Country VS Metal
A guy who loves heavy metal talking about country music. Check out CountryVsMetal on TikTok .
Country VS Metal
Country VS Metal - Wade Forster
Wade Forster musical life is a movie in the making. Absolutely a great conversation I'm a huge fan of Australian slang, and a huge fan of the music Wade makes. I'm so happy America has embraced his talent, and I hope he thrives in the country music scene in the USA. He's real and he's talented, but just don't call him Champ.
We are on the Country vs. Metal podcast with Wade Forster. How are you doing, sir? I'm good, and you? Dude, I'm doing great. I appreciate you taking your time.
SPEAKER_00:Nah, man. It's all good. I had to get up anyway. The time difference sort of works perfectly for stuff like this.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's amazing. You know, you're literally across the world.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Nah, it is crazy considering a lot of the people that do podcasts with me are on that side of the world. So I don't get a lot in Australia. So yeah, I'm kind of used to it by now.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Now when someone, somebody from your team, or I don't know if it was you contacted me and said that you were doing your first tour over at the States and I should check you out. Now, had, had I not gotten the heads up that you were Australian, I don't, I don't think I would have noticed just from your music. Does, does that bother you? I mean,
SPEAKER_00:not really. Like, I grew up on American country music so like my singing style I think was influenced by that like I grew up rodeoing with dad and that and he used to play Brooks and Dunn and you know Big and Rich I don't know why I listen to so much Big and Rich as a kid but I love Big and Rich and you know all them old school country boys like George and Garth and you know all that were on CDs in the car going to a rodeo so I think that shaped how I I didn't really listen to a lot of Australian country music until I got into it.
SPEAKER_01:Is there a big Australian country music scene?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, yeah, there is. It's still pretty niche at the moment. I've got a big festival this weekend. But for an Australian to sort of get in the spotlight, we sort of need to get in your spotlight, if you know what I mean. We've got a decent enough scene. There's a heap of us singing and a lot of songs coming out. But yeah, it's all still pretty niche.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. It's funny. Uh, when we were in the lobby, we were really dealing with, uh, technical difficulties, but I love Australian slang. I absolutely love it. And like, but like, if you were to be like, put like the Australian, uh, influence in it, like nobody would know what you were talking about. Like if the song cigarettes, if you called it, uh, Duffy's.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Duffy's, yeah. But, like, yeah, even, like, trucks. We don't call them trucks. We call them utes. So, like, I had to translate that. Otherwise, only people from my hometown would listen to songs like that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. It's like you sing a song about cheap wine, plonk. yeah that's
SPEAKER_00:our box one
SPEAKER_01:yeah or what do they call that goon yeah goons yeah i i i worked before he became a huge boss he was uh australian and i used to love using the lingo with him and man like like we we run like a pretty big section of uh of of the railroad and i changed i knew he's coming down i changed all the backgrounds to koala bears and he's like oh i think that was funny and i was like yeah i just wanted you to make you feel like you're at home and here it was like taking all the ram away and it was almost like crashed the entire system but i this slang i love it because it's just like if uh if Willie Nelson was Australian and is it redheaded stranger, it'd be a bluey stranger. Yeah. I love it. I love the, the irony in the slightest. It's like some of my favorite things. Cause I, I listened, listened to the chats.
SPEAKER_02:Like, Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. But dude, when they, they kind of like the same deal, like what happened with you? Like they went viral with, with Smoko. Yeah. And they're very into the slang. And I'm like, Cause I'm like, what a Rothy blues. I need to, I need to translate this. And I just love how other, you know, I love slang and I love, I love lingo, but they kind of had like this, the same path you did. Cause you, you went viral with the Tyler Childers, right? Was that the, was that the, that was the first.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. That was the first song I released on Spotify on that. And I didn't think much of it. Like that was during COVID. and like I was stuck at home so like I was living on my mum and dad's cattle station and it's like 60,000 acres out in western Queensland and like we're stuck there during COVID so like we couldn't we saw each other every day for like a year we didn't see anyone else and I was already playing guitar then and I was like alright I might as well do something and I was like I don't want to release one of my songs just yet and I stumbled on Onida by Tyler Childers on YouTube. And I was like, why hasn't he released this? This is a masterclass. And now he has, like three or four years later. But that was the first song. And I recorded that on an iPhone, like uploaded it off an iPhone. Like I didn't even have a microphone or anything.
SPEAKER_01:That's why I tell people, like, when they're like, all I have is this and I don't have this. I'm like, dude, talent will shine through. And that's an absolute great example of, you know, people can tell. Yeah. Yeah, the audience will be like, this guy can sing, you
SPEAKER_00:know. It wasn't a big drama for me because, like, in a lot of people's eyes, they're like, oh, you should have went and recorded that as a band. with big band and this and that and I'm like I'd be pretty happy to record most of my songs acoustic just guitar because that's how I wrote them you know like I think that shows more talent than having the full band behind you but you know people like the full band you know
SPEAKER_01:yeah yeah and like with acoustic there's no place to hide
SPEAKER_00:exactly but that's how I write my songs like I don't want to hide you know I want to if I fuck up I want people to see that
SPEAKER_01:And then I read you got your first guitar for$50 on Facebook Marketplace.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I still got it. I was working in this town. It's sort of like a, I don't know if you have a big mining town over there, but our big mining town in Queensland is called Mount Isa. And I was there doing a refrigeration apprenticeship. And I was a young cowboy in a town full of old cowboys so there wasn't a lot of oh let's go rope steers until midnight you know because they all had families they weren't wanting to stay out so I was often pretty bored and I could have gone drinking or something like that and I was like oh I don't want to go drinking every weekend so I bought a guitar for a hobby didn't think much of it taught myself off of YouTube I think the first song I learnt was Wagon Wheel and then the second song I learnt was Deer Rodeo by Cody John That's it. Nice. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:First, the whole being on a 60,000 acre property on COVID, that's probably the most isolated I've ever heard of anybody. And just that landmass, to me, that's incredible. Because I know people that have farms that it was a couple hundred acres, and I thought that was just mind-blowing. But 60,000 acres.
SPEAKER_00:That's like a mid to small size operation in Australia. I worked on a cattle station straight out of school in Julia Creek and it was 1.7 million acres. And I remember the first day I was there, I was mustering on this horse and it started like bucking and carrying on. I'm like, I'm in the middle of nowhere. They won't find me if I fall off this thing. But, yeah, no, it did trip me out a little bit. Like when I first was talking to Cody, Cody's like, oh, I've got this amount of acres. He's like, how big is your place? I'm like, it's 60,000 acres he's got. It blew his head off. And he's like, I didn't know you could have that much.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And that's just a family fun.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. That's just family. There's a lot of company classes that have a bit more, but most of the time it's just families that have acres out there. A lot of cattle. People in America still think we do a lot of sheep, but sheep's sort of not really happening here anymore. Not where I am anyway.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's cool to hear it's families. Over here, that would be like a corporation. You know what I mean? Like a Purdue or
SPEAKER_00:Tyson. No, Dad would never. Dad would never. He's like that. The only person he works for is the bank. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Dude, that's funny.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Like, yeah, Cody's reaction is definitely on par with mine because, you know, I'm pretty sure he just said 60,000. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. That's awesome. Especially as a young fellow, like, you want to go, you know, shoot kangaroos or, you know, ride horses through creeks and that, you don't have to worry about going through a fence or finding a gate because there rarely is one. You can just go for miles and miles.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
UNKNOWN:It's
SPEAKER_01:it's funny you know like over here I can I'll speak for Americans when I say like when we think of Australia like we were scared to death of your wildlife
SPEAKER_00:oh we are too don't worry like everything in Australia can kill you and that's the easiest way to put it like kangaroos everyone thinks they're harmless like kangaroos can kill you in five seconds
SPEAKER_01:yeah they're nuisance animals I'm surprised.
SPEAKER_00:How many people don't know
SPEAKER_01:that?
SPEAKER_00:They're our biggest pest. They're our biggest pest. And on their foot, they've got three claws, and that middle one's razor sharp. They'll kick you in the guts and just rip everything out
SPEAKER_01:of
SPEAKER_00:you. They're awful things. And they're actually pricks because they like– if you've got dogs, dogs hate kangaroos, and that's just a food chain. They'll coach dogs, make them come to you. water like by like oh chase me chase me and they'll run chasing these kangaroos they'll get them to water and they'll put them under water and they'll try to drown the dogs they're pricks like I hate them like people make livings in Australia by shooting kangaroos like they don't have a job like that's their job they shoot kangaroos for a living like that's a normal job to have in Australia wow um Yeah, spiders, snakes, like anything can kill you out here. Yeah, it's... I think we've got like eight of the most venomous snakes in the world or something like that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's nuts. That's why I like the northeast. I think the only thing, we have like copperheads down south. It's
SPEAKER_00:funny. I want to see a rattlesnake. I want to see one. I always thought like, nah, that's not real. Snakes don't make that noise. Everyone's telling me, yeah, they'll rattle and that's why they're called that. I'm like, I need to say it to believe it yeah
SPEAKER_01:I'm fine with
SPEAKER_00:the
SPEAKER_01:video I do oh man snakes stuff like that I don't like animals that I can't tell their temperament I man dogs you can tell you check the tail you have an idea they may be crafty but for the most part but reptiles and all that and when you you get no tails not a fan
SPEAKER_00:well don't come to Australia then they won't tell No, they'll be like, oh, come over and pat me and then they'll hit you or bite you or something. Like dad's got a blue dog that we can't even take to rodeos anymore. It's savage. If one of my friends tries to come around to my horse trailer to have a beer or something at a rodeo, he'll call before he gets there. He's like, is Doddy there? And I'm like, no, Doddy's tied up. It's all good. And he'll walk really wide around the trailer to get to me because that dog would just grab him. Real unassuming, but he'd be wagging his tail like, oh, here you go, and then whack, bite.
SPEAKER_01:That's funny. In the rodeo, have you done rodeos in the US?
SPEAKER_00:I've done one with at Belton, Texas. I did the Cody Johnson team open. That was It was sort of like my first introduction to it because Cody said he was running it and he called me up and he was like, come over, we'll rope, I'll get you some partners, all that. And I was like, yep, sweet. Didn't really know what to expect. But then like I was roping against some of the greatest in the world, like some of the greatest ever do it, you know. And I even got to rope with like Luke Branquino who's like an icon to me, like used to watch his tapes as a kid steer wrestling, winning world titles. Roped with Joe Beaver, the man that built the roof on the Thomas and Mac. Like, you know, crazy stuff like that. Cody did miss for me in the second round. I won't forget it. He missed in the team roping for me. And I was like, you dragged me all the way from Australia for that? And he's like, shut up.
SPEAKER_01:That's funny. Now, are the animals, who would win, an Australian versus a Texan lifestyle for the rodeo? Are they on the same level?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they're somewhat on the same level. I reckon the Texan boys definitely get better cattle because they're better trained. They're always roping. They make a living off of it. In Australia, we've still got to have a job. to fund the rodeo because it doesn't pay as well. Some people do, don't get me wrong. Some people do the rodeo all year round. But for me, it was six or seven hours to my closest rodeo in the pro circuit. So yeah, I was working all week just to go to the rodeo to see if I could win some more money. But in terms of cowboys... A few Texans have come down here and tried the Australian stock and haven't really fared well. But us Aussies go over there and we put on a show. Like Kai Hamilton, he won the world. I wrote a song about a bulldogger that I used to travel around with called Travis Munro. He's giving them hell in the steer wrestling right now. All the cowboys that are doing good, they're all packing up and moving over there because they want to show America that Australia's here. We're not like... like a second nation when it comes to rodeo, we're right up there with you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. I'm like, man, I totally lost my train of thought. Now, as a true rodeo guy and cowboy, how do you know when... What's a tell of that guy's a fake? Can you spot him a mile away? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I
SPEAKER_00:can spot him. And I deal with it a lot in Australia. Even some artists, they put the hat on, fresh pair of Wrangler jeans. I've seen some embarrassing ones. I saw a dude in a crowd at one of my shows. He still had the stickers on his jeans. And I was like, oh, God. He bought them today. I've seen people go on stage with their cowboy hat on backwards in Australia. And I'm like, oh. it's, yeah, I could spot them a mile away. I've seen a lot of it, especially in music scene, not as much in radio. You can, there's a big difference between the Cowboys and the crowd at an Australian radio.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. It's also something like if, if I'm going to lie, like if I'm like, yeah, I ride bulls and you're at a place where someone can be like, all right, you're next, you know, like, no, you know, like, I've never been on a bull. You know, you can go walk, you can go pet a dairy cow, but you look over and you see, you see them just moving their, their legs and they're just, I'm like, no, no, you're over there for a reason. But yeah, like, uh, I, I've, you know, I've never been involved with the rodeo. I I've been, I've been like once, but in my, it would be for like, it'd be like me. getting on my motorcycle on purpose and wreck it. That's how I translate riding bulls and chasing down animals and throwing them down and just jumping off your horse and wrestling these things down to the ground.
SPEAKER_00:I saw someone on TikTok say something funny about it. It's like, oh, rodeo is like filling a kiddie pool full of water, getting your mate to fill a kiddie pool full of water and then you're on the roof and you're blindfolded and he said, yeah, you're right, jump in it. And it might be full of water, it might not. And you might hit the ground and get hurt, but you might fall in the water and have a good time. But, yeah. That's what I thought, like, oh, yeah, that's a perfect analogy of rodeo because, like, the amount of people that go, oh, no, he's a good bull and he just monsters the absolute shit out of them, you know?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But, like, I never rode bulls. I had a go at bronc riding, saddle bronc, but I wasn't quick enough, so I just stuck to timed events and do, like, roping and steer wrestling and stuff like that. I dabbled in calf roping, wasn't quick enough for that either. But, like... I travel around with bull riders. It's different in Australia. All the bull riders would travel around together in America and all the team ropers, they stick to their events where Australia. I've been in a car where I've got two bull riders, one bronc rider and a bow racer and me. And we're going to the same rodeo and we're all helping each other out. I've gone and pulled bull ropes for my mates and stuff like that and that pushed the ears out for me and the team ropers. It's very family-orientated in Australia, where in America it's all about getting to the finals. And it's still about getting to the finals in Australia, but we sort of like, oh, we've got to make do because we're traveling together. We've got to figure it out.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so it's definitely more camaraderie over in Australia. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. And everyone in Australia wants to see their mate beat them too. So like a good example, I saw a bunch of bull riders that I know travel up to our biggest rodeo, Mount Isa, and they won first, second, and there was three of them in the car. They won first, second, and third. And it paid really well. So I don't know, them boys might have went on a holiday to the casino or something the next weekend. But, yeah, no, they had a good weekend.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Can you make a living just strictly doing the rodeo? Some do, some
SPEAKER_00:don't.
SPEAKER_01:Tough grind, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it doesn't pay as well as American rodeos do, but some people get by on it, but I couldn't. That's why I got into singing. I can use the singing to fund a bit of rodeoing, but even then I think I'm slowing up a bit and I'll just stick to doing the bigger ones and who knows, I'll snag a check and might make it back to finals, but... All them littler shows are sort of going to be hard for me to get to now. Like, the plan is to move over there probably next year to the States and give music a hot crack. But, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Man, I saw a video of you, like, your first show in Texas and– it was a really cool moment when people started singing the words and he's like, you could tell you, it was, that had to be amazing. Cause you know, like, You're from halfway across the world.
SPEAKER_00:It was one of the biggest shocks because for a long time, I was on TikTok and people are using my sound. I'm like, oh, there's so many people in America, but I'm probably still very niche over there. And the comments kept coming in, come to Texas, come to Oklahoma. I had one person say, come to New York. And I was like, me in New York, I don't think that'd be a reality TV show. But when I... I was over there for that CMA Fest last year in 2024. I was with mum and dad and they were like, oh, we should go to Texas so we can buy some ropes and that. The first thing dad wanted to do was go to NRS and Teske's and buy a new saddle and buy new bridles and that for his horses. And don't get me wrong, I was the same. I reckon I spent about 10 grand at both them shops American just because you can't get that stuff in Australia. You've got to ship it over here. And we were like, oh, we're already over here, might as well buy it, throw out all of our clothes and put it in our suitcases. And... I was talking to a friend and he's like, you could do a pop-up show in Texas and I'll help you organize it. And he helped me do all that. And I was like, you know, 20, 30 people might come, you know, some straggler boys on the stockyards at Fort Worth. And outside of Chief Records, we had about 350 people rock up before I'd even picked up a guitar. And I was like, That's crazy. I can't get 350 people to a show in Australia sometimes. But in America, there was a dude there who drove six hours and lost his job just to watch me play. And I was like, okay, I need to focus on America because I was singing in Australia for years and had all those songs out and they'd only come if I was an hour away, let alone six. if the footy was on, sometimes, like if the football was on, sometimes people wouldn't come because they're like, nah, footy's on. I'm like... I drove two full days to get here to sing, and you can't even rock up. But America, I put them tour dates out. I sold Fort Worth out in 24 hours.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I saw your tour. There's a lot of sold-out dates. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there's a few more. We haven't updated the poster in a minute, but yeah. It's nearly all but sold out, which is for a first American headline tour for me is like I'm still trying to process it like as an Australian going over there and selling out shows like that I'm like alright maybe I'll move here because it's hard to do that in Australia like you'd be lucky to sell them out beforehand if not on the day Like, yeah, the music scene over there is well and truly ready, you know, where I think I'll go over there instead of waiting for it to get better here. I can always come home, you know, like this is home for me. So I might as well go while I'm young. I don't have a girlfriend or kids or a house loan or anything, you know. I live out of my cars most of the time when I'm singing on the road.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. Do you have an area that you have a preference for? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I love Texas. I do love Texas, but Texas or Oklahoma for me probably would be a little bit more where I want to be. I'm pretty happy anywhere. I've been to most places in Texas. I haven't really seen Houston or San Antonio, but I've been to Austin. I've been to Dallas. I've been to Amarillo. I haven't been to El Paso. I want to go to El Paso. I reckon it's a lot like a Queensland out back out there um but like anywhere around Texas or Oklahoma would be sort of where I want to set myself up and I do realize it'd be like going back to the start like starting over like like I did in Australia like you know you'll be supporting people until you can do it big time and I'm willing willing to do that living out of cars again like I'm sort of used to that might be different in the states because everyone's got guns I might be trying to hide a little bit more we don't have guns like he's doing
SPEAKER_01:yeah that's that's true but that was the one like like I'm out here I like I don't know how well you know our geography. I'm out here in Delaware and it's in Northeast. Yeah. And I was really surprised how many people weren't open carrying in Texas because I thought it would be a lot more because certain parts of my state, it's weird if you don't have something on you. They're like, hey, where are you from? I'm like, oh, I forgot. I forgot my uniform.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's just weird. It's crazy in Australia, if you were walking around with a gun in public, there'd be SWAT teams called to you. They wouldn't fuck around with that. There'd be SWAT teams on your ass within five minutes. And even then, the only guns you can buy in Australia, you've got to have a license for them and a reason to have a gun. You can't just say, for my protection. It's like, I own livestock and I need it for pest control. I go to gun clubs and I want to shoot targets every Sunday. You've got to give good reason, let alone the background checks. You only get a bolt action. No semi-automatics, nothing. It's just bolt action guns.
SPEAKER_01:I've been here my whole life. I've never ran into a problem. You should be fine. You'll be the next... The next big name in music from Australia, because I'm trying to think.
SPEAKER_00:Keith Urban's over there.
SPEAKER_01:He is Australian, isn't he?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I sometimes think he sort of doesn't tell everyone that, but I know deep down he's still got his Aussie roots, but I don't think he has as much slang in his voice as I do. Sometimes in Texas, people just stare at me when I'm talking to them, and they're like, what'd you say? Like, Like I remember when I did the co-headline tour with the Lowdown Drifters and Australians talk real fast. Like we just spit a heap of words out real quick. That's a part of the slang. Like no space bar, just da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah. And I was talking to like Big John and I'm telling him this stuff and he goes, huh, what? I tell him again and he's like, slow down. Yeah. And like... I remember we went to a, I think it was an In-N-Out burger, and me and my band are ordering, and they couldn't understand us. And I was like, boys, just come here real quick. And I told them, talk slow like this, and they will understand. And they go, oh, righto, yeah, too easy. And they go over there, I would like a number one.
SPEAKER_01:Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. We'd finally get the food. They'd probably think we were dicks, but we're like, it's the only way they could understand us.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that's funny. Yeah, like, like I said, I love the slang. Like, oh, there's a lot of people out there. Yeah, it's chockers. Yeah, it's chockers.
SPEAKER_00:Fuck it. Like, even Australia, like, if you start a sentence where I'm from, most people start with a swear word. They go, fucking how you going, mate? Or like, fuck me dead, that's fucked. The word fuck is just used every day by nearly everyone. I remember some of my school teachers used to say fuck in class. It was like, yeah, it's fine. It's fine. Probably got them in trouble then, but I'm out of school. But like, yeah, It's Australian slang, especially going over there, like one of your big no-no words that you can't say, the C word, and we drop that every day. Every day. I'll call my best friend the C word. That's a normal thing. I'll be like, what's going on? That's how we greet each other. Yeah. my sister's called me the C word more times than I can count.
