1.Growing Up

Growing up in Cooma, I would head along to the bush dances to chase a girl. I got a place in the bush band strumming chords and so would watch her from a distance. Humming the tunes for days afterwards, I soon realised that traditional Irish and Australian music was the stuff I loved.

2.Inspirations

I find inspiration in the lyricism of bands like Bright Eyes and Bob Dylan. The first time I heard Bob Dylan was on a South Coast road trip. We bought his album The Freewheelin’ on cassette from an op shop and it hit hard. The tape was damaged and would constantly speed up and slow down.

3.Your Band

I met Quinton (accordion), Jake (double bass), Ben (banjo) and Bob (fiddle) four years ago studying music in Lismore. Ben and Bob live there still, while Jake lives in Sydney and Quinton and I just travel around. We all share a love of storytelling, singing shanties and drinking. We roped in our friend Steve Law to spend a week in a lighthouse cottage with us, recording and mixing the album we hope to put out soon on Tasmanian label, Folk ’Til Ya Punk Records.

4.The Music You Make

Spending a lot of our time travelling around, we like to record in places that inspire that same feeling of excitement. We recorded our last release, The Lonesome Sea, in a log cabin and our next in a lighthouse cottage. At our live shows we love getting everybody up dancing to our livelier bluegrass tunes before bringing them down with ballads of lost love.

5.Music, Right Here, Right Now

We are in a great time for folk music, with small bars booking music all week and folk festivals everywhere attracting younger audiences. Sometimes people seem less open to the idea of going out to see a band they don’t know if the risk of them not enjoying themselves is too great to bother, but with great hard-working bands like The Plough, Catgut and The Morrisons performing regularly, it’s always worth heading out.

Get Folked atThe Gasoline Pony is onSaturday May 28, and featuresThe Button Collective,Andy Baylor, Black Vat Trio, The Low Down Riders, Queen Porter Stomp and more.The Lonesome SeabyThe Button Collectiveis out now independently.

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