Featuring on Cassar-Daley’s new album is the apt line “I live the tales that I tell.” The country singer/songwriter (and one hell of a charming guy to chat to!) has embarked on a new tour to promote two things close to him – one is his autobiography and the other a new album, both titled “Things I Carry Around”. He has always sung what is close to him; his friends and family, and this great country we live in. He is a music fan, and loves Aussie favourites like Cold Chisel and Slim Dusty – he later got to work with both. Don Walker (Cold Chisel’s main songwriter) has helped co-write part of his new album, and Ian Moss sung backing vocals on a track as he “happened” to be in the studio.
The book is an amazing read, taking you on this journey of a little boy from a broken family – his parents split up when he was just a child – to winning 32 Golden Guitar awards. His book is like opening up a box of memories stored in a cupboard for decades, only to find it 47 years later – Cassar-Daley’s current age. Like most people’s lives, there have been many up and downs, laughs and cries, but he is a man who displays great family values and honesty.
The October tour will be different from most; instead of just playing a set of songs, it will be a mix of songs and talking about stories from his book in between. “I don’t often get to do these kind of shows. There will be a fair bit of music and yarning in between…plenty of stories and ones I really wanted to share. It’s great to have associated songs to break up the talking a bit as well.”
His debut album was released back in 1994; it reached number 1, and won an ARIA award for best country album. 20 years on he’s still touring and loving it. “It was always about the adventure and the music with me, it was never about the money or about anything else. I still have that adventurous side, it’s just that it’s different when you’re married; you yearn to get home a bit more. And what I got on the road I really felt like it was a ticket to ride and it was real part of the freedom to music.”
Having toured Australia from the ripe old age of 16 – he was in a band call Little Eagle – I wondered who inspired him to pick up a guitar, rather than a normal job. “I don’t think it was a conscious decision, the inspiration came from my mum and dad. They played music around the house a lot. They broke up when I was really young; my Dad lived in Sydney and my mum lived in Grafton and there was always music around. I got really immersed in country music. When I was 9 or 10 that was the turning point as I was playing guitar and listening to my mums vinyl.”
August saw the release of his tenth album, “Things I Carry Around”. Once again he’s collaborated with Don Walker, and also some Australian rock royalty in the form of Paul Kelly. After 22 years of touring and writing, I asked how he approached this new album. “This is the easiest record I’ve ever made to be honest. Don Walker had about four ideas lying around we hadn’t quite finished over the last few years. Paul Kelly and I had worked on this song we hadn’t quite finished that I had earmarked to sing with my wife called “Brighter Day”, and then suddenly all the songs started falling together and it was really organic actually. I wasn’t thinking about a single or anything like that, I just wanted to every song to relate to the stories in the book.”
The final track on the album finds Cassar-Daley in waters he’s never been before; he decided to conclude the album with a poem and not a fully formed track. The subject – Cassar-Daley’s incarcerated uncle – is a powerful listen. “I’ve never done it before. Don had sent me the song that I wrote about an uncle of mine who was accused of shooting his own uncle and had to go to jail. I tried to sing the song but it just wasn’t working for me. I sent it back to Don as a poem with me just playing electric guitar in the background, and he told me to leave it the way it was.
It’s haunting because its talking about my uncle and what’s happened in his life, and the confusion at the time because he and everyone had been drinking at this party. Details were sketchy. He eventually got charged with a murder I don’t think he committed so we just wanted to write a song for him to wrap up the record because he was an important part of our family.”
Cassar-Daley’s honesty is remarkable and we should all take a page from his book. He’s proud of his indigenous background and wanted everyone to know about it. The book is a great read, it was hard to put it down…it was a real page turner. “One thing I really wanted to cover was to make sure people knew what background I came from. I’ve just been reading Jimmy Barnes’ book, his book makes mine look like a Disneyland trip [laughs]. I just looked at his family history getting over here from Glasgow; it’s just a fascinating read. I think sometimes we take for granted what the building blocks that make us who we are, I was fascinated by writing my own book because I’d forgotten a lot of stuff that I was made to remember, and it wasn’t all good stuff.
There was once a time I was shooting rabbits and I wanted to point the gun at my step-dad and take him out. When you have a thought go through your head like that when you’re about 9 years old, that’s a troubled kid.”
How did you overcome that?
“I thought to myself, if I did this I’d have my mum back. I just felt he was coming in between my mother and me because it’s all we had for a long time until he came along. Those sort of things in the book you have to confront and I think having been brought up well and knowing right from wrong, I had the common sense to point the rifle away and say no I’m not going to do that.”
Slim Dusty was a hero for him growing up. His mum would play his records around the house. As a tribute, Cassar-Daley often covers “The Biggest Disappointment” in his live shows. I asked what he meant to him. “I first met him properly over in Western Australia up in the Kimberly’s. To sit with him, someone I’ve admired since I was a small child, I had to explain to him that every time I heard one of his songs I thought it was written about me and where I live. I suppose that’s the naivety when you’re a child but when he’s singing about gum trees on the roadside, willows by the creek and when the rain tumbles down in July, he was talking about the rain coming down in Kempsey. We were about two hours north of Kempsey and the rain, believe me, tumbled down in July in halfway Creek in Grafton as well.
I kept saying to him that they were personally made for me and I just had the best relationship with Slim, as well as his wife Joy. She was the catalyst to start writing the book to tell you the truth. She said she’d love to read my story and hence she has a quote on the front of the book. Because she was a real inspiration to getting the book off the ground.”
See Troy Cassar Daley this Thursday 13th October at Tandanya Theatre, 253 Grenfell Street Adelaide – 7.30pm
By Darren M. Leach
More News
