THE NEW FACE OF COUNTRY
COVID-19 MAY HAVE PUT CASEY BARNES’ PLANS OF BREAKING INTO THE US MARKET ON HOLD, BUT HE’S KEEPING THE DREAM ALIVE FROM HOME, WRITES
Anew
wave of country music singers has emerged, fusing a blend of pop, country and rock, and appealing to a much broader audience. Riding that wave and having the time of his life doing it is Casey Barnes.
The Gold Coast singer/songwriter released Town Of a Million Dreams in April – his fifth album – and his first release with Chugg Music.
On the cusp of some major follow-up gigs in the US and a break into that massive market, coronavirus struck, putting Barnes’ tour on the backburner.
“It’s a bit of a bummer,” Barnes, 41, says.
“One of the biggest downsides of COVID is we were starting to get a bit of momentum over in the States.”
There are silver linings and they come in the form of more family time for Barnes at their Currumbin home, along with a swag of awards, regular radio play and streaming for his new releases, and an online audience of up to 75,000 tuning in to his weekly live-stream performances.
He’s also preparing to tour and has announced a line-up of Queensland gigs taking in Cairns, Mareeba, Biloela, Toowoomba, Gold Coast and Brisbane.
At the time of his phone interview, Barnes is walking along Currumbin Creek. Fitness is important to the dad of two girls – Charli, 12, and Emmy, 7, and husband to Michelle, also a singer.
“We met through the music industry,” Barnes says.
“We live in Currumbin down the southern end. We bought a little house here where you’re not in the suburbs, you’re still part of nature.
“We’ve been really lucky this year to spend a heck of a lot of time together as a family. Traditionally I tend to be away. I spend a lot of time in America writing and recording and doing shows, or in other parts of Australia. There’s a few of us (musicians) based on the Gold Coast. Lee Kernaghan and Adam Brand live down here and a lot of country music festivals happen here. We were all locked in to play when the bloody pandemic hit. We live next to one of the boys from Busby Marou – Tom
Busby – and we’ve been lucky enough to do a few gigs together.”
Barnes’ days start with a strong coffee and either a beach run or a sweat session at F45 after dropping his girls at school.
“There are two amazing songwriters in Nashville. The three of us will jump on a call for a couple of hours and work through a few ideas. It’s not the same but it still works. There will be media and radio interviews and we’ve still been doing a lot of stuff online like livestreams and concerts.”
A new single is set to land before Barnes’ regional Queensland tour kicks off and the wheels are in motion for his next album release.
The Gold Coast Suns ambassador faced a real fork-in-the-road moment as a younger man on the cusp of launching more deeply into a career. It could have been a crowd in the footy field he was performing in front of, rather than on a stage.
“I grew up playing rep footy in Tassie,” Barnes says.
“I played a couple of premierships here on the Gold Coast.”
His early life is a parallel to former St Kilda captain Nick Riewoldt – a childhood in Tasmania followed by a move to the Gold Coast.
“Nick Riewoldt went on to get drafted to play. I had to make a choice at the time whether I concentrated on footy or music,” Barnes says. “I couldn’t do both. You’d finish a game and then go and do a gig at night.”
It was an exhausting schedule and Barnes made the call to focus on music in early 2000. He credits his “super supportive parents” as a backbone to his career choices.
“I remember saying ‘I am going to give away this full-time job and go full-time in music,” he says.
“Mum and dad said ‘do it, you only live once, if you have a dream you have to have a crack at it’.”
Performing live is Barnes’ true passion and COVID lockdowns dealt a hard blow, but the singer is looking forward to “more intimate and personal” performances on tour.
“Rather than being fearful of moving forward, you’ve got to adapt,” he says.