Life on the road agrees with Blake O'Connor.
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Yes, the singer, songwriter and guitarist met his partner, fellow country singer Sinead Burgess, on the road while touring - but that's just part of the story.
The talented 20-year-old from Port Macquarie is at home on the stage. He writes music with a live audience in mind and his new single, Willin' and Ready, is a case in point.
"The new single is a nice step from the last project to the next project," O'Connor said.
"It's a good fun, upbeat country song designed to make people excited to come to the band shows. The reason I got into music was to play live shows and tour.
"My songs are made for an audience. I can't wait to get up on stage with the band, plug in my guitars and just rock out."
O'Connor was 18 when he was crowned the 2019 Toyota Star Maker at the Tamworth Country Music Festival. His debut album Everything I Feel was released that same year and topped the ARIA Australian Country Charts.
In January 2020 he won a coveted Golden Guitar for Best New Talent.
Willin' and Ready was written by O'Connor and country couple Adam Eckersley and Brooke McClymont. Taking inspiration from Rambling Man by The Allman Brothers, the song incorporates influences from Tedeschi Trucks Band and Zac Brown Band.
O'Connor grew up listening to the likes of Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash but also Guy Sebastian, Ed Sheeran and even Eminem.
"It wasn't until I was about 16 that I found country music again through Chris Stapleton, and listening to Zac Brown Band just rock out," he explained.
"I love Southern rock from the '70s and I listen to a lot of blues music and Americana too. I don't have a set genre as to what I listen to, but what I write would probably fit into the country blues genre."
His new single was produced by multi-Grammy Award-winning producer Nick DiDia (Powderfinger, Bruce Springsteen) and Eckersley at DiDia's recording studio in Byron Bay.
"I've known Adam for a long time. He did my last record," O'Connor said.
"At one stage I was in the studio talking to DiDia - and to hear some of the people he'd worked with, from the Black Crowes to Springsteen to Pearl Jam, it was just crazy - and he told me he'd received a Grammy in the mail the other day that he didn't even know he'd been nominated for.
"That's other-world stuff for me."
O'Connor's career started early. He was asked to do his first proper gig at the age of 13.
"I always sang when I was little. I just wouldn't shut up," he said, laughing.
"My grandparents bought me a crap guitar from a pawn shop when I was six years old, and I had a couple of lessons here and there and then began teaching myself from YouTube.
"When I was 10 or 11 I thought 'Well, all these guitar players sing as well, so I may as well try that too'. That led to writing songs and then one of Dad's mates asked if I wanted to play during the break at one of his gigs.
"So I jumped up there and that venue booked me for three or four gigs after that. I was 13, and from there I haven't stopped."
Until last year, that is. A certain pandemic put live music into a tailspin from which it is still recovering.
"I had eight months off last year, which is the most time I've ever had off gigging. But I'm back on the road, and me and my partner have been doing gigs since October for the Silver Linings Tour.
"We haven't been together too long, we were just thrown together on tour, but everything is going really well.
"She is phenomenal."
In April O'Connor will join the multi-ARIA award-winning Diesel on the road for three months before kicking off the Willin' and Ready Tour with his band on a tour that stops off at Lizotte's Newcastle on July 1.
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