards. Adam Eckersley has won five Golden Guitar Awards and with The Adam Eckersley Band released two high-charting albums. Adam has also won awards for his songwriting.&nbsp...

Mel Lukin released her first EP in 1999 and in recent years has released some lovely country-pop singles, including ‘Caught Up in a Dream’. Earlier this year she released the song ‘One Way Ticket’ and her latest single is 'Look Up', which is an inspiring song that exhorts us to take in and appreciate the world around us. 'I wrote this song with talented songwriter, Nolan Wynne, in May of last year...

Described as, 'A reformed thrill-seeker with stories so weird and wild they beggar belief', Brisbane-based artist Lisa De Angelis is the creator of sultry, intriguing country music songs that included last year's 'Hunger Pains' .  Her latest single is 'My Sister's Blue Suitcase', and it provides the latest evidence that De Angelis is a performer of captivating powers, as anyone who has seen h...

Caitlyn Shadbolt has just released her third studio album, the irresistible Bloom & Surrender , which is a tale in two halves. Says Shadbolt of the concept behind the album: 'For the most part, I’m a happy-go-lucky, country-loving, small town girl. But like everyone, I also have a side that is reflective and introverted. I really wanted to share both sides of me, but was unsure how best t...

Claudia Tripp is an artist from Perth in Western Australia who was a Grand Finalist in this year’s Toyota Star Maker competition. She released the single ‘I Only Miss You When I’m Drunk’ late last year and now has a new single, ‘I’m Never Drinking Again’. Says Tripp of the song, which she wrote with Rachael Fahim and MSquared: '"I'm Never Drinking Again" was a song title idea I held with me for a...

Steph Wood is a singer-songwriter from Sydney who recently released her self-titled debut EP, which is a collection of five songs that are heartfelt, sometimes sad, and all memorable. While Wood has been singing for most of her life she has only recently started performing and recording, and she has wholeheartedly embraced songwriting, gaining formal qualifications. Wood and I spoke recently about...

Jackson James has an extensive background in the music industry. As an artist he's opened for Rick Price, Diesel, Melanie Dyer and Caitlyn Shadbolt. As a writer he co-wrote the songs 'One More Kiss' and 'Never See Me Cry' by Hudson Rose; he also produced both songs and made the music videos. Now James has released his own single, ‘Get Around to It’. James says, 'This song started from a guita...

Tyla Rodrigues released the single ‘All She Is’ last year and since then she’s been busy appearing at festivals and touring Queensland. She has a brand new, and rather haunting, single called ‘Way Out West’. As I discovered when we spoke recently, Rodrigues approached the writing of this song differently to previous songs, and it was great to have the opportunity to find out more about her process...

Jo Caseley is a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from the Southern Highlands of New South Wales who cut her teeth busking on the streets of Sydney's Kings Cross. She also has an extensive background as a writer, having studied journalism; she is not only a skilled storyteller but one who is passionate about music and connecting with people through it.  Caseley has released two alb...

Tammy Moxon is an artist from Townsville in Queensland who released her debut album,  Drive Me Sane , in 2019. She intended to go back to the studio in 2020 but, of course, all those sorts of plans were derailed, but it was worth waiting for her new single, 'Fighting Chance', with the promise of more songs to come. During our recent interview I discovered all sorts of interesting things...

Mark Moldre is a singer-songwriter from northern New South Wales. He fronted four-piece band Hitchcock’s Regret for a seven-year period and recorded his first solo release in 2009. His previous album was 2019's Fever Dreams . Moldre's latest album is Nambucca Fables , which combines melodic Americana and indie pop-rock. It is a moving, often dreamlike exploration of grief - specifically, Moldre's...

Nathan May is an Arabana, Yawuru and Marridjabin man who grew up in the Northern Territory and who is now living on Kaurna country in South Australia. Last year he released the single 'Fix It Up' and it became immediately clear that he is an artist of great talent and subtle power.  May has now released the unforgettable single 'It's Gotta Start Somewhere'. 'I wanted to write a song about my...

