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FILLING DAD’S BOOTS
Deborah Minter
"I spent
the first twenty-one years of my life on the family wheat and sheep
farm," Alex said. "I was a mad keen farmer ever since I was old enough
to pull on my own boots. Unfortunately we went down the gurgler as far
as the banks go. They kept lending us money until the bottom fell out
of the land prices. My life changed big time then. It took me years to
get over the loss of the farm, it was like a death. I think you really
have to live some experiences to understand them."
For some time
Alex played his music just as for entertainment and leisure. "I gave it
up when I got married," he said. "I went back to farming for about
eight or nine years and in all that time I didn’t play the guitar at
all. But over the past two or three years I’ve started to get back into
it."
Alex’s wife Sheree is his biggest fan and staunchest ally, and
with his number two, three and four fans, children Jessica, Andrew and
Brianna, the family is firmly behind Alex’s career move.
"She
believed in me," Alex said fondly and with a touch of amazement. "She
entered me into the Road To Tamworth competition in Kalgoorlie. I
didn’t win, but I had some really good feedback. So she entered me into
a couple more competitions. Finally we decided that if we were going to
do this properly we would have to move across to the Eastern states. So
we moved, finally settling in Kootingal just outside of Tamworth."
The
competition phase of Alex’s career culminated in a finals berth at the
2005 Toyota Starmaker Awards. "That was certainly a great experience
for me," he said. "Starmaker gave me so many opportunities. I met ROGER
CORBETT there and gave him my four-track demo EP to see if he would
consider producing my album. Luckily, he phoned and said yes."
"Roger
was more than willing to let my individuality shine through on the
album. I didn’t want to sound like every other bloke who’s gone through
Star Maker and is now doing an album. I’m a bit older than most of them
and I’ll admit I’ve got my own style pretty much worked out."
"I
went down there thinking that I had the songs all sewn up. To Roger’s
credit, he did warn me that we would have to ‘do some work’ on the
songs, but once we sat down together and we started to go through them,
he made so much sense that the ‘bit of work’ became a real re-write.
He’s just so great at getting to the nut of what the song is about. He
taught me to be more precise about the subject and to use less words to
say more. I never had any songwriting training before and I learned
more in a few days than I had learned in all my life. I’m just so
appreciative that he spent the time to do that."
The resulting album
is the newly released Window Down with the first single and title track
a vivid portrait of what is great about country life. "It’s something
you really look forward to," Alex said. "That first rain after the dry,
the smell of fresh turned earth, it can almost make you drunk. That
song and Farmer’s Son are really about how passionate I am about small
towns and country life in general."
Another of Alex’s memorable
honest country songs is Daddy’s Boots; an autobiographical song about
the heritage he’ll never leave behind. His own son Andrew is now the
keen little boy following dad around the farm.
That’s what Alex Watt
brings to country music - a real taste of small town farm boy whose
boots are still treading the country soil.
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