“I feel like I recorded four different albums,” laughs Chilcott, as she recounts her roundabout recording process, which involved travelling around the country to work with a ramshackle crew of producers, singers and bands. “I got to play with so many great artists from around the country and it meant that there was so much energy in the songs. I started in Melbourne with Jordie Lane. We recorded Lovin’ In The Fall in Soundpark Studios in Northcote, and I just love that place to pieces. Then there was Sydney, with Tony Buchen. There were some great sessions over there. Then back to Melbourne with Anna Laverty.”
For an album called Solitude, there certainly was a lot of collaboration. According to Chilcott, the title instead encapsulates a personal journey. “I wanted to pay homage to where I started writing and playing songs, which was out on the boats,” she says, tipping her hat to the time she spent working on a pearl boat off the coast of north-west Australia. “I think that’s the beauty of song. I feel like my job is to create a story with enough of myself in it and enough emotions that people can then adapt and take on as their own.”
When questioned further about her writing process, Chilcott says one of the toughest things is simply finding the time. “As a modern artist today, there is so much to juggle outside of writing and recording. So essentially you have to be flexible. There will be times where I’ll put a month of Mondays aside. If I’m in Perth I’ll go around to my guitarist’s place. And then there are other times where I’ll go away for a couple of weeks, just to get out of the country. And then there are other times where I’m just feeling really inspired, and just mucking around on the guitar.”
Asked if she ever feels exhausted by the juggling act, Chilcott admits that it can get a bit overwhelming. “I have wonderful supporting people in my team, but I’m the one who has to hold it all together. I have to be an entrepreneur and a businesswoman as well as an artist. So that can feel like work at times. But then you get on the road, once everything’s hopefully lined up, and you’re reminded [what it is] that you’ve been working 12 hours a day on. Once you’re on the road, you’re in that world, and it makes everything worth it.”
So how does Chilcott feel now that the record is finally out there? “Relieved,” she exclaims. “I’m feeling really relieved, and a lot lighter, and I’m actually starting to feel excited again now that it’s out. When you have a body of work that you’re sitting on, you really need to just get it out into the world.”
As for the music itself, Chilcott is determined to keep doing things on her own terms. “In my eyes, I know that I’m not making straight-down-the-line country music, in terms of what Australia labels it,” she says. “And it’s more fun for me doing it that way. I think on the commercial side of stuff, it’s about generating money, and I’ll never be about that. I live off the smell of an oily rag, so I’m going to make the kind of music I want to make, all the time.”
BY TOM CLIFT
