This weekend the cream of the Western Australia Blues & Roots scene will descend on the usually quiet town of Bridgetown for the annual ‘Blues at Bridgetown Festival’. The festival has been running since 1993 and this year features the likes of Dave Hole, Vdelli, Blues Shaddy and many more.
Singer songwriter Tracey Barnett, rolls into Bridgetown on the back of a twelve show WA tour that has taken her as far north as Exmouth to Esperance on the very south coast, promoting her brand new album ‘Eyes Forward’, which has already spawned three successful singles – ‘Gotta Get Out’, ‘Eyes Forward’ and ‘Darkness In The Light’ – each nominated for a WAM Song Of The Year Award.
Music, as we know, has a funny way of connecting people, as The Rockpit’s Sean Bennett found out while on a weekend break away. Wandering into the Port Hotel in Hopetoun, six hours southeast of Perth, for a beer and a feed he found Barnett one set into her show and was transfixed to stay for the whole evening as she explained before each song about how the music came together, as well as told tales of her instruments and life experiences. Returning to his hotel, Sean opened his laptop to find an email sent hours previously inviting interviews with Tracey, to discuss her new album and knowing the opportunity was too good to miss, reached out there and then to arrange a catch up the following morning.
So fast forward nine hours and we find Sean & Tracey sat in an old disused railway station shed on the shoreline of the Southern Ocean overlooking white sands, blue skies and crystal clear seas while discussing music, ‘Eyes Forward’ and just who Tracey Barnett would invite for dinner…
Sean: So I have to say how bizarre to be sat her just twelve or so hours after catching you play in one of WA’s most southerly towns here on this beautiful coast and I’m holding a copy of your wonderful new album ‘Eyes Forward’, which I have to say is beautifully packaged and so much in there to get stuck into to read too. I love all these lyric booklets.
Tracey: Yes, that’s what I love about still doing CDs.
Sean: I only briefly got to listen to it last night, but we must talk about your live set first. That was such an incredible show – the stomp, the harmonica, the various guitars. There was so much going on throughout the set. Where does all that inspiration come from?
Tracey: Holy Dooley! Well, I guess maybe my manic personality [laughs] but I listen to such a broad range of music as well. I’ve got many different passions. I started music off in the more alternative metal scene and then found myself doing this bluesy solo acoustic act so maybe a little combination of both like the highs and lows of life and a reflection in the dynamics of my song writing and also the many musical talents that I love to listen to and immerse myself in.
Sean: Certainly, everyone in the room was totally entranced and it was so nice to just sit at the back of the venue and watch everyone listen, if that makes sense. We can all be guilty of chatting away in a busy pub, but you could have heard a pin drop at times last night during some of your songs. It was captivating.
Tracey: I know. It actually took me by surprise because being a pub gig that’s not what I expect and I’m totally fine with that but I was just really pleasantly surprised by just how engaged the audience was. I felt they were right there with me. It was amazing.
Sean: You’re coming to the end of a quite hectic run of shows which has taken you pretty much all-around WA and even as far up as Exmouth. How’s it been?
Tracey: I forgot how tiring touring can be actually [laughs]. I don’t feel like I’m touring fit anymore, but I’ve absolutely loved it and I feel like I’m not just touring for myself & for the album but as corny as it may sound, I feel like I’m touring for my friends who can’t at the moment. So, it’s been exhausting but exhilarating at the same time as touring always is.
Sean: We found out last night we have a mutual friend in the form of the wonderful Lloyd Spiegel. It was your beautiful Cole Clark guitar that got us on to the subject of Lloyd. That guitar is a little bit special.
Tracey: Very special. That was mine & Lloyd’s meet cute actually or the end result of our meet cute was getting Lloyd to choose that particular Cole Clark guitar for me and now all these years later I’m endorsed by the company and even though Lloyd says its not because of him I feel it is because of him [laughs]. He’s an amazing person, a really good friend and holy heck can that man play guitar!
Sean: He can indeed but you most certainly can play too. Last night we had almost country vibes mixing in with Blues and with some of that wonderful slide blues which takes you out almost to the old wild west.
Tracey: They say there are only so many notes in music but with slide it feels like you can get in between all those notes too. It just expands the opportunities you have on such a wonderful instrument as the guitar. It’s got so much character to it – I love it.
Sean: So, ‘Eyes Forward’ is the album. How long did it take to come together?
Tracey: I started recording it in 2018 and I say that exasperated because it’s just been one of those projects where I’ve hit financial roadblocks one after the other so to finally have it out there this year is exciting but also partly a relief because it really felt like it was never going to happen. It was meant to all happen last year and in March 2020 I was in Victoria ready to tour that state and Tasmania with the title single ‘Eyes Forward’ and the money from that tour was meant to fund the last little push for the album. And in the end, like many musicians, I lost 1000’s and 1000’s of dollars and came home going, “Oh my god! What do I do?” In this moment, right here, I’ve only just realised I feel a little bit proud that I managed to collect myself and hustle and still managed to put the album out “only” twelve months after its due date. For an independent artist, yeah, I’m going to take that moment. (A big grin draws across Tracey’s face).
Sean: That’s a resilience that so many artists have had to draw from these last two years.
