WHEN you're 25 years old and you've got four albums under your belt and a fifth one close to release, it not only means you must be good, it's means you're busy.
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Angus Gill, who still calls Wauchope, NSW, home has been strumming a guitar since he was six. He writes for himself and others (he was signed to Origin Music Publishing four years ago), kind of cherry-picking the songs he thinks will work for him.
He's on the verge of releasing a new album, Departure & Arrival, recorded with a band that's usually associated with Paul Kelly - Peter Luscombe on drums, Bill McDonald on upright bass, Dan Kelly on electric 12-string guitar, and Cameron Bruce on farfisa organ. In fact, it's his second album with this band (the first was 3 Minute Movies), which he calls Seasons of Change.
The first single, Departure & Arrival, hit the streets at the end of March, and is also the name of Gill's current 23-date tour. The catchy reprise: I'm travelling at my own speed/Making my way from A to B/Like a myna bird trying to dodge a rifle/Somewhere between departure & arrival.
THE TOUR
Gill is not touring with the Seasons of Change. But, he's still keeping good musical company: he's on the road with fiddle legend Pixie Jenkins (a stalwart with John Williamson's tours), who opens the shows and then plays fiddle with Gill.
"'Keep it small and own it all', is what my friend Alan Caswell says," Gill says from Melbourne early in the tour last week.
"And particularly in today's world of live music, things have changed so much. Just the fact we are out on the road is a bit of a risk but it seems to be paying off so far."
Four shows in the middle of the run, in Sydney, Newcastle and Dungog, will see Gill play with Kevin Bennett and Kevin Welch. Bennett has won several Golden Guitars (so has Gill). Welch is an American songwriter and long-time Americana music artist who now calls Australia home - a song he wrote in 2002, Millionaire, was a huge hit for American star Chris Stapleton.
Last year Gill recorded a song with Bennett, Listen to the Country, about climate change that hit the top of the country charts.
"It seemed a natural progression for KB and I to play a few shows together," Gill says.
"I said, how about we bring KW on it, too, he agreed to do it. It's going to a real blast. Some great stories, a few laughs, and you really get to hear the inspiration behind the songs in those shows. It will be great to be sitting on stage with the two of them trading songs."
Dolly Parton used to say: 'Make them laugh, make them cry, make them think, scare the hell out of them and then go home'. And I've always thought was such a great premise, great formula for a show.
- Angus Gill
THE ALBUM
The new album feels organically stronger to Gill.
"I always like to have a bit of contrast within the album. But yeah, the body of work really works together great as a whole.
"The title track, Departure & Arrival, accurately sums up what the album is about. There's a lot of character-based songs. A lot of the songs I wrote on my own, because I usually collaborate with other artists, because I write so much for other artists, with other artists.
"And sometimes I don't know which songs are going to be my songs, and which songs are going be for them. It's not until we're finished, or it's sitting in my pile, and I'll go, 'Actually, that's something for me, something I could do'.
"I write a lot of songs, and then the challenge is to find homes for them."
Gill admits there was no "plan B" if he didn't make it in music.
If anything, he guesses he'd probably be a comedian - he's already got a head start on that career, too, cutting a comedy album with the likes of Bev Kissick, Dave Hughes and Akmal Saleh.
"I'm hopeless at everything else, I've got no choice," he says of his music and comedy routine.
"I'm a bit of a comedian in my show. I love writing comedy. I love having that added extra thing. I think people come along and don't realise there is that extra element. They get more than what they paid for."
Gill has certainly got that point down, it's about giving people a show when you are performing live.
As he says: "Dolly Parton used to say: 'Make them laugh, make them cry, make them think, scare the hell out of them and then go home'. And I've always thought that was such a great premise, great formula for a show. Because people feel like they've been put through the gamut of emotions, they got their money's worth."