Watty Thompson is an artist from the Ottway Ranges in Victoria and he has just released his self-titled debut album, which is an epic collection of songs that dig deeply into the trenches of life and which are ultimately life-affirming. From writing about and appreciating the natural world in 'City to Run' and 'The Beauty That Surrounds Ya' to honouring the end of a life in 'Mountai...

Sydney-based artist Hayley Jensen is one of Australia’s most powerful live performers, with a range and dynamism honed since childhood, although she first came to public attention on  Australian Idol several years ago. Since then she has released three studio albums, the latest of which was Breakin' Hearts in 2021, and she has twice been nominated for the Golden Guitar for Female Artist...

Kaitlyn Thomas has been a singer and songwriter from a young age, and her first single, ‘I Wish’, was released in 2011. Since then Kaitlyn has honed her country-rock and pop sound and taken it all the way to our TV screens, appearing on the 2023 season of Australian Idol . Her latest single is the anthemic ‘Pretty Little Thing’, which came about, she says, 'after being told I don't fit the mould a...

Ben Mastwyk is the ringmaster of his band The Millions and the creator of three albums, the latest of which, Livin’ on Gold Street , was released in 2021. Mastwyk's music is thrillingly entertaining while also being lyrically thoughtful, proof that an artist can be dedicated to putting on a great show - even in recorded form - while also being interested in the structure and integrity of the songs...

Maddie Cail is Gold Coast singer-songwriter who is a relative newcomer to the country music scene, releasing songs such as 'Look At You Now' and 'Good Girl Gone Bad' over the past couple of years. But she has galloped - pun completely intended - in with a great new song, 'Giddy Up', that is all about taking chances and getting on with things, even if that means accepting that something hasn't turn...

Brooke Schubert is an artist from Queensland who recently had two different singles released - one on her own, 'New Kids in Town', and another, 'Simple Things' with Route 33. It's not the first time Schubert has collaborated in recent times, as she released 'Simple Then' with Will Day in 2021.  Schubert will be familiar to Australian TV audiences too as she has appeared on The Voice and...

Since Brad Cox first came to our attention in 2018 he has released two studio albums and an acoustic album, and had multiple nominations for awards including Golden Guitars, ARIA and APRA. His first, self-titled album was released in 2018 and showed the breadth of Cox's songwriting skills. His second album, My Mind's Projection , was released in 2020. The acoustic album What's Your Favourite Count...

LEO is a singer-songwriter of alt-country and folk-influenced songs who travels the east coast of Australia playing her music. In 2021 she released an EP in 2021 and a lovely Christmas single, ‘North Star’. Last year she released an acoustic album that contains what just may be the perfect pandemic song, 'Refund'. It's appropriate because the album sprang from lockdowns when LEO was unable to work...

Copperline are a four-piece band from Sydney and the Blue Mountains who released their second album,  Borrowed, Broken and Blue, last year . One of the songs from that album, ‘Lucinda’, has been streamed over 150 000 times on Spotify alone, and their songs have been finalists for the International Songwriting Competition, Tamworth Songwriters Association and Australian Songwriters Association...

The second track on Aotearoa/NZ-born Melbourne resident Matt Joe Gow's fourth album, Between Tonight and Tomorrow , released a few weeks ago, is ''Til My Whole Heart Bursts' and there is a sense on this album that Gow has not only committed his whole heart but been prepared to show it to his listeners. It is an album of joys and sorrows and all the layers of human experience in between, in which t...

Felicity Urquhart has recorded several albums and EPs as a solo artist and as a member of Bennett Bowtell and Urquhart, winning 13 Golden Guitars along the way. She was also the host of Saturday Night Country for several years.  Josh Cunningham is a founding member of The Waifs, who have released 10 albums over three decades and won multiple ARIA awards.  Together Felicity and Josh relea...

Lily Grace released her first single, 'Annie June', in 2021 and in collaboration with James Blundell. She followed that with 'Sixteen Wishes' and last year 'The Two of Us Meet', which has had over one million streams on Spotify alone. Her latest single is 'Follow My Road' and it's fair to say Lily has been following her own road in creating infectious country pop - and taking it all the way to Nas...