#265 Eight Ball Aitken
Join Rae Leigh on the Songwriter Trysts podcast as she sits down with the one and only 8 Ball Aitken for an insightful and entertaining deep dive into his remarkable journey in music. From growing up in Australia to carving out a career as a songwriter and session musician in Nashville, 8 Ball shares the real stories behind the music and his signature swamp-blues sound.
🎤 In this episode, they explore:
🎶 Life and creativity in Nashville's vibrant music scene
🎸 The evolution of his unique swamp-blues style
📀 The story behind his new album Ice Cream Man 2, featuring the track "The Friends We Make"
🎉 Details about the upcoming Mt Coot-tha Songwriters Festival this May
📅 Join Us at the Mt Coot-tha Songwriters Festival!
Celebrate the craft of songwriting in the stunning Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens, Brisbane. Enjoy live performances and workshops with artists including 8 Ball Aitken and Rae Leigh. A perfect day out for music lovers and creators alike!
📍 Event Details:
🗓️ Date: Sunday, 25 May 2025
📍 Location: Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens, Brisbane
🎟️ Tickets & Info: https://events.humanitix.com/mt-coot-...
📘 Facebook Event: /18qtdbo5uc
Connect with Ester:
Transcript
8 ball aitken: The whole thing is you just gotta be dedicated and committed and keep learning. I tell people basic advice, like to young kids starting out or anybody. If you learn one new thing on your guitar every day, then a week you'll know seven things. A month, you'll know 30 things and a year. That's a lot of things.
That's a lot of, that's 360 something things.
Rae Leigh: Welcome to Songwriter. This is an podcast that is connecting songwriters from all over the world. I'm singer songwriter Ray Lee. Music saved my life and I love talking with other artists about the power of songwriting and their journey to where they are today. This is a safe space to share stories, lessons, and emotions.
All the great things that build an amazing song. Please support the podcast by subscribing or you can buy us a coffee all through the website, songwriter tri.com.
Hi, welcome to songwriter Trysts eight Ball Aiken. Hear in my very empty living room and I just heard your song. What was the song called? The Friends
8 ball aitken: We Make. The Friends We Make.
Rae Leigh: Oh, I love it. I actually loved so many of the lines in that it was really beautiful,
8 ball aitken: like powerful. Thank you. It's a little bunch of little home truths.
Yeah. Just little reminders,
Rae Leigh: which we all need.
8 ball aitken: Yeah.
Rae Leigh: It reminded me of the parable. No, I don't think it was a parable. There's a story in the Bible that I always kinda stuck with me, where the crowd brought the prostitute to be stoned and then Jesus was like. Those without sin, throw the first stone and he like starts writing stuff in the sand.
And the theory is that he starts writing down everyone else's sins in front of them and then they all drop the stones and they like walk away. Yeah. But just I don't know, just being kind to each other and. I'm not maybe judging people stuff and judgment. Yeah.
8 ball aitken: Anyway, we just wanna thank you guys are there for not judging us.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. Don't judge. We're just too like a solo artist trying to, like artist
8 ball aitken: love making living in the modern world.
Rae Leigh: However we can. Yeah. Yