Country Proud, Tassie Bound

Last week I had a chat to Troy Kemp of country band McAlister Kemp. The guys were voted the best new act of the year in 2011, have been to Nashville, and were invited to be the support for American country music legend Alan Jackson on his Australian tour. Tassie is in for a treat when the boys play at the Waratah hotel on 15th September.

They are unique among Country music duos in Australia where duos are mostly siblings think The McClymonts or Tassie’s own Wolfe brothers. McAlister Kemp are not blood related. The boys met when both were in a production of the Johnny Cash story. An immediate rapport saw them join forces.

However, in country music we don’t get any sibling rivalry or any other sort either because even though someone has got to be burdened with all those Golden Guitars country music is not a competitive field. Troy says one of the reasons why stretches back to the mindset of early pioneers and settlers who strove to help each other and that is a tradition which country music carries on today.

Country music, he says has a generosity that we don’t always see in other genres as it is traditionally based on family values, hard work and looking out for your mate.
Hence, song writing in the country music area involves a lot of collaboration and writing songs for others.

Similarly, in Nashville being a staff writer means you spend many hours in a room with other likeminded and often very influential people who are hit makers sharing your stories and creating songs together. Nashville is the place to learn about constructing a song which usually means coming up with a title and going from there. The productive output is amazing. Troy talks about writing 14 songs in 14 days, but it’s not all easy, for every 10 songs written 2 might be songs that work and hopefully become hits.

McAlister Kemp’s travels to Tassie are not that regular but they have garnered fans in their previous visits as support act for Adam Brand and Lee Kernigan among others.

Troy will be here in Tassie four days ahead of his partner Kemp and hopes to take in some visits to markets, Cradle Mountain and possibly MONA!

Tory sees Tassie as an ‘untouched gem’ and ‘gorgeous’ with pretty good real estate deals compared to Sydney. In fact after living some time in Canada and being immune to a little cold weather he could see himself living here!

He has much praise for the flavour of the moment, Tassie’s own Wolfe Brothers who he sees as doing similar music to McAlister Kemp, making country a bit more progressive and modernising it so it is ‘cool’. He hopes to shake the Wolfe Brothers hands in Tamworth next year.

Perhaps the old fashioned country values were put aside when the boys decided to do a tongue in cheek song called ‘cold beers, hot women’. A song that featured scantily clad females providing beers possibly making many men’s fantasies come true! The song gathered the boys some more fans from predominantly a male audience. It was an experiment for the boys but it helped them widen their appeal to another demographic.

Perhaps the biggest thrill so far for the boys was they got the call to be Alan Jackson’s support act. Troy makes me smile as he explains his reaction. He says ‘he was screaming the house down’ the even was an awesome experience for the boys performing to an enormous crowd at Rod Laver arena among other venues.

“Country Proud’ is out now and the boys will be performing at the Waratah Hotel on 15th September.

You can visit them on the web here

http://www.mcalisterkemp.com/
Paula Xiberras