SPEAKER_01:That's funny.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. That's like normal.
SPEAKER_01:It's like so alien to us. That's, that's like, you know, if, if you're at a bar and you're like, Hey, if you want to fight a female, whoop.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:There's a sign. Really drive the point home.
SPEAKER_00:There's no like word in Australia that can really offend someone. like a swear word like that. But if you call someone champ or it's not champ, like, yeah, good on you champ. And you're like, what'd you call me? Like,
SPEAKER_01:I didn't know that. I'm letting that one down.
SPEAKER_00:Do not call anyone in Australia champ. Cause that's like, that's fighting words. That's like, yeah, you're trying to stir him up. You're trying to piss him off so you can go outside and throw fists like champ or in, in some context. Like if you go, yeah, thanks legend, like bit sarcastic, They're like, fuck you. Like, you know, like, Oh, I remember, I remember some fan at Tulsa, like send me, send me down the front aisle sign and stuff. And he's like, thanks champ. And I remember just like, Oh, but then I remember this is America. Like,
SPEAKER_01:yeah. The cultural divide.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I was, I was, I was about to blast on this dude. Like I was about to, I was about to punch the shit out of him, but I was like, hang on. this is America like that doesn't translate well and I was like all good bro like yeah just passed him his thing back and just kept walking I was like I got back on the tour bus and I was like told the boys I was like some dude in there called me champ and my bass player goes did you knock him out and I was like nah because like it's a different I think it's a different meaning over here and he's like I would have knocked him out
SPEAKER_01:that's funny oh man that would have been a pretty funny tabloid you
SPEAKER_00:know it's I've had some pretty wild news stories about me in Australian country music like We've got a news source called Country Town and they post about a lot of country music news and they'll be like, oh, this person's releasing this single and this person's going to this festival, their headline, and then down below it'll be like, Wade Forster has pneumonia after rodeo injury. Stuff like that. The last funny one I had was like, this person's headline and that, this person's releasing this single, Wade Forster fall off stage like stuff like that because my shows are pretty lively and yeah I'm I'd rather go down swinging and doing everything I can. So them funny headlines to me, that's like, yeah, I'm working for it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So you're very lively on stage?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. Like, the worst part is if you give me a big enough stage, I'll run around all night. Like, my band are used to it now. They're like, okay, get out of the way. Wade's running again. But, yeah, if it's a small stage, even then, like, I've tried to– It's pretty good like that. Yeah. I don't think I'd be able to do that in America. I might get swarmed.
SPEAKER_01:Ah, you never know. It's weird. It's like some bands are known for some stuff and some bands are known, you know, don't do that kind of stuff. I guess it's just dependent on what kind of fans you have.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, true. Like I did have a, I did want to, I like a lot of drinks over there and drinking in Australia is like pretty normal. Our drinking culture, like I would say I would love to see just– five fresh out of school 18-year-old blokes go up against the whole frat house in America. Let's say they start Friday morning. By Sunday night, them Aussies are like, God, these bastards are in bed. What's going on? Because I remember being out of school and you'd go to, say, I'd done two months work nonstop at a cattle station. I'm like, I'm going to Townsville for the week. I'd turn the phone off. I'd go rogue. We'd be drinking every day, every night, and drink until you nearly got no money. You're like, all right, I've got enough money to get me home. I'm going back to work.
SPEAKER_01:That's funny.
SPEAKER_00:And the American drinks that I liked over there, Dos Equis and Twisted Tea.
SPEAKER_01:Dos Equis is pretty good. Twisted Tea, yeah, that can sneak up on you.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah, it's snuck up on me a few times in Texas.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it goes down so smooth. And in Queensland, it's Bundy?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Bundy, Bundy Bear. Yeah, okay. It's 50-50 how people react to Bundy. Thunderburger rum, it's either fighting juice, like it just makes them want to fight.
UNKNOWN:LAUGHTER
SPEAKER_00:Or the other side of it, and I'm happy I'm on this side of it. When I have like 20 or 30 bundies, I'm looking at my best friend. I'm like, man, you're my best friend. I love you. I'd fucking do anything for you. There's two sides of it, and you learn pretty quick which side of it you're on. I know for a fact that one of my mates, he cannot drink it. He'll have two, and he's like, all right, wait, you and me out front and I was like we're best friends and he's like don't care He'd be like, you, you, you left the lights on in the kitchen or something. Now we've got to fight because I had one run. You know, it's sort of like that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. I have a friend like that. And it's like, come on, really? You know, and then, and you know, you, you go out, you fight in the bar, you get thrown out. And like over here, I can't, the bouncers would just be like, you guys are driving home together. I'm like, yeah, we're best friends.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. You guys were just punching each other in the face. It's like, yeah,
SPEAKER_00:I've seen some pretty cool, like, see, we don't call them bars in Australia. They're called pubs. Like, I don't know if you've heard that slang. So I had a few pubs, like, out of school after I left school and, like, going out with my mates. I've seen boxing on TV. I've seen UFC. And I was like, dude, some of these blokes I hang around, they could hold up in a ring. Like, there's one mate and God forbid he ever gets in another fight. But, like, he dead set. I reckon he could make, like, a UFC roster. I've seen him kick a dude in the shin, break his shin. I'm like, oh, God, we've got to get you out of here. And he's like, no, I've got to wait for his friend to come out. And I was like, no, you've already done enough. Like, let's go. You've got to force him into the car. Like, let's go before the cops get in. That's
SPEAKER_01:funny.
SPEAKER_00:But, like, yeah, the drinking culture is so different and, like– I've learnt that pretty quick in America. When I was at the Kojo thing, I had a hotel room near the rodeo arena and they'd all go back to their trailers and have dinner and I'm like, I had a few beers at the bar, I'm going to have a few in the motel room. There was a 7-Eleven across the road and I was like, I'm out of cigarettes and went across there and I didn't know you could buy alcohol in gas stations. That's so different in Australia. Like you've got to go to this specific place to buy alcohol in Australia, like a bottler.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's
SPEAKER_01:different. It's different between every state. It's really weird. Yeah. Uh, here, here it's, it's, it's not sold in gas stations. It's, it's sold at, you know, the bottle is over here. It'd be the liquor store. But if you go to PA, it's a state store, it's ran by the state and you, you have to like, I don't know if they've laxed on it, but sometimes like you have to buy like, you know, 12 beers and you're like, you have to walk that back to your car and walk back to buy more. It's like the, There's so many...
SPEAKER_00:Oh, there's like a limit?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. A lot of them are called like blue lulls because a lot of the lulls around here, they're from like the Quakers and all those old religious type things. It's just... In some places, like you said, it's at the... The Servo. At the gas station.
SPEAKER_00:At the
SPEAKER_01:Servo. Yeah. And even I get excited because, you know, it's nice. It's nice. There's no one-stop shopping.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. I think the first thing most Australian cowboys do when they get to America is they go to either a Walmart or a gas station and they buy like two full rolls of Copenhagen and like a carton of Michelob Ultras. I think that's the most standard Australian thing to do when they get to America. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's interesting.
SPEAKER_00:The first time everyone goes over, they try Coors Light. And Coors, compared to Australian beer, I reckon Australian beer is still better. But yeah, Coors and Michelob are probably the closest thing to an Australian beer. We don't drink Fosters. Everyone thinks we drink Fosters.
SPEAKER_01:I know. I was going to say that. That's like a typical American. We call them oil cans. They're the big, gigantic cans of Fosters. Because, you know, for years, Foster's Australian for beer, you know?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And I reckon that's half the reason why people get my last name wrong because they're like, oh, Foster's like the beer. I'm like, no, there's an R there. It's Forster. But every time I've been over there, they're like, oh, do you want a Foster's? I was like, no.
UNKNOWN:Fuck.
SPEAKER_00:It's like, why do I want that shit? We've got it in Australia. I don't think I've ever seen an actual Australian drink it. Right. I reckon it's probably good for beer battering fish and that's it.
SPEAKER_01:That's funny. Man, the power of marketing. That's like we have Outback's out here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we don't have Outback Steakhouse. Like that's a rare thing. I think I've seen one in Australia and it's like I don't even think it's a part of the chain. I think it's just like, oh, this is like Outback Steakhouse. And, yeah, like one of the Lowdown Drifters band members, they were like, oh, have you ever had of Bloomin' Onion and I'm like, what's that? And they're like, it's Australian. I'm like, no, it's not. I was like, that's American.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, it is funny. Because like, and another thing, a lot of people would probably base everything they know about Australia on Crocodile Dundee. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Crocodile Dundee, like the movie was actually filmed like 150 k's away from my house, like not far at all. And in Australian terms, that's very close. I noticed that too in America. You've got so many towns in between places where from my cattle station to my house is an hour drive.
SPEAKER_01:That's nuts.
SPEAKER_00:Cattle station to my hometown, sorry, is an hour drive. And then the next town over is two hours, you know. You'll go out of phone service for like, you know, a whole hour if you need to. Like there's no little towns in between. Like you've got to fuel up every time you get to a town because you might run out of fuel and no one will be passing in a long time unless you're right near the cities, you know. But where I am, it's like– I don't know how to explain it. It's like... Compared to America, I haven't been anywhere too rural to compare it to. Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:you might run out of gas on your own property.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, exactly. I've done that. Trust me, it's not fun. Like sat there in a car for like five hours waiting for dad to go, oh, why doesn't he come back yet? I might go check on him. And he'd find me there shirt off just sweating in this car. I've converted what it gets to in Fahrenheit for years because he doesn't understand Celsius a lot of the time. It gets to like 130 out of home. And like, I remember one Christmas and the power went off and like being 130, no air con, you know, on Christmas day, it wasn't fun. But that's why Australian drinking culture is so good because we find a way to entertain it. Yeah. Isn't the coffee culture is big down
SPEAKER_02:there?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. Coffee in America I didn't believe it until I had it I remember I had it at a motel and it was just in a jug and I'm like this is shit it's already pre-made and you put it in and I was like this is just burnt water what the fuck is this and I remember like coming home and having a proper coffee like there's people's whole jobs is to make like special coffees and stuff like that like god you can have a cappuccino mocha chocolate I'm not a big coffee drinker, but in winter and a good coffee from a proper cafe, nothing beats it.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know. I haven't tried Starbucks in America. It could be like that at Starbucks, but I'll try this time. I reckon I'll make my tour manager drive me past a Starbucks.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. What part of American culture do you have a favorite part when you went over and you're like, I really like this? Because our perception is so wrong of so many different places.