Tracey: Most definitely. I feel that so many of the songs, even though I started recording back in 2018, so many of them are really appropriate for the times we are going through so, me with my over thinking brain has been wondering if this is always how it was meant to be. It was meant to be delayed to this point for when my audience would actually need the songs even more. The opening track ‘Worth It’ keeps coming back to me – “Nothing comes easy but its always worth the fight”.
Sean: So, taking you back, when you were growing up, what was the music you were hearing around the house?
Tracey: My mum is that biggest Slim Dusty fan in the world [laughs].
Sean: We had one in the pub last night too [laughs]. We had a shout out request for some Slim.
Tracey: I know [laughs] I could not believe it! Much respect to Slim and his accomplishments, Rest in Peace, but its not my choice of music to listen to. There was a lot of country music in our household. My dad would choose to listen to more like The Shadows, Fleetwood Mac, CCR and so I gravitated towards that more and also, I distinctly remember an Alice Cooper record which had a real impact because at four years old, that was when I decided I wanted to play guitar so that one day I could be Alice Cooper’s lead guitarist and back up dancer [laughs].
Sean: And as we know Alice is a big fan of female lead guitarists with Nita Strauss flying the flag right now.
Tracey: Part of me was like, “Did I miss my destiny? Was that meant to be me?” [laughs] I didn’t get my hands on a guitar until I was fourteen. Blues at Bridgetown started up when I was in Year Three so doing a quick mental maths check I would have been nine or ten and that’s when Blues came into my life. I was like, “Wow, I feel this!” And you do because a lot of Blues music is so emotive. It was at Blues at Bridgetown festival that I saw John Butler busking on the streets outside the Freemasons Hotel, there was hardly anyone there but me as a teenager at that stage was like, “What is he doing with that acoustic guitar? That’s fricking rad!” Up until then I had been all about the electric guitar and even after that I progressed to being a rhythm guitarist in alternative metal & rock bands but the reason, I picked up the acoustic guitar was John Butler. I actually see there is more potential in an acoustic guitar because you’ve got a broader range of what you can do. You can pull it back and be warm and earthy and acoustic or if you have that magnetic pick up you can floor it like you would with a V8 and you’ve got the grunt when you really need it.
Sean: That leads me nicely to my restaurant question which I always like to ask my guests. If you could invite three people from the music world, past or present, to join you for the evening over the dinner table to talk about anything & everything, who would you invite?
Tracey: Only three? I’ve got to invite John (Butler) because there are a lot of questions, I still want to ask him so we could geek out on guitars. It’s a really, really hard call between Adam Jones or Maynard James Keenan, who are both from Tool. I think I’m going to go with Adam Jones because Maynard would never give you a direct answer to anything [laughs], whereas with Adam I would be able to extract some more guitar geek stuff from. So, there’s two guitar geeks right there. My third guest would have to be Nita Strauss, then I could vicariously fulfill my destiny as Alice Cooper’s lead guitarist for my four-year-old self [laughs].
Sean: Great table!
Tracey: I would love to have invited Lloyd too because he would make me feel comfortable in that situation when I’m freaking the hell out and Lloyd would be totally chilled and totally cool and saying, “You’ve got this. We are all just people here!” [laughs] I can always learn from Lloyd.
Sean: We can squeeze an extra chair on the end for Lloyd. It’s the Rockpit’s restaurant and we love Lloyd so he’s in! So, here’s an easy one to close with; If you could be credited with writing any song ever written, what song would you choose?
Tracey: See, straight away my guitar geek brain goes to the greatest guitar riffs of all time and that’s not what song writing is about. Song writing is about the lyrical content, first and foremost but I can’t help but be drawn in by that sonic sound, I guess. Oh my god, how do I even answer this one? If we’re going with royalties and awesome riffs, then it would be something like ‘AEnema’ by Tool.
Sean: I’m guessing you’re a big fan.
Tracey: A big fan of Tool. That was my very first tattoo – a signature from Danny Carey the drummer, when I was sixteen [laughs]. They are a lifelong passion. I just love that that song has a great riff, its iconic and its also just so in your face about how completely messed up mankind is, and we are just not learning. Oh god, but I don’t know that’s THE song.
Sean: It may change each and every day, depending how you feel.
Tracey: I’ve changed my mind [laughs]. It’s got to be ‘Zebra’ by John Butler because I absolutely love playing that song and it was such a pivotal moment for independent music and the Australian Blues & Roots scene when John won an ARIA with that single. I’ll definitely take that one please.
Sean: A new one to add to my playlist. Tracey thank you so much for this unexpected and hastily arranged chat here in Hopetoun. It was wonderful to catch you live last night and we wish you all the best for the rest of the tour, for Blues at Bridgetown and of course for your new album ‘Eyes Forward’.
Tracey: Thanks so much Sean. Its been great to meet you. I really appreciate the support.
Tracey Barnett will be appearing at Blues at Bridgetown:
Friday 12th November
Geegelup 6.45pm – 7.45pm
Saturday 13th November
Festival Club 3pm – 4pm
House of Blues 7pm – 7.45pm
Check out Tracey’s Website HERE
Check out Tracey’s Facebook HERE
