Sunburnt Country Music

The members of Queensland country-rock duo  Benson Manor , Chris Knight and Phil Behrens, have been performing together for over two decades but have only recently started to release original music, first with ‘Dirty Weekend’ and now with ‘Let’s Talk’, a song about the power of talking out problems rather than leaving them festering inside.   I had no idea what to expect when interv...

Trinity Woodhouse  started singing at a very young age. As she tells me in our recent interview, she was playing every sport imaginable and singing while doing it – including while swimming which, as she says, takes some doing! When she was eight her parents suggested she have some vocal lessons, although she didn’t agree to them until she was eleven. She started performing at twelve, and too...

Sally Jane  is an emerging country music artist from Serpentine in Western Australia who started singing in early childhood – often in paddocks, as she told me in this interview! – and who has already played in many venues and around the country. Indeed, she has crossed the Nullarbor Plain eleven times to play the east coast of Australia.    Last year Sally released two singles, one...

The latest single from Central Coast NSW artist  Jasmine Sparkes  is ‘Sparkes Road’ – based on a real Sparks Road that she travels often, the spelling has been altered slightly to reflect the metaphorical and literal journey Sparkes has taken through her musical life, which began with learning piano in childhood and takes in classical training and musical theatre.  Growing up on the...

Corey Colum emerged into the Australian country music scene in 2009, when he won the Telstra Road to Tamworth competition. He released his debut self-titled album in 2012 – and then we didn’t hear from him for a good long while.  Colum didn’t step away from music so much as releasing music. He’s still been very much playing, and writing. But he also had some other – rather important – things...

It’s fair to say that  Lyn Bowtell  is a doyenne of Australian music, and not only because she’s the director of the Academy of Country Music, overseeing the Junior Academy each July and Senior Academy each January and everything in between – although that would be qualification enough. So it is that but it is also this: she has this glorious voice that can prompt tears and break hearts...

During this interview with Tamworth-based country music artist  Aleyce Simmonds  you’ll occasionally hear her talking to her young daughter, Georgia, who was nearby during the chat, and, towards the end, her husband. I could have edited out these lines, but for what reason? To pretend that Simmonds wasn’t at home, doing the interview near her garden, with the setting sun and birds nearby...

The first time I interviewed Sydney singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer  Michael Carpenter , I found out how he organises his time so well (hint: it’s a simple to-do list and actually remembering to look at it), although I also think he marries that organisation with a sense of living in constant creative flow. The output of his own music, whether that’s solo, with The Apri...

Many musical artists immerse themselves in their work, embracing many facets of it, sometimes as singing or instrument teachers, or writing songs for other artists to perform, making videos or producing. Victorian artist  Hazel  – who performs with her band, The Thief – runs a popular venue, The Pig & Whistle in Main Ridge, scheduling more than 100 shows a year, which in and of...

‘Everything is a song. Life is a song. Books are a song.’  That’s what Victoria-born Queensland resident  Kaitlyn Thomas  told me when I asked about her songwriting process in our recent chat about her latest single, ‘Mississippi Lies’, which she recorded with in-demand Gold Coast producer Jared Adlam. Thomas was talking about how she’d had the title of the song in a songbook for a...

While I enjoy interviewing artists for the second, third or fourth (sometimes more!) time, it’s always lovely to meet someone new and find out about their life in music.  Emily Joy  is a country-pop artist from Western Australia whom I knew had studied music extensively, but there’s only so much you can glean from research online – which is at least one of the reasons why it’s good to ha...

Early on in my interview with award-winning, chart-topping country music artist  Kaylee Bell , I discovered that she has a background in sport – this was not something I’d found in my research but I always like exploring this angle when it comes up with musical artists because to me, at least, there are commonalities in both pursuits. Both require an understanding that most of one’s time will...

It can never be said that Jindabyne local now Queensland resident  Brad Cox  has rested on his laurels. From his debut self-titled album, released in 2018, through second album  My Mind’s Projection  in 2020 and  Acres in 2023, he has evolved his sound while building his audience, often through touring his own shows and playing festivals. His voice is big, and so are the s...