SPEAKER_00:I think the big thing that has Australians are attracted to when they go to America is obviously the guns and stuff. For me, I'm a massive sports guy. For me, I want to go see a college football game. I want to be at a Virginia Tech home game or a Texas A&M home game and just feel the atmosphere. I've never been to an American football game, but that should just gives me so much. Like, I get rushed with adrenaline when they're all just screaming. They're diehard fans. And, like... I've got my favorite team in nearly every sport. College, I haven't quite worked out yet because I've worn a Texas A&M championship ring. One of my friends has one over in the States, and he let me wear his championship ring. I don't know if it was a championship ring or a graduation ring. I was like, wow, look at the size of this thing. It was sticking off my hand like that. I'm like, all right, I've got to get into this college football. But NFL, NBA, I watch that pretty religiously. I haven't got into ice hockey. That's a bit foreign for me. It just looks like boxing on ice. I don't understand it. If you punch someone in an Australian sport, you get sent off. It's got a bit soft in Australia, but back in the day, there was this whole culture in rugby and it was called the biff. The biff in Australia is fighting. If you're having a biff, you're having a fight.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Like if two players were just fighting it out and they'd say, oh, hey, Bedford, bring back the Biff, hell yeah. Punch the shit out of him, you know. There'd be grown men to kids like, yeah, hit him, like on TV. And like, yeah, you get ejected in Australian sports for fighting nowadays, but we watch Ice Hockey and we're like, God. I miss that. But it's like, yeah, it's just boxing on ice. I don't understand the rules, nothing. Every time I watch it, I'm like, oh, yeah, they're throwing the gloves off. Here we go.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's funny.
SPEAKER_00:What do you mean
SPEAKER_01:they're offsides?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I didn't understand that. Like in my eyes, they should just be able to like pass the disc or whatever it is up the ice and just bang, bang it in the net. I don't understand offsides. It's like soccer. And everyone thinks like all us European nations in the soccer. Not soccer. It's all rugby or cricket.
SPEAKER_01:I was going to say cricket is probably bigger
SPEAKER_00:over there. Cricket's like our baseball. For yous, it would be so boring to watch, but for us, it's our summer sport. The day after Christmas, they have a big five-day cricket match and I reckon 80% of Australian dads and men just sit there with a beer and just sit there all day and just watch from 8 o'clock in the morning to 6 in the afternoon. They won't even get up, look at anything else. They just watch the TV for hours. And I've tried to get into baseball. I think I've found my favorite team. I sort of just go off a few games, watch a few games, but I think I like the Padres.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Is that a baseball team? I think I'm right. I'm
SPEAKER_01:pretty sure you're at the, I don't, I, I'll play, I'll play any sport, but I can't, I'm not a big TV watch. And like, you know, there's, it's not like like i agree like college they're playing like they're they're not stepping out of bounds when they got a couple yards to go they're they're gonna get that first down you know they're not worried about you know getting getting paid and contracts and all that like they're playing for for clout for you know we're gonna
SPEAKER_00:yeah
SPEAKER_01:you know
SPEAKER_00:you gotta beat the shit out of that motherfuckers
SPEAKER_01:like yeah there you go yeah like i i do like if i if i do watch anything like uh I'll go to Penn State. And Penn State, it's a giant– 100,000 people can fit in that stadium. And
SPEAKER_00:that I will go. I've got college football on my Xbox, and I've played them in my career mode. And it's like that song. Oh, oh, oh. And I just like– I remember like I was like, God, like their chants are pretty like cool, but like– They try to say, oh, we've got the best culture. I went to England when I was playing rugby at school and the culture there for their sports, like you'll be– say you do something wrong, like there'll be grown men calling kids like, wanker, like, you know, like, piss off you, wanker, like stuff like that. Like the culture is so different where sports over there is like, yeah, I ride and die for my team. We are, you know, we are Texas and all that and it's like– teams in European nations are like, you know, fuck Parramatta, you know? Bunch of dogs, like, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like over here we call them hooligans.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we don't really have hooligans. They're more or less just thugs.
SPEAKER_01:Thugs?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's a term we use too. That's funny. But yeah, it's cool. Like Penn State, they do like whiteout games. Everybody wears white. It's just a... It's 100,000
SPEAKER_00:people wearing white.
SPEAKER_01:It's incredible. it's like you sit down and it's just, man. Cause like, I'm not a big fan of crowds. So like a couple of like, it was like 15 minutes of sheer terror, you know?
SPEAKER_00:Cause
SPEAKER_01:if someone was to crack off, man, like that's a lot of
SPEAKER_00:people. You got nowhere to go. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And nobody's stopping that many people. If they, if they all, you know, somebody had enough charisma to round them up, to all have one task that they're there, wherever they go, They are the law. Yeah. But it is, it is cool, man, because like, even as the fans, you didn't, you didn't go there to see your team lose. And God forbid you see somebody else wearing that other Jersey, even if you have no affiliation with it, it's just an environment where, you know, we're right. You're wrong. And their side is we're right. You're wrong. So it's this, there's, there's this hardly any middle ground I've, I've always seen with, going to like American sports events. Cause that's why I don't go. Cause it's crazy. Cause a lot of the Texas guys will come up here and God forbid, cause Philadelphia and Dallas, they, they just, they have a thing. I don't know anything about it that, you know, and the dudes from Dallas, he's wearing a Dallas Cowboys and they'll sing the song, the chant. And it's just like, it gets like, dude, I'm like, well, life's on the line saying this, you know, fans are crazy, but it's like, I, man, I did like, I wish I could roll my eyes harder. Just like, come on, man. Like, dude, like it's not game day. We're, we're watching, you know, we're watching Texas country. Yeah. Which, Which I love, like, I love how inclusive it is. Cause like you definitely could say, Hey, I'm, I'm Wade from Australia and I do Texas country because they value like authenticity and it's real. You can, and when you go to the credits and it says composer, there's one name on pretty much all your songs. It is your name, which in country, it is your name. That means a lot, a lot, a lot.
SPEAKER_00:I never really liked writing with other people for a long time. And a lot of my songs I still would rather write on myself. But, like, you know, sometimes you make a good story or tell a good story to, you know, one of your friends and they're like, we should write about that. And I'm like, sure, you know. But if we do a really bad version of it, I'm just going to do my version of it, you know. Like I reckon I've only ever done three. co-writes every other song I've wrote myself. And, like, this new album that we announced today is, like, it's got 22 songs on it. Oh, wow. Like, I've been sitting on some of these songs since I released the first album. Like, I got home from recording the first album and I think a couple of days later I wrote another song. Like, yeah, oh, yeah, I wrote Off The Drugs, like, as I got back from recording the beginning. Uh-uh. I have so many stories from rodeo and playing rugby in school and even doing this music thing and incorporating all those things together. I've lived a pretty cool life at 2026. To be able to tell some of these stories and people resonate with them, that's the best job ever. Especially, I think it is a little token to a lot of Americans because when I was releasing these songs, I wasn't talking on TikTok, like doing videos like this or anything. And it wasn't until I won the Toyota StarMaker contest in Australia, which is like the country music version of, I don't know, like American Idol or something like that. And I won that last year and a video of me on TikTok talking went viral online and all the comments are like, he's Australian?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:They're like, I thought he was from Texas. And then there was like a whole comment thread, like 20 comments long, and I read it, and it was funny. And they're like, I thought he was from Montana because you don't see him much. Like, I thought he was up in Montana somewhere. And I'm like, I haven't even been to these places. Like, you know, I'm not putting the accent on it. It's like I grew up listening to that type of country music. So for me, that was just how I normally sang. So, yeah. And, I mean, a few people in Australia don't like how I sing with a bit of an American accent, but that's how I learnt to sing. I learnt singing American country songs. I grew up listening to American country songs, and that's what I'll be. I don't think I fit in the Australian country music scene at all, to be honest. I think I'm like a whole different thing. Australian country music is still, in my eyes, very bro country. There is a lot of good storytellers in Australian country music, and they are very good, but the majority of it is very bro country, very Nashville country, which obviously isn't everyone's cup of tea, but there's only a few of us doing that country rock or Texas country style, and it's like... I think it'll come around sooner or later that it'll come a bit more popular. But until then, I think I'm probably going to go over there to the land of Texas and rodeo and sing until I
SPEAKER_01:can't. If that's the Australian scene, oh, yeah, you definitely need to come over here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and like this tour is going to be fun because I'm going to see some places that I would never have got to see. And the people we got on the tour with, it's like, God, they're all cool. Like Shelby Stone, I remember when you were doing your podcast with Shelby and I woke up and I was outside having a cigarette and the coffee was cold in the window and I'm scrolling TikTok and I see it and I texted Shelby. I was like, I'm watching you, motherfucker. She's awesome. First time I met her, I think we were in Kansas City, Missouri, and I pissed the crowd off that night because I said, hello, Kansas, not knowing that Kansas City was in Missouri, not in Kansas. In an Australian's head, that's like, that's stupid. Yeah. Oh, dude.
SPEAKER_01:I think you have a very valuable Solid point.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And I got off stage because Shelby was with Dalton Domino, who's, God, one of the coolest dudes I ever met. And we get off stage and the low-down drifters are up there playing. And I remember me and Shelby are backstage and we're just chatting. And I'm like, you know, oh, radio. And she's like, oh, my dad used to radio. And I was like, oh, what did your dad do? And she was like, he was a PRCA bullfighter. And I was like, oh, he's a tough motherfucker. fucker holy shit and like me and Shelby just got along from the jump like and when I said I'm doing this tour she's like if you need anyone let me know and the minute they come around oh you need some openers I'm like call Shelby Stone up she's awesome so she's doing a few shows with us we got Cade Hoffman who's just like me just old cowboy type you know Cade messaged me the other day he's like hey man would I be able to jump in the tour bus with you because my car I just got in the car after that my car's totaled and I'm like oh yeah dude for sure and he's like I'll pay for fuel all that and I was like I don't need you to do all that can you just drive because Australians driving in America is like yeah it's so different because we're left side of the road and you're the right side and I've done it don't get me wrong I didn't find too much trouble but the one thing that I struggle with is the four way stop intersection
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And it's like a courtesy thing.
