It’s a cliche to compare every male Australian singer with a deep timbre to Nick Cave, but there’s something appealing in the idea of a Cave in cowboy boots – an alternative-universe country Cave who found redemption not in gothic post-punk but in winding tales of high melodrama and the twang of Nashville guitar.
Meet Henry Wagons, a musician Justin Townes Earle has described as “Dr Seuss meets Conway Twitty”.
After more than a decade of touring and recording with his band Wagons (Cave, in fact, co-produced their 2014 album Acid Rain and Sugar Cane), Henry is releasing a solo album – an autobiography of songs that spans his life so far, from a rowdy misspent youth to a stint as a tour-hardened troubadour, to his latest role as a new father.
To record After What I Did Last Night…, Wagons headed to Nashville, the home of country music, where he worked with producer Skylar Wilson. “So many of my favourite albums have been made in Tennessee with sort of pick-up studio musicians,” Wagons says.
“And over my many years of going there, I’ve gotten drunk enough at bars there to have met some great musicians. Basically, it was great to be able to rock up and do the same process as so many of my favourite albums, from [Bob Dylan’s] Blonde on Blonde to [Neil Young’s] Harvest.”
Wagons says he’s hooked on the city. “Good burgers on tap, fine bourbons and American accents, Southern gentlemen, kind manners and long stories,” he says. “I suspect I’ll be over to the States again to record one day soon.”
