When country musician Troy Cassar-Daley’s mum, Irene, died in 2022, it was inevitable that his connection to her would shine through in his new album Between The Fires.
But what was a lot less predictable was that Troy would opt to record the new album in his mum’s old house.
“It’s taken a while to be able to get a new album together but after losing my mum, it drove me into that artistic corner where you just sit down and you go ‘I think I’m ready to write a record and I’ve got some stuff to write about’ which gave me a chance to put that record together.
“Recording at my late mum’s old house was one of the most interesting experiences I think I’ve ever done recording-wise and now it’s the tour that follows it up.”
The original plan had been to record the new album in the United States and everything was set to go.
Troy had been sitting by the fire one afternoon after he’d had a shower and decided to do a demo of something he’d started.
“I thought it sounded pretty good and I wondered if it was worth trying to record something so I recorded the demo, and then I sat there for a while thinking to myself, why can’t I make a record here?
“I rang a couple of engineer friends and asked the question first, ‘Can I do this at mum’s old house? A young bloke called Jordan Power who works with Bernard Fanning from Powderfinger. said, ‘of course you can make it work’. And he said secondly, the best thing about this record is it’ll only sound like your mum’s creative space. And that’s exactly what we wanted to do, form these songs up as we sit somewhere that was inspiring.”
Between the Fires is an emotional journey.
“There is a resonance about these songs.
“From the first note that we struck in mum’s old place, you can imagine what it was like. We’re in a lounge room where I used to sit and watch TV with mum as a kid, and we had a drum kit set up, we had the steel guitar player set up, and the bass player. I think we had our guitar player out in the laundry and I was in mum’s old art room, which she used to create some beautiful Indigenous art, and that was my vocal booth.
“As I’m there singing these songs, I could feel the emotion welling up but it also gave me something to lift the weight of the grief as we created each song.”
Family has been an important part of Troy’s life.
“We spent a lot of time with our first cousins, which always felt like they were like brothers and sisters to me.
“My grandparents, were very much a big part of my life for my first 10 years as well, because we lived at their house when mum and dad were divorced when I was a little fellow, and we spent quite a bit of time there growing up. And that has an effect on a human being, I think, with their values and the way they were a beautiful Indigenous couple who just got on with it, worked hard and brought a lot of the community together.
“I think I learned a lot from them, and I carry that into my shows as well and you see that coming through in in this record.”
And his mum’s house?
“I’m going to hold on to it. I think it’s important that if there’s something you don’t need to sell at the moment, I think it’s much better to hold on to it. I’ve got a really lovely old couple that I’m renting it out to at the moment that keeps a bit of life in the house.
“I spend a lot of time going down there cleaning up and going through things and mowing a lot of lawns. Mowing with a push mower is good therapy for your brain. Round and bloody round. And if there’s one thing it did for me, it gave me a chance to break things down in my mind.
“Be at peace with stuff as I was doing the circle work, you know?
“Three acres around the house all by push mower. I bought the little push mower on Market Place and any of your readers might know that it’s become a favourite place for everyone to go hunting for things. I found this little $100 four-stroke mower, put a new set of plugs in it, changed the oil and I was off. And then I think I wrote a lot of the melodies in my mind going round.”
Troy is big on the Aboriginal side of his heritage.
“As kids, before we even went camping or fishing or hunting or whatever, we’d always have a little fire somewhere, wherever we were. We’d always walk each other through the smoke.
“It felt like a bit of a cleanse and for me it’s always been a wonderful thing to do that with my kids. I taught them how to get witchetty grubs, how to dive for turtles, all that sort of stuff is still very important in my life. And then I think there comes a chance where you do a project like this special one at home, mum’s place. I had the fire burning all the time through the whole process, hence Between
The Fires in the title came out of the fire I had burning through the whole project.
“When all the crew arrived, I put the wet gum leaves on there like my uncles used to, and had that beautiful thick smoke come up and everyone walked through and bathed themselves a little bit on the way into the house. And it gave everyone a clean slate to start with, and it really felt like it cleansed the house as well before we started making music.”
Troy says his mum was a creative spirit and strong on maintaining her Indigenous traditions.
“I still felt her spirit there as well. There’s one instance where I set up my vocal booth in her art room and I was just about to start sitting there with the guitar and singing a song and you know those screen print screens you used to do screen printing on at school, one was hanging up on the curtain rod and it fell off and dropped right beside me. I almost felt like a tap on the shoulder. And I looked around and I thought, wow, I think mum’s here. She’s probably asking what the hell all these bloody people are doing in her house.
“And during the process of making the record, I did a lot of cooking for the bandl. I’d walk out, put something on, nice and slow on a simmer, and you could smell the same sorts of dishes that mum would make going throughout the house as we were cutting tunes. It made everyone hungry, it made everyone laugh, and it felt like there was a family there again,”
Troy and the band will perform music from the new album at three venues in WA, on Friday, October 18 at The River in Margaret River; at the Astor Theatre in Perth on Saturday, October 19 and a sold out concert at the Bridgetown Pottery Restaurant on Sunday, October 20.
Support for his three WA performances will be with singer-songwriter from Albany, Carla Geneve.
www.troycassardaley.com.au.