SPEAKER_00:But then some people aren't courteous and they're just, nah, fuck. Yeah. And I'm like, I don't know if I'm in the wrong. Like, it's so bad. But, yeah, we got Shelby and Kate Offman, Travis Roberts, who's an amazing songwriter. Dude just released an album and it's unreal.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And in Australia, we've got Tori Forsyth, who I think you'd like a lot of her music. The best way to explain it for me is she's Lana Del Rey went country but the right way, not just Lana Del Rey doing a country song. No, like... This girl, between Tori Forsyth and Shelby Stone, those are the two most frightening women I've ever laid eyes on. Shelby scared the shit out of me a little bit. She was sort of big-dogging me a bit. But she's beautiful and elegant and all that. And same with Tori. Tori was a bit like that as well. The first time I ever met Tori, I thought she hated me. We were at this music festival in outback Queensland, closer to home than it is for them. I was like, hey, I'm Wade. Nice to meet you. And she's like, Tori. And I'm like, did I piss her off somehow? And no, apparently that's just how she is. She's actually really nice. And I was like, oh, I tell her every time. I'm like, you scared the shit out of me. And she's like, I know. Like she's proud of it. But yeah, like this tour is going to open up some doors for us and we're just keen to get out there and, God, I wish the album was going out the same time as the tour, but that was sort of my fault. I didn't have everything ready. But still, we're going to play a lot of unreleased music on this tour and I hope people really enjoy it because it was a lot of fun making that album. We smashed out those 22 songs in a week. We recorded that in a week in Australia, Monday to Friday.
UNKNOWN:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:That's incredible.
SPEAKER_00:And the best thing was, like, I recorded that album. Like, my voice was buggered, and that Saturday I had to pick the boys up from the airport, and we went and headlined a rodeo that next day. Actually, we did two gigs that weekend. We went to Oberon Rodeo and then drove, I think, four hours south of there and then played another festival. Like, pretty big week. Yeah. But, like, shit, in Australian country music, like, there's a lot of people that are doing it, but they also got a job and they're, I don't know, it's like they're not backing themselves, you know. Obviously, they're not going to make money straight away, but you need to give it your all. Like, when I first got into it, I quit working for Dad. I told Dad I quit and, you know, I'm doing, I want to do this music thing. And, geez, I was living on crumbs and, you know. and to get out the other side and do it like this. And young people ask me, like, oh, how do I get into it? And I'm like, you've got to quit your job and live tough. Yeah. Because that's how– you know, sometimes you get lucky and you just have a breakout song and you take off from there. But I grew up in the outback, so I was doing all my gigs in the outback where the music scene is not existing at all. Like you're playing in a pub. And you could have your speakers at 10 and they're talking over that. Like, you know, you're just playing. You're not playing for tips or anything like that. You know, you'll rock up there and the public and the bar owner, he'll give you like$500 for the day. And in Australia, like$500, that's like a tank of fuel, a packet of cigarettes, and your groceries for the next week. That doesn't even include rent, you know, because cigarette prices over here are pretty high. It freaks a lot of Americans out. So like a packet of cigarettes in America is like$2,$3 for a packet of 20. Australia in a packet of 20 is like$60,$70,$80. Guess what I
SPEAKER_01:wouldn't do.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I still do it. But when I go to America, I'm worse for it because I'm like, yep, they're$2. Buy 10 packs. But... The music scene over here, like I've enjoyed it, but I think it is time for me to move, like I said, and this tour is going to be a good test to see what markets I'll do well in, you know, what states. Yeah. I know Arizona's very pissed off at me because I didn't put a show in Arizona. Like my TikTok is like nearly 80% of its comments like, yeah, but he's not coming to Arizona. I'm like, I'm trying. You've just got to let me figure this out. at first. Arizona and California and Montana are really pissed off. Oh, and Chicago, weirdly enough. I didn't know there was country music in Chicago. All I know about Chicago is Derek Rose and Michael Jordan. Just basketball. I'm pretty big basketball. Of all them sports, it would be basketball for me. So that's all I know Chicago for. I didn't know there was country music there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I didn't know that either because the first thing you'd When I think Chicago, I think Chicago-style pizza, which is more like a lasagna.
SPEAKER_00:Is that that deep dish?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I want to try that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and Chicago hot dogs. Chicago dogs. They have... I guess it's just the peppers and whatnot. I don't know. I've never been to Chicago, but that's what I think when I think Chicago. I don't know why I would think it would have a big... Like blues scene. I don't know why that comes to mind.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know. I always think blues is like Louisiana.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like Delta.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Delta,
SPEAKER_01:Mississippi, around that area.
SPEAKER_00:Delta, yeah. And like Memphis, it's blues too, isn't it? Very blues based.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I've heard that. I don't think I've ever been to Memphis. Yeah, Southern Rock is definitely its own kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00:But it's... Getting into like– when I got into this music scene and I got into more like American country, like I'm deep diving and I'd find these unreal artists. And I've been following you since like 2020. I remember I used to comment before any of my songs blew up. I'm like, please look at my song. Please. And I was like, he's not listening to me. But he did once and I was like, awesome. I was on there. Yes. But I got into deep diving. Yeah, you did Fightin' Tears. You did–
SPEAKER_01:that's the only one I've done. Yeah. Really? Cause I, my fight and tears that I love that song, the structure of that song. It's also like one of those ones that are very bittersweet where like, if you're just listening to music, you're going to, you're going to be smiling and dancing and then you're going to hear the lyrics and go, Oh my God. But yeah, I love that. And I love the arpeggiation of that guitar. It's just the rhythm of it. It has a cool, I love, that and I think my favorite song of yours man it's gotta be either Black Sheep or One Night Stand One
SPEAKER_00:Night Stand I had a lot of fun with that song
SPEAKER_01:yeah that definitely it screams it's got I would say oh Red Dirt but of course yeah
SPEAKER_00:we got Red Dirt in Australia I mean it just doesn't mean the same thing
SPEAKER_01:make sure you bring it and be like look
SPEAKER_00:I ain't Red Dirt no
SPEAKER_01:But
SPEAKER_00:One Night Stand, that's probably one of the funniest stories I've ever got to write about in a song. So when I was, so I would have been 18 or 19, like fresh out of school and like I'd moved up to Mount Isa for that job but all us young fellas used to drive like an hour and a half to this other town nearby called Cloncurry and we used to drink at this old pub run by this lovely old, old couple. And like they, they own the pub for years. Like my mom and dad used to drink in there when they were like 18, you know, stuff like that. And it was called the post office hotel. And all of us young fellas used to jam in there. And God, we did, we did a heap of stupid shit in there. Like we, we, we stole a jukebox from there once, like one of them old CD jukeboxes that plug in the wall. And we, we put it in there cause there was rooms out the back you could stay in and we put it in there and we, We rewired it so we had three songs and Nancy, the owner, found out. She's like, all right, now you've got to work for me. I can ban you or you could just do some work for me. We'll do the work because we want to be back here next weekend and stuff like that. So when I went down there one weekend, I was a cowboy. I was a young cowboy in Australia. So girls was all I was thinking about and I slept with this girl on a Friday night, and she was the polar opposite to me. I was a cowboy. She was like a hippie. And then I slept with her friend the next night, and I thought, oh, yeah, I'm cool as. That was cool as. And didn't think of any repercussions because I was so young. And then on the Sunday night, I was just having a few beers there before I had to go back to work Monday, and And I'm sitting outside talking to a friend, and the next minute I feel bang on the back of my head. And the girl from the Friday night had actually smashed a glass bottle over my head. Yeah, and I never talked to them again. I was like, all right, learned my lesson there. And then like years went by, and I was writing songs, and I was like, I need to write a song about that. That's funny. I was just in a car, and I was like– Because I was like talking to one of my friends on the phone and he was like, oh, I remember that time and he brought it up and I was like, yeah, that only ended up being a one-night stand. And then he goes, yeah, one-night stand, that's all you wanted, right? And I was like, one-night stand, that's all I'll be. And that's how that line, I remember like writing the line down on a receipt and I reckon I've still got the receipt in the car. My car is full of receipts. And I got home and like mum and dad are like, oh, hey. wait, how are you going? Like trying to, I haven't seen me in a couple of weeks. I was like, good, good. I've got to go. Cause I want to go write this song. I've got an idea. And I wrote that song that afternoon and went back, showed my mom and she's like, she didn't really like it. Cause she's like, it's a bit graphic, like talking about one night stands. I'm like, yeah, but the people will like it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And then when I went down to record it, um, The band that were in there, I've used them for everything, like Fighting Tears a lot. And they were like, oh, so you want acoustic on this? I was like, no, no acoustic. And they were like, so what do you want? I was like, I looked in the studio and they had a Fender double humbucker set up there. And I'm like, play that. And I want you to jam open chords. And he was like, all right. And at the start, that jack feedback, I heard that from a group. and spoon some like and I was like alright I want to do that and I remember like doing it. That's the only instrument I've ever played in the studio because my guitar skills aren't up to the stack. And I'm like, I remember like, all right, hit record. And I'm like pretending to mess the jack up and like, and then just hit the open strings for that start bit. And I was like, yes, I've contributed instrumentally to a song. And yeah, that was a fun song to release. Even the music video, like I shot the music video in the same town and even, In the music video where I get glassed in the music video, like hit with the bottle, is in the exact same spot it happened. Like I made sure everything was in the exact same spot. We tried to use the same houses, but they'd been sold. But we just had to use some of my mate's houses in town. But yeah, that was a great song. I had a lot of fun with that song.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. It's a jam. And I guess in Australia, we call that a ripper? No, a banger. A banger? Yeah, dude, we use that too.
SPEAKER_00:Or tune, like T-U-N-E. U-N-E, tune. Like, that's a tune, bud. But it always sounds like C-H. Like you'll be driving in a car and someone's playing a song and you're like, oh, that's a tune. What's that called? That's like, yeah. If I said that in America, they'd be like, you want tuna?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, man, that's funny. That's a funny story. It's the song too.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And like a lot of them songs that I've wrote are about something that's happened or, you know, I've heard like the album that we just announced that's coming out today, it's called Gooseneck Party. So in Australia, like a gooseneck horse trailer that you take to rodeos and at a rodeo to be in a gooseneck, Like, you know, cart and horses around. You've got an esky full of beer, like a cooler. We call it an esky, like where you put all your beers and ice in. And, like, after the rodeo's done– they never plan these things, by the way. You'd just be at the bar and the bar shuts and you go, rodeo, we're going to Wade's camp, Wade's Gooseneck. And you go there and there'll be– God, 50 to 100 cowboys just sitting around drinking, doing whatever for fun. I've seen some wild things at gooseneck parties. I've seen fights. I've actually seen people relationships start and then they get married a couple of years later and I was like, I was there that night. I've seen we have contests on motorized scooters and people riding horses bareback and people doing burnouts in cars. It's so... It's such a staple in Australian rodeo. It's like, oh, we're having a gooseneck party. But you'll never be able to plan one if you go, oh, yeah, we're going to have a gooseneck party at this rodeo. If you plan it, no one rocks up. It's always just on a random night. You didn't think anything was going to happen and the gooseneck party happens. And that's where I've heard a lot of these stories from friends or even some of my stories have been told at gooseneck parties. And it's just such a– it's a part of who I was as a young And it's still a part of me now. Like if I go to a rodeo and I'm at the bar, I know, yeah, all right, we'll just see who's got the most beers at whose camp and that's whose gooseneck party we're having. And like the songs on there are all either true songs or stories that I've heard around trailers. There's only one song on there that I didn't hear in a trailer, but I was at home and I was watching a Western on Netflix and I can't remember what Western it was. But I remember I had this weird, vivid dream about it. And I was in it and all this. And I wrote a song about it. And it's called Cody, Wyoming. I couldn't think of a town cool enough. And I was like, oh, I need to think of a town. And then it was the same time that the 100 Days of Rodeo were happening at Cody, Wyoming. So I was like, oh, perfect. I'll just use that town name for this story. And yeah, it's a bit more cultural wall style, that song. But the rest of it, yeah, it's pretty diverse album. It goes from country rock to that nice Brooks and Dunn slowdown. It goes up and down. Same at the beginning. The beginning had them rock songs and then it had other types of songs. It's hard. I don't really stick to one sound. I'm like, I'll try a bit of everything. But yeah, this album, I hope people resonate with it as much as me and the Australian Cowboys will because the gooseneck party is like the holy trinity of parties in my eyes. Like you can go to the nightclubs and all that, but you ain't partied unless you've had a gooseneck party.
