“I make music and I studied sculpture and nowadays I make furniture as well as making songs in Sweet Jean,” Nugent says. “Occasionally I also get to do wacky things, like this – I think things are too far gone for me to do anything normal now.”
Normal is hardly necessary with Nugent’s skill as a songwriter taking him around the country many times over. Sweet Jean is the project that’s getting most of his musical attention these days and he’s working with Alice Keath who has her own impressive resume, combining both classical and contemporary music. Keath began her musical career as a classical composer and violinist before moving into contemporary music via her trusty banjo and exquisite voice. “I’ve always been a massive fan of harmony singing, and when Alice and I started working together we found a mutual love of a whole range of music that involved harmony singing, and that was our launching point,” he says. “I’ve done five-part male harmonies with The Wilson Pickers, and I’ve also travelled as one third of an a cappella group, but this is something magical with just a man and a woman’s voice. It’s a really nice way to live and travel and work with someone.”
Sweet Jean have had an auspicious start, so far sharing the stage with CW Stoneking, Jen Cloher and The Felice Brothers, while their debut single Shiver And Shake was named by Germany’s Jetz Magazine as one of the ‘Top 5 songs to kick off 2012’ (which they found quite amusing), as well as receiving critical acclaim in Australia. Debut album Dear Departure is on its way, arriving sometime mid-year and produced by John Castle (The Bamboos, Megan Washington). “Our good friend, and at the time neighbour, John Castle, was in the studio with us and it wasn’t like sitting there with a band and a producer, it was like sitting there with friends making songs and having fun,” Nugent says of the recording process. “He’s like the least precious person in the world when it comes to dealing with divas, so he’s like ‘Nah! C’mon go, do it. Nah! Alright! That’s enough. Get in. Get out.’ We’d start eating our heads and he is just so on to it. It’s his knack and it’s how he’s made records; when his red light’s on you just do your thing.”
While discussing the song writing process of Sweet Jean, Nugent admits that creating music is an eternally untamed beast. “I was listening to an interview with Tom Waits yesterday and it was one of the more candid interviews that I’ve heard with him, and he cut the act, you know what I mean?” he says. “He was talking about the mechanics of songwriting and it was really encouraging to hear someone of his generation and calibre talking about it in pretty much the same way I think about it. With songwriting, every song needs to be approached uniquely, and I don’t think you ever get to a point where you think ‘Oh, I think I’ve got this song writing business sorted out now’. It always feels like the last one you’ve written is the last one you will ever write. Then the next one is always some sort of revelation that you never think you’ll have again,” he finishes with a self-deprecating chuckle.
BY KRISSI WEISS
