Author: Mallory

The Mount Hunter Country Music Stampede Files – An Interview with Drew McAlister

Drew McAlister has long been recognised as one of the nation’s premier songwriters and performers. He recently lent his voice in support of the drought crisis facing our local farmers and, to coincide with the release of his third single off his current album, he’s been hard at work co-organising the forthcoming three-day Mount Hunter Country Music Stampede.

You released Kissing a Girl Goodnight recently off your album Coming Your Way. In the past we’ve spoken about how important you feel it is to perform songs you’ve written yourself – however, this is a song you found through a demo – and the sound as well is quite different to things you’ve recorded in the past. Does this song resonate with your life and is that what you connected with lyrically?

It’s exactly my life. I connected to it and I think other people will too, that’s why I recorded it. I think a lot of people will be living or will have lived some similar the version of that. It’s quite a difficult song to sing because it’s so low and then so high in the chorus, so I was a bit trepidatious, to be honest, when we were going to record this vocal. I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out, but I had to work on it for a while and sing it quite a few times to make sure it sat right and I had the right key.

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An Interview with Brodie Rainbird from The Wolfe Brothers

It’s been a busy year for the Tasmanian country-rock band, The Wolfe Brothers – with the release of their highly-anticipated fourth studio album Country Heart in March, its two chart-topping singles ‘Ain’t Seen It Yet’ and ‘No Sad Song’, as well as an accompanying national tour. The album debuted on the ARIA Country Chart at #2 and the ARIA Charts at #9, beating their last album, This Crazy Life, which came in at #10 on release in June 2016.

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An Interview with Hayley Marsten

Country music artist Hayley Marsten hails from Gladstone, Queensland. Her previous singles, off her latest EP Lonestar, are a tongue-and-cheek representation of her fun, flirty and quirky sides. The newly-released Coming Home, however, is an emotional punch-to-the-gut depiction of her parent’s divorce when she was just 13-years-old.

We were lucky enough to exclusively premiere the music video for you this morning, and now we share our interview with Hayley discussing emotional song-writing, new music and fun on the road.

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Exclusive Video Premiere: Coming Home by Hayley Marsten

We shared photos of this talent performing at the Deni Ute Muster back in 2016, and now TaTS has the amazing honour of premiering Hayley Marsten‘s music video for Coming Home, the fourth single from her EP Lonestar.

The new video, directed by Brock Daubert of The Filmery, was filmed in Gladstone at her Nanna and Poppy’s house with her real-life friends and family playing the actors. The video sees Hayley in her old prom dress as real childhood photo’s hang down around her.

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River by Josh Groban

Sometimes working here at TaTS has its perks, like being able to stream or download an album before it’s officially released. Josh Groban’s Bridges is one of those albums I’ve been lucky enough to hear. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve played it to the point I now know all the lyrics. I’ve been a fan of Josh’s since Closer (2003) and have bought every album since. And honestly, this is by far his best and my favourite to date.

Bridges by Josh Groban is out September 21st via Warner Music.

 

An Interview with Morgan Evans

Morgan Evans has been dubbed as an artist to watch. His debut US single Kiss Somebody recently topped the US country charts, making him only the fourth Australian to reach such momentous feat. The Newcastle born singer-songwriter now lives in Nashville with his pop-country superstar wife, Kelsea Ballerini, and is currently back in Australia on a short promotional tour of his latest self-titled EP.

I first you saw perform at CMC Rocks The Snowys in 2009. I’ve listened from the early days of your debut EP Blue Skies all the way through to your self-titled album release in 2014. So, for those of us who have been following your career, it seems like you’ve been constantly working at it, but to many others it may appear like you were an overnight success. Do you feel like everything has fallen into place and you’re only now just starting to gain some momentum and traction?

For me, it definitely feels like I’ve been doing this a long time, but, at the same time, it also feels like there’s been moments where I [thought] this is the start of something great. I think the first real moment of that here in the US, was when I met my producer Chris DeStefano.

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The Mount Hunter Country Music Stampede Files – An Interview with Adam Brand

On July 13th, 1998, Adam Brand released his debut album. Fast forward to 2018, and he’s done what a lot of artists have failed to do before him – and that’s last 20 years in the competitive music industry. Celebrating his two-CD release Milestones…20 years, after a nation-wide call out for unique venues, he’s taking his current tour to big cities, small towns and places he’s never been.

Your latest release Milestones…20 years was released twenty years to the day (on July 13th, 2018) featuring all your greatest hits, like The Anzac, Good Friends, Get Loud, Hell of a Ride and many more. Do you ever get sick of performing these songs?

You hear artists talking about their first songs and singles, and, then, later in a career, they don’t want to play them anymore. They want to play their newer stuff, because they’re sick of playing the old songs. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve played ‘Dirt Track Cowboys’,  ‘Good Friends’ or ‘Last Man Standing’, I could buy a bigger house! [laughs] but those songs are the reason why I’m sitting here today, so, I’m quite the opposite. I don’t get sick of singing those songs; I’m thankful. I count my blessings.

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