SPEAKER_01:Dude, that's the first time I've ever heard that phrase. I love it. I hope.
SPEAKER_00:Well, we released a song today too called Gooseneck Party, so check it out.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_00:And it explains exactly what a gooseneck party is. Like you go to the rodeo, you travel eight hours to go to this rodeo one way, and you go there and you or you buck off, you know, and you've just got the shits and there's only one thing that you can think of that'll make you feel better and it's just having a gooseneck party. And, like... It's almost like tailgating, I would say, if I could compare it to something. It's like tailgating at sports over there except it's in a horse trailer and there's no bins. Everyone just sort of drinks their beer, crushes it, leaves it on the ground next to them and whoever's gooseneck that was at, their whole morning the next day is like, God, look at all these beer cans. They've got to clean up all these beer cans and there's cigarette packets everywhere and, you know, The best thing I've ever found at a gooseneck party was my mate's hat and it was just like this brand new cowboy hat and it was just crushed flat. It looks like he's got too drunk and laid backwards and just fell on it and then got up to the toilets and left it. You know, stuff like that. And that song that released today along with the album announcement, you know, it epitomizes what a real gooseneck party is.
SPEAKER_01:That's funny. So hopefully it catches on like if you go to a weight show you're not tailgating yeah
SPEAKER_00:we're having a gooseneck party
SPEAKER_01:yeah we got somebody's got to roll up someone's got to roll up with a gooseneck
SPEAKER_00:someone bring their big exes we gotta don't worry about putting horses in there just put coolers use coolers coolers right like the yeah like where you put beer and ice in that's a cooler yeah because in Australia it's an esky it's so foreign for me to say that like cooler I don't even know Cooler's not a word in Australian.
SPEAKER_01:Especially with the weather, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's all it would be. It's getting cooler. That's funny. But like, yeah, it's a week to the day today we fly out for America. And I think the first thing I want when I'm there is probably Whataburger or In-N-Out.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, man. I've always wanted to try In-N-Out and Whataburger. I haven't had either of them.
SPEAKER_00:I like Whataburger more, but my band, they prefer In-N-Out. Yeah. And it's sort of an ongoing argument between me and my band. Like, we're like, no, we're going to Whataburger. No, we're going in and out. And I'm like, well, I can't win because it's three on one. You know, next time we're going to Whataburger or I'm sacking you. That's my name on the
SPEAKER_01:marquee.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I have to like stamp my foot down just so I can get some Whataburger.
SPEAKER_01:Listen here, champs. For a while, I Like I, I, I just, the first time I saw the sign, I was like, I, I couldn't tell the difference between like Waylon Jennings, uh, the W for him and the Whataburger. Oh,
SPEAKER_00:it's very similar,
SPEAKER_01:right? Yeah. It's kind of like, wait a minute. It can't be a store. It can't be a store totally dedicated to Waylon Jennings. Can it? People rave about wheat. Like that's the one thing about the U S is you just, some things you can't get everywhere. And that like fast, it's, in and out is like, that's a big one for, for us up here in the Northeast. And, uh, what a burger. Definitely. That's, that's definitely very, very foreign to us because I, I'd never heard what a burger before until, uh, I went down there and, but yeah, in and out for some reason, I don't know how I knew about that. Probably because they're big in California. And I had a bunch of friends that moved to California and talk about it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's crazy that, like, your fast food chains are, like, just in certain spots. See, in Australia, like, our biggest fast food chain is McDonald's. Like, we don't have In-N-Out or Whataburger.
SPEAKER_01:Macca's.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Macca's, yeah. Yeah. We have Macca's and then KFC. That's Dirty Bird. You call it Dirty Bird. Yeah, and then we've got Burger King, but it's called something else. Like, it's the exact same franchise, so you just call it Burger King. We call it Hungry Jack's, and that's the– Okay. name of it in Australia but it's slang is HJ's and like yeah we don't have like Dairy Queen I want to try Dairy Queen apparently that's cool yeah I remember Cody Johnston made me try Chick-fil-A and hell yeah Chick-fil-A shits on KFC I would eat Chick-fil-A every day if I could and like you get the burger and You get the sauce and oh. Yeah. Goddamn. I'm too excited to go to America now. All I'm going to do is eat.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And a lot of people talk about like a, the portion, the portion size of, of when they get their food and they're like, you, you guys eat this every day?
SPEAKER_00:It's like a liter. Like I remember holding a Whataburger cup up to my head and it was the same size. I was like, holy shit. Like, it's like I'll piss myself before I finish this thing.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's crazy, the portion size. I remember at school they made us watch the Super Size Me documentary.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And the first thing I wanted to do when I first went to the States, I was like, I'll go to McDonald's, I'll get this Super Size. And they don't have it anymore. I was like,
SPEAKER_01:what? Yeah, they got rid of it. I don't think any of the chains– I don't really eat fast food anymore. But, yeah, I don't think– there's definitely like medium, large, but I can't really think of anything that's So
SPEAKER_00:you're small. Is there a large?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. That's
SPEAKER_00:the portion size difference. I got a large in Australia and then go to America, that's a small. I'm like, all right, I'll get a small. And people that I'll be traveling with in America, they'll be like, you only want a small? And I'm like, yeah, I want a small. I've seen the portion size. I don't think I could finish a large. And they're like, all right, but we ain't pulling over. over again if you get hungry i'm like i'm fine i think that's enough like
SPEAKER_01:that's funny yeah It is interesting. I mean, I've never been to Australia. I don't even know. I definitely probably wanted to hit the coffee scene first. Because I lived by, it was a restaurant that was owned by an Australian man. I've eaten kangaroo, chili. They had all kinds of... A kangaroo.
SPEAKER_00:Everyone raves about. I just was sleeping. I was on the phone to Sam Canty not long back, and he's like, I want to try a kangaroo. I was like, no, you don't. He goes, hell yeah, I do. I was like, I'll take you out. We can go shoot them. And he goes, oh, yeah, I'll shoot kangaroos. Because that's normal in Australia. And he's like, do we eat them after? I was like, no, you just leave them there. I don't want to touch
SPEAKER_01:them. Yeah, I was just kind of like, oh. I
SPEAKER_00:remember I was on Instagram and when the Treaty Oak tour announced in Australia and Austin Meade commented, like, bring me back some kangaroo jerky, I was like, all right, I've got to find some kangaroo jerky for Austin Meade because I don't know if he'll like it. If he likes it, good on him because I don't like it. I've tried it. It's not great. The best thing I've ate in Australia that I don't know if he's ate alligators, but you can eat crocodile in Australia in certain places. Yeah. I've tried crocodile and it was– I liked it, yeah. Yeah. But it's exactly– it tastes exactly like what you feed it. So if it eats birds all day, it's going to taste like chicken. But if it's like– if it lives off fish and stuff like that, it's going to taste like fish. But it is always the texture of fish, you know. But, yeah, there's a heap of weird stuff you can eat down here.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. We have gator and– I've only had it in gumbo and stuff. like that and like like we have like uh like low country boils and stuff and like down there like the gumbo they'll put anything in gumbo yeah that's that's the only
SPEAKER_00:it's like uh it's like a soup right
SPEAKER_01:kind of yeah it depends some some more runny some are at more thicker consistency but yeah yes stuff like that that's that's like my favorite like that's seafood boils all those low country boils Crawfish and all that. That's big in the south, but we got little in New England. The traditional way, they would just do it and dig a hole in the beach and just cook it on a hole in the beach. I
SPEAKER_00:remember eating this dude from Louisiana when I was hanging out with Cody gave me this duck sausage or something called Boudin or something like that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was real thick Louisiana accent. He was like Creole accent. Creole. Yeah. It's very hard to
SPEAKER_01:understand.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. And even for me, I was like a bit hard to understand him. Can you talk slower? Yeah, I remember. I just remember everything he said because the next day was torture because of how hot that thing was. Like I got so sick from it because of how hot it was. But I just remember. He's like, you like spice? I was like, yeah. And he's like, make sure I only eat a little bit of this. This is going to burn your ass out. And I was like, all right.
SPEAKER_01:You're going to hate me tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and he's like, go buy a tub of ice cream at that 7-Eleven down the block there. And I sure as shit did the next day because I was burning. Like all my insides was like, it felt like I ate chilies all day. Like it was hot. It didn't feel hot when I ate it, but yeah. That's another thing about this music thing. I get to try it. some cool food that I didn't think I would like.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. It's, it's, it's sausage. Not big in Australia where they call it a snag.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Snags, snags, snags are pretty popular, but like different thing altogether too. Like with that. Okay. Like bangers and mash is like, is like sausages and mashed potatoes with gravy, gravy and onion, like stuff like that. Like I would, I think, If I made it big, I'd make a big restaurant in America somewhere just so you can try proper Australian food, like not Outback Steakhouse.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, hey, can we get a bloomin' on you? You can get out. Man,
SPEAKER_00:I wanted to do something like that one day, but I think for the time being I've got to focus on this music thing and go over there and get it all set up first. Sorry, the dogs are barking. I'm at my bass player's house in Brisbane. In America, like, there's just so many good artists that I want to see as well that probably don't come to Australia because they don't think they can. But a lot of the American artists, they don't realize they could sell a stadium out like that. Oh, wow. Like, you know, like... Our stadiums hold, you know, tens of thousands, probably more. I don't know the numbers. But, yeah, they're big, big crowds. They could sell them out easy. And, like, I don't think they realise the push they've got down here. Like... I want to see bands like L60 and 2D Oak come down here a lot more. God, some other American artists that I'd love to see come down here, like Polterwall would be great down here. He'd sell a stadium. Jesus, like even them, like Cat Hasty and them, they could sell out big down here. I don't think that they– I don't think– I don't know if it's like the analytics of streaming are showing that, but I definitely think all of them could sell out stadiums down here in a heartbeat.
