Excitement is building for this Saturday’s Burnett Heads Music Festival with country musicians The Wolfe Brothers set to headline the event, performing some of their top hits.
Gig Guide contributor Amanda McGinley spoke with lead singer Tom Wolfe ahead of the performance.
“Country Heart” is 18 months old and back in the Aria top 10 this week. How proud does this make you guys feel knowing it’s still holding strong?
It makes us extremely proud I think we really put our heart and soul in to that one and production wise, it’s probably our most modern. Song writing wise it’s the most raw and honest we’ve ever been and it’s so nice to see the way people have embraced the songs and the album.
My favourite song on the album is “Storm Rollin In” which hit number one on Kix Country this week. Do you guys have a favourite on the album?
I love them all, they’re all like your children.
I really do love “ Ain’t seen it yet” I think it’s really home, it’s us but “Country Heart” seems really special.
Again, playing “Storm Rolling In” live is… it’s just one of our favourites at the moment, it just rocks along so nice.
What other instruments, if any, do you and the other band members play?
Nick and Brodie are really into producing music rather than recording so they’ve got studios set up at their house and they play guitar.
We all can play a bit of piano; I love playing piano.
I can play a little bit of drums. I don’t know how well, some would argue it’s good, some would argue it’s terrible.
I play bass obviously. Actually, I got asked to play the tuba when I was in high school for two weeks in the brass band.
I learnt one song and then I kinda went “I don’t think that’s for me”.
The bands been doing some song writing recently, can you tell us a bit about your song writing process?
The process is a lot of things.
We just come back from a writing trip in Nashville and we go there because there’s so many writers in that town and we have been going there for so long now.
We have a bunch of writers we go to and work with regularly now because we know them and relate to them.
They’re from similar places that we’re from, and they’re trying to say the same things we’re trying to say and I think that’s really important, you know, to find your tribe, find your vibe.
What’s more exciting, walking on stage to start a concert or singing that final note when recording a new song?
Both are very exciting and both very different.
I probably always said playing live was my favourite, like I’ve always loved the buzz of playing live, but I will say recently I’ve fallen in love with recording studio.
It’s just kind of hard, I think hopefully if you get sick of doing one you get to do the other one.
How do you compare a good Aussie crowd to the Canadian crowd you played to when you opened for Gord Bamford in July?
There’s nothing like a good Aussie crowd, I mean it’s home. It’s what we’re all about.
The Canadian crowd is great I think what people in Australia forget is that Canadians have a huge country music fan base over there and they love it.
So for us it was nerve-racking to do our thing in front of them you know.
It wasn’t like an Aussie crowd, they didn’t really know us or any of our songs but they made us feel really at home and I reckon the Canadians and the Australians are pretty similar.
They’re welcoming people and they’re good people and they know how to have a good time so we had a bit of fun over there.
Does the band have an all-time favourite venue or festival that you enjoy playing at?
Gympie is great.
There’s so many but you know you might play a crowded pub and have the best gig you’ve ever had in your life.
There are no rules to it, you never really know but I just want to enjoy them all.
They’re all different and unique and that’s kind of something special about it.
This Burnett Heads festival is hopefully going to be one of my new favourites and we’re looking forward to it.
It’s always nice when there’s a new event coming up and we get to come back to Bundy.
The Wolfe Brothers are the headline act for the Burnett Heads Music Festival, which will kick off at 66 Zunker Street tomorrow from 4 pm.
