Shawn Mullins
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Shawn Mullins

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In 1998 Shawn Mullins’ Lullaby smashed through the Top 40 charts around the world and earned itself a Grammy Award nomination…

In 1998 Shawn Mullins’ Lullaby smashed through the Top 40 charts around the world and earned itself a Grammy Award nomination… In a matter of 12 months, a catchy little pop tune had just changed the Atlanta-based singer-songwriter’s entire life, making for a true rags-to-riches story others only dream of.

“It was a crazy because only a year before that I was living in my van and selling CDs out of the back of it,” recalls Mullins. “I was playing tiny little rooms for tips and I’d been doing that for nine years.

“All of a sudden, I went from staying at camp grounds in my van to staying in the nicest hotels in town and rubbing elbows with the movie stars. I’ll never forget getting off the plane my first time in Australia and just being totally surprised to see people waiting to welcome me with signs and yelling my name out! Ever since then I’ve always felt a real kinship with the Aussies.

Lullaby was a song I have a lot to thank for. I don’t mind that people still associate me with it; it’s a beautiful thing to be known for anything good. I still play that song every night but I don’t ever feel like people are waiting around for it.”

Which would be because Mullins’ long-time fans are well aware of the singer’s whopping back-catalogue which makes up a total of 15 albums, including this year’s addition Light You Up. Continuing on with Mullin’s favourite theme of the ‘American Dream’ gone bad, Light You Up is cinematic, contemplative, and captivating all at once.

“I travel so much on the road all over America all the time,” claims Mullins. “I get to see a lot of things first-hand. I see so many changes that the country is going through. You see the small towns disappearing and Wallmart moving in and taking over their small-town economy. It’s so sad to see the local farmers who once had profitable farms working at Wallmart stacking shelves. One of the things that made this country great was the idea that people could achieve anything on their own, but it’s becoming obvious that that model just isn’t working anymore. It almost sounds like some kind of myth from the olden days now. America is a great country, but there is also great concern.”

Even still, Mullins refuses to inject any kind of political element into his songwriting, he states. And while his tales are ones of the underdog, they are more nostalgic than anarchical.

“I guess you start to worry all the more when you grow up and have a child,” he says of the recent birth of his son Murphy. “You gain this immediate sense of needing to provide and protect that you never knew you had in you before. There is a mad love I have for him; I’ve never loved anyone or anything as deeply as my son.

“At the same time you look at the world around us and even though there are still many beautiful things there, there are a lot of bad things too. Politically speaking, a lot of it doesn’t come through on my records; I tend to stay away from politics in my songs. I never thought of myself as a Democrat or a Republican, I just vote based on the individual, so I guess I’m more of a moderate really sometimes. One minute my views are so far left that they’re almost socialist, then I go into conservative mode the next minute.”

On that note, Mullins says give Obama a break. Having performed at the U.S. president’s 2009 inauguration ceremony, the singer says he finds fellow American attitudes amusing at times.

“I think it’s interesting that people are now upset with him for not being able to come through with what he promised – but you can’t possibly do that in two years!” he laughs. “Healthcare in America is totally privatised at the moment and he’s talking about socialised healthcare, but you can’t do that in two years! The economy was on its way down long before he got to office… I don’t know what kind of a miracle-maker people expect him to be. I totally voted for him and I was a supporter of his, but it’s such a bummer that people expect so much so quickly.”

On the subject of “bummers,” Mullins claims that Light You Up may be surprisingly darker than anything the singer has ever done before, but the record is by no means doom and gloom.

“The songs are a bit darker than what people would probably expect from Shawn Mullins,” he explains. “What I’ve done in the past has always had some mood about it, but this time I went even more darker with the lyrics. Some of the themes on here are about Hollywood, which is similar to Lullaby, but I wouldn’t call it a ‘bummer’ or anything. I recorded it live in my house so it’s god an old-school feel about it. Even though the songs are darker, there is still a sense of heat, there is a warmth about the record.”

SHAWN MULLINS’ solo acoustic tour sees him hitting the QUEENSCLIFF MUSIC FESTIVAL on Sunday November 28 (tickets and info from qmf.net.au) and then The Toff In Town on Tuesday November 30. Light You Up is out now through Vanguard.