SPEAKER_01:That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00:Australian country music scene really loves what America's doing. So, like, you know, we're real. And a lot of the fans, like, there's this big festival called CMC, and, like, every year they get some big names on it. Like, last year they had John Party and Cody Johnson and Coe Wetzel and all that. And, like, Australians just went straight away, sold it out within, like, a couple hours. Like, that's how quick they sell. And, like, that's... another person I want to see live too is, um, uh, co Wetzel man.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I
SPEAKER_00:got
SPEAKER_01:it. First time I saw, uh, co Wetzel live, I was standing with cat hasty. It was, it was awesome. She was giving me all the background and it was really cool. Cause she's like a big fan and it, man, that, that was really cool. And that was a, uh, a big, it was at Texas motor speedway, which is like a gigantic building, which I don't know if they ever seen a speedway. It's,
SPEAKER_00:it's like a, Talladega Nights, right? Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:it's so much bigger than what you think. Man, it blew me away. You feel so small. And at that festival, you were like on the track. It blew my mind that everybody was doing the fake fire, you know, rolling around. Please don't let the invisible fire burn my friend.
SPEAKER_00:The amount of times I quote that movie, man. I remember me and Holly, like my sister, we're always riding horses at home and we're just warming these horses up and we're having like a little race, just pretending like having a bit of fun. And Holly's just screamed out, if you ain't first, you're last, and she hits me with a rope. Stuff like that. Yeah, we quote it on the daily down here. I think Will Ferrell is one of the funniest men alive. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, can I just run to the toilet real quick? I've still got a lot to talk about.
SPEAKER_01:You said what?
SPEAKER_00:I've still got– I still want to talk about music. I just– yeah, I just need to run to the toilet. We get sidetracked with a lot of cultural stuff. That's my bad. I'll be back in one sec.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no problem.
SPEAKER_00:Back. Music. We're back. Finally, we'll get into it.
SPEAKER_01:the music
SPEAKER_00:I mean like I've been watching your stuff for ages so to be on this podcast man that's like I'm real proud at the moment like
SPEAKER_01:it's cool to have you on because I know like a lot of people like what you're doing and it's it's really cool to see especially you know like the geographical the distance and it's also nice that you know people Just embrace good music. They don't care where it comes from. As long as it's true and authentic, it's going to have a place in the market where that shines through. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:exactly. It's really cool what you're doing. I think music has no boundaries. I listen to a wide variety of music. I'm actually more of a rap guy than anything. I love rap.
SPEAKER_01:Really?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I like listening. rap like Kendrick Lamar stuff like that but I've been really lately I've been deep diving into a lot of like 2000s rock like getting back into that sort of stuff because I think that stuff for me I much prefer playing like the rockier stuff on stage so like I'm trying to get my head around some more you know textures and stuff with my new music but yeah it is cool to see how far music can take someone like if you told me at school that I was going to be a musician I didn't even do music at school like I didn't play guitar until I was 18 didn't write a song until I was 20 you know um This is all– it's all happening real fast and I'm pretty grateful of where I've got, you know. If it stopped tomorrow, you know, I wouldn't be upset, you know, but, you know, I just want to see how far I can go with it. Yeah. The places it's taken me already is insane, especially as an Australian telling my story– to the world and americans really embracing like instead of going oh he's not real country because he's not from here you know that it's not like a uh uh like a thing where he's like trying to protect what country is or anything because other other people listen to country in other parts of the world and the the american fans that i do have they're like oh man an australian singing about this stuff you know it's a whole different outlook on on things you know yeah um Hopefully it opens doors for a lot of other people from other countries as well, not only just mine. There might be some new country singers coming from New Zealand. I know there's a lot of country music over there, and I think England's getting a part of it now. Yeah, it's cool to see. It's really developing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's wild. In a week, you're coming over here and touring on a new album.
SPEAKER_00:It's crazy. Like I still haven't wrapped my head around it. To be playing in the States where two years ago I was playing at pubs in Australia for less than 50 people and like, you know, barely I wouldn't even make money on some of them shows. Like I'd do it for the exposure. Like there might be like a big festival on in town and I'd do it for the exposure. I'm losing$300 just getting there in fuel money, you know. Yeah. The grind and all that was all worth it in my eyes. Like it's paid off all the nights I've slept in cars or on a mate's couch. It went hand in hand with rodeo so it wasn't a rude shock to me like the way I had to live to try and get into this music scene.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And especially with all the stories I've lived, like I can, jeez, I still haven't wrote about half of the good ones yet, you know. But this album, like I hope people really enjoy some of these stories because, God, like a lot of these stories put me, you know, in some pretty dark places and I'm a big advocate for mental health and, you know, lost a lot of friends to it. Yeah. Making music like this, I feel like it resonates. That gives them something to talk about. Music, for me, has always helped me out of dark places. So for them to talk about music as well, even if it's just an odd song on my album, you know, hopefully they can talk about it with their friend, you know, get some talking. A conversation starts with anything about mental health. So for me to play a part in that somehow is more than I could ask for, you know. Yeah. I'm sick of going to funerals. I've lost too many mates to that shit. So,
SPEAKER_01:yeah. Yeah, definitely. And it is incredible when you find out that someone will take your song and it'll bring them to a brighter place out of the darkness.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's just cool.
SPEAKER_00:Well, fighting tears was definitely a big one for me in that sense. So like I used to hang around this girl in Mount Isa. She wasn't from the town. She was fly in, fly out for the mines. And like we were hanging out and then we dated for a little bit, but we never really made anything public. We were just sort of enjoying each other's company. It wasn't like a one-night stand or a friends with benefits thing. It was just like, yeah, we were just enjoying each other's company and she dabbled with a lot of addictions so she battled with drug use and stuff like that and I didn't really want to be around that so I sort of told her like no if you're going to keep doing that I'm going to leave this situation and she's like you know sort of got up me about it and she moved away for a bit and I went to TAFE like to go learn about my trade and there was a special out on the nightclubs that night it was cheap drinks So in Australia it's called Cheap Tuesday or Cheap Chewy. And we go out there and we go to the strip club. It was just on the stretch and here she is dancing. It fucking, you know, sort of broke me heart a bit because I was like, God, you've got so much potential and I care about you and all this stuff. And it convinced her to come and move back and go back into the mines because it was better than that and, you know, stuff like that. And she got good and she went through rehab a few times and unfortunately the demons got the best of her and, yeah, she took her life. And not long after that I moved out of that town and moved home for my mental health because I was like, you know, I couldn't do that to the people that care about me and stuff like that. And at the time I was just very, very lost in what had all happened because then COVID hit directly after that and, yeah, So COVID hit and then I lost a heap of my mates in COVID. I lost some to COVID. I lost some to car crashes, heart attacks, cancer, you name it. I went through a stretch there in 2020 where I think I lost 20 or 30 friends. Wow. And I couldn't go to any of their funerals because of the COVID laws in Australia and stuff like that. I wrote my best friend about this indigenous rodeo announcer called Walter Baker and um walter and me used to travel around everywhere together and he was the rodeo announcer and i used to write the rodeos and he was he was the life of the party man he had the coolest nickname i've ever heard in rodeo and it was walter baker the baby maker because women women loved him and and he was like he was the life of party like you weren't really at a rodeo if you didn't get a leap at a rodeo just as COVID restrictions opened up at the end of 2020 and it was a real shock because he wasn't sick or anything he just went to bed he said he had a headache he went to bed and never woke up and it was a big shock to all of us rodeo cowboys because he was if you found someone that didn't like Walter Baker there was a reason that person didn't have any friends you know because he was the most likeable person in the world and that really mess me up so I wrote that song and that was the first original song I ever released technically because I did a recording on my iPhone and posted it up it was the last recording on an iPhone I did before going and recording the beginning and when I did the original song and people really latched onto it and loved it and I was like alright well maybe I should go record this album and I'd won a heap of money at a rodeo like previously And I was like, maybe I'll use that money instead of drinking it and smoking it. I went down there. I had no musical background besides playing a guitar, playing campfire chords on a guitar back then. Like, gee, I only knew the big four, you know, like really. And went down there and... Luckily, the producer, Simon Johnson from Hillbilly Hut, he really helped me figure it out and teach me as I'm going. And I didn't have any marketing for the album. I remember that I released it at Mount Isa Rodeo across from the house that she, the girl from Fightin' Tears, took her life in. The rodeo grounds is across from the house she was at. And, yeah, releasing it was sort of like deja vu, you know, to me.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I remember I was at the rodeo and there's not a lot of reception, like phone service at this rodeo, so I had to drive into town and go to the place I used to work at and say, hey, could I borrow a computer for five minutes so I could upload my album to DistroKid? And they're like, yeah. And I still had my login details. That was still active on my computer after a couple of years and I was like, sweet, I just logged straight in. And, yeah, the rest is history. I remember it officially dropped. at like 6.30 p.m. on the Saturday. I didn't know about release times or any of that. I literally just released it like that and I was like, my album's out, guys. Went up to the bar, drank a bit, went back to bed, didn't think much of it. It was streaming some half-alright numbers and then I don't know who found Fightin' Tears but they found that song on TikTok and it caught on like wildfire. People were using it. and it everywhere on sounds and I was like wow this is cool and I was for a long time I'm like oh you know you know a few Americans that's cool and then I went through a deep dive of it one day when I was sitting at home I'm like nearly all of these are Americans like I think I'm the only Australian that's posted about my song that's crazy and then yeah I went gigging and doing all that and learning more I dove in immensely in 2021 and just said, you know, this is what I want to do. I quit my job. I was still rodeoing, so I was bouncing between doing a show and then going to a rodeo, scraping by. I don't think I had any more than$2,000 in my account at a time that year. And then barely paying the bills and I broke up with a girlfriend and moved from home and won the Star Maker thing and now it's all starting to pay off but still i just want to see where where else you know where else the road will take me
SPEAKER_02:yeah
SPEAKER_00:you know it's crazy how far i've got but that's that's basically the story of how it all become because like yeah there was no interest in being a musician out of school It was always– when I was at school, I was like, I want to be a rugby player and then I realized I wasn't very good at that. So I went to rodeo and then I was like, oh, well, I want to be a rodeo cowboy, you know, and then next minute here I am, you know. Like it's crazy how far things can go in 10 years because I've been out of school 10 years now and like if you told me this 10 years ago, I would have said, no, that's like out of a movie, you know, that's crazy. That stuff doesn't happen to people out– Australia
SPEAKER_01:yeah well it did
SPEAKER_00:it did it sort of frightened me at first but yeah no it's um I'm ever so grateful of the ride I've been on and like look at look at look at the things I'm getting to do like a lot of people don't get to do this in a lifetime and I'm yeah I'm pretty blessed and I always thank God and you know thank all the people around me that have been helping me like my manager and booking agents and stuff like that you know I consider it like a family deal. There's less of a business because if I don't keep moving up, they don't keep moving up. So we're always working together. It's not me being the head man or something like that. It's always us working together to get more. So I'm in Brisbane right now, so we'll fly out of Brisbane to go to the States and all my band live in Brisbane. And when I come down here, I never get a hotel room. They always put me up. They're like, oh, come here, come here, I've got a spare bed. So it's, you know, it's a big family is what it is in my eyes. A lot of people see it as business, but I see it as a big family.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. It definitely, you know, family business works too. More on the personal side of things. But, yeah, man, like I just got a thing that says your battery's getting ready to die.