Sara Berki  is a country music artist from the greater Sydney area who impressed audiences from her very first single, ‘Fallin’ Off the Heartline’, and has kept releasing songs that not only consolidate those early impressions but shift her as an artist into new territory while also being identifiably her sound, as evidenced on her recent second EP,  In the Neon . Berki performed at the...

Jake Davey  is one of those multi-talented artists who must have an incredibly well-organised diary because he moves so regularly between making videos and producing music for other artists as well as writing and recording his own songs, and playing live. Two years ago, however, it seemed there was little prospect of any of that when Davey was given a diagnosis of cauda equina syndrome, which...

Copperline  are a four-piece alt-country band fronted by Brad Christmas, who is also an in-demand musician who has played with acts such as Boney M and Steve Kilbey in between writing songs and also writing books – his first book for young people,  Saltwater Boy , has had award acclaim and Christmas is now at work on his second. Copperline’s new single, ‘Sleepwalking’, was produced by Sh...

Brooke Schubert  is a country rock artist living in Brisbane, Queensland. She is in a musical lineage that includes her great-grandmother, Iris Atkinson, who was the first woman in Australia to produce a vinyl recording, her aunt Karyn, an opera singer, and her mother, Susan, who performed at the first Gympie Muster and was also a professional golfer.  Both music and sport have been prom...

Each time I interview  Tom Curtain  I learn something new, which is probably not surprising, given the scope of his life: running the Katherine Outback Experience in the dry season, at his home in the Northern Territory, then taking it literally on the road during the wet season, with horses and dogs and humans in tow. This is all while he writes, records and releases music, and is invol...

The only time I have seen  Mitchell Steele  perform live was over a decade ago, upstairs at the Tudor Hotel in Tamworth during the Country Music Festival. Clearly it made an impression because I remember it clearly: the crowd in that hot room in January, his voice, the way he held our attention, and how he did not shy away from what was a very close audience connection in that space.&nbs...

Something is in the water in the Victorian town of Castlemaine, in an artistic sense. That’s the impression I had from talking to Al Carr and Pete Daly, two of the four members of Castlemaine band  Bad Debts . Carr, Daly and the two other members, Mitch Dillon and Al Stanley, are locals whose proximity has led to the creation of an endeavour that none of them was really seeking or expecting.&...

If you’ve ever seen  Christie Lamb  play live you’ll know just how compelling a musical presence she is, with her powerful vocals and inherent musicality. She’s played in all sorts of places, from private events to arena tours, and each step of her career has seen her develop further as an artist. Her artistry has also been developed through tertiary studies, and music is now part of who...

Jason Resch  was introduced to Australian country music audiences as a member of country-pop four-piece Darlinghurst, who topped charts and won awards for their songs including ‘Pretty Doesn’t Make You Good’. Resch’s life in music started well before then, however: on a toy piano in childhood, as he told me during our interview, before he moved on to other instruments. He played in a band fro...

Chloe Marks  grew up in Innisfail in Far North Queensland and she now lives in Brisbane. She has been releasing music in various guises since 2015 and now, as Chloe Marks & The Mayhem, she has released two singles this year. The latest is ‘Skip September’. It was clear during our interview that Marks is an artist who tends to say ‘yes’ to things – and also clear that those yeses have take...

Mack & Cook  are Lizzie Mack and Murray Cook are two members of The Soul Movers, who have released several albums and are festival favourites. They are now creating music as a duo and recently released their first single, the slow burn ‘Time Goes By’. What goes into this single is the experience of two of Australia’s most established and respected musical artists. Murray Cook is a foundin...

Sarah Catania  is a singer-songwriter from Melbourne who released her first single, ‘Venus and Mars’, in 2022 and she’s been steadily releasing singles since then, the latest being the anthemic ‘Front Row’.    A graduate of the  CMAA Academy of Country Music , Catania not only made connections with other Academy graduates but returned this year as an intern, an intensive p...