SPEAKER_00:Oh. I
SPEAKER_01:don't know.
SPEAKER_00:no no it's it's plenty
SPEAKER_01:okay yeah sometimes you know streaming you don't realize that normally would happen uh with a lot of the podcasts they just disappear and they're like oh
SPEAKER_00:forgot
SPEAKER_01:to
SPEAKER_00:plug it in it's all good man but no um yeah if you don't have any other questions for me man like i can duck if you need to go yeah
SPEAKER_01:yeah dude i i've enjoyed talking to you a lot it was really cool and i learned So much about it. It's funny. Like, I guess the one thing I do want to ask you. is uh like being from australia and you come over here and you get a big huge following do you get worried because because i witnessed someone complain about music he said i miss that old american rock and roll you know ac dc and i was like That's Australian. Yeah. I say, you know, the Youngs, they, you know, they moved to Australia. That's an Australian band, you know? It's like, what? Since when? And not a lot of people... Do you get worried that... I totally forgot Keith Urban was Australian. Is
SPEAKER_00:that bothering you? I don't think I'll ever lose my Australian touch. Every time I've been to the States, it's very hard to get the accent out of me. I'd have to live there for 30 years before I started talking like an American. But even then, I'm very proud of where I come from. Even my hometown, everywhere I play, I tell them where my hometown is. I'm like, I'm from Winton, Queensland, you know. I represent the 4-7-3-5, you know. Like everyone from my hometown, they put their town on their back when they go out of town. Like there's a rugby player playing in Australia right now and he's from Winton and he played in like our version of the All-Star game this year for the first time ever and they always say their hometown footy team and he said, Kurt, man, Winton Diamond Team of Devils and all the Winton, I reckon that town would have erupted if I wasn't at the cattle station, and if I was in town listening to it, I reckon the town would have erupted. There's just a pride. I think in every Australian there's a pride of where they come from and their hometown. As much as usually with your patriotism, for us it's about pride from your state and your hometown. Especially in Australia, it's a lot about your state. It's similar to Texas and Philadelphia, the rivalry they have there. In Australia, it's like Queensland versus New South Wales sort of stuff. And I don't think I'd ever lose touch with my Australian side. You know. It's always been about the green and gold for me, the Australian colours. Every time I end up on a podcast or talking in the news and they're always talking about America and they always go, yeah, yeah. But at the end of the day, I'm just an Aussie in their waters. As much as like Paddy Mills was in the NBA playing for the Spurs, he was from Cairns in Queensland. Australians coming over there to showcase Australia That's what I want to do, you know. Nice. Yeah, I don't think– yeah, it won't bother me if people are like, oh, he's not American or anything like that, you know. I've got a pride about myself about where I'm from.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's a good thing. I was just, you know, because I'm just trying to think because not a lot of people know like certain bands are like Australian. I think like–
SPEAKER_00:I can't believe you remember the chats. Oh, dude. I'm on Snapchat
SPEAKER_02:now. Leave me alone. Leave me alone.
SPEAKER_00:It's such a good song. I remember hearing that, and I was like, these dudes get it. These dudes are just living it.
SPEAKER_01:And they're just like, I love this song, Bus Bunny. It's him buying scratchers and the Rothy Blues. Please stop. Just give me some money. I need to take the bus.
SPEAKER_00:Rothy Blues are like, oh, I don't know how to explain it. That's like the cheap smokes in Australia. They're like, yeah, if you're smoking Rothy Blues, you go, oh, shit, you didn't get paid this week.
SPEAKER_02:Like...
SPEAKER_00:It is pretty cool to see Australian music in America. I don't think I'll have any dramas with any of that stuff. Keith wanted to be a country artist. I'm not saying this on his behalf, but I don't think he was like, oh, I'm Australian, I'm Australian, I'm Australian. People just found out every now and then. For me, it's like I'm Australian. like I'm telling everyone like yeah you know it's like it's a part of my identity why wouldn't I tell everyone you know
SPEAKER_01:yeah it's I mean people have been listening to Australian bands probably forever and they probably don't know like NXS uh was it Men at Work Air Supply and then uh yeah uh Parkway Drive they're
SPEAKER_00:Australian sticky thing um there's some cool bands to check out um wolf
SPEAKER_01:mother yeah
SPEAKER_00:wolf mother yeah
SPEAKER_01:and uh jet
SPEAKER_00:Jet. Oh, I had a Jet CD as a kid. Dad used to play that before going to the rodeo to G up a bit. Yeah, that's
SPEAKER_01:a good song. Do the Bee Gees count?
SPEAKER_00:I think there's a few of them are Australian, and I think others could be English, I think.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think, yeah. Something
SPEAKER_00:like that. I think they partially count, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Oh, Silver Chair, one of my favorites. I don't know if it said
SPEAKER_00:that. Oh, yeah. The Newcastle Legends, man. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Silverchair. Frogstomp, one of the greatest Australian albums of all time.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, dude. That's kind of like my friends make fun of me for that because to this day, I will play their instrumental Madman at a show. If I'm playing at a show and I'll go, anybody knows what band wrote that? I will buy you a drink. And the people that come up and say that was Silverchair, Madman. And I'm like, I'll get you two drinks if you know what I mean. the album was. That changed the way of how I played guitar because all their songs were in drop D and you can play with two fingers. It was easy to play, but you're playing really cool, fun music. I loved that because at the time when they came out, I was just learning how to play and I was terrible, but I was playing their music because they were teenagers too, so it was really cool.
SPEAKER_00:I remember hearing tomorrow for the first time and that distortion that distortion and you just go oh like that's that's i i don't know if that was already a thing like distortion like that but it was just so different when i first heard it i was like yeah this is awesome
SPEAKER_01:yeah like that was a great album that That definitely shaped the way my music went with guitar and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So, yeah, there's definitely...
SPEAKER_00:There's a heap of them, Ozzy. The big genre in Australia, I think, is, like, that beach rock, as they call it. And it's, like, yeah, like, Sticky Fingers and... Like, Sticky Fingers is one to check out. The Dregs, um... Spacey Jane, Ocean Alley, that's sort of what Australia's biggest market of music is, is that indie beach rock. And it's some pretty good stuff. If I've got to recommend one Australian song of that genre, it'd be Booster Seat by Spacey Jane or Australia Street by Sticky Fingers. And, like, those songs epitomise a bit of Australian culture, like, you know, pretty well. And in terms of, like, country music, I would say How To Make Gravy by Paul Kelly. If you're trying to hear some more Australian country music, there's a heap of Australian country music and not enough time to announce all of it, but, like, Paul Kelly's probably right up there. Slim Dusty, Lee Kernighan, Troy Cassadaly, The Wolfs. brothers you know there's some pretty big names uh max jackson i've done a song with her piper butcher she's on the up um melody moco all these names like they're all worth a listen but yeah it's australian country and it's coming it's coming everyone's going to hear about it soon
SPEAKER_01:yeah and well the would you be considered the pioneer the first no no no no no i
SPEAKER_00:i think what i'm doing is totally different to what they're doing and um
SPEAKER_01:okay
SPEAKER_00:i think i I don't think I'd be comfortable calling myself pioneer. I think, I think if anyone is a pioneer, it's probably Keith, even though, you know, like I said, he probably doesn't explain how Australian he is a lot of the time where, you know, the rest of us were like, we're true blue, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. And the accent.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And the accent. Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_01:That's a big one. But yeah, man, dude, we've been talking for a while. Is there anything else you want to talk about?
SPEAKER_00:no man um just be ready for the album I guess um the album I think everyone's gonna enjoy it I hope they enjoy it because I enjoyed making it you know so yeah I'm gonna send I'll send you the album on your Instagram so you can get a sneak peek because of this yeah
SPEAKER_01:yeah and I'll make sure everybody uh listens to the new song uh what is it Gooseneck trailer
SPEAKER_00:Gooseneck Party ah
SPEAKER_01:Gooseneck
SPEAKER_00:Party yeah yeah but it's out today yeah
SPEAKER_01:yeah
SPEAKER_00:so the album album drops October 24th um yeah so and the album's called Gooseneck Party but the lead single off the album is out today nice but yeah other than that man I don't have much else to tell you but I'm keen for Whataburger and keen for a Dos Equis and a Twisted Tea
SPEAKER_01:there you go but yeah man thanks for taking time to
SPEAKER_00:talk thanks for having me like like i said i've been following you for a long time so to be on this is it's a pretty cool moment for me
SPEAKER_01:yeah it's cool to have you on
SPEAKER_00:Am I your first Australian?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I don't think. Hell yeah. You might be the first international artist.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, hell yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, unless I messed that
SPEAKER_00:up. I don't think Canada counts. Canada's just Little America. I don't think that counts. If you've had a Canadian on there, I don't think that counts.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Little America, that's funny. Yeah, I don't know if I had any Canadians on. I don't know. I'll have to ask. Talbot, who knows.
SPEAKER_00:Talbot, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But yeah, I'll send you the album, man. I hope you enjoy it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, cool. Yeah, I'm definitely sure I will. But yeah, man, well, I guess normally I say enjoy the rest of your night, but you're just starting your day.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'll enjoy the rest of my day.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, there you
SPEAKER_00:go. Thanks, man. Thanks
SPEAKER_01:for coming on. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:good talking to you.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. I'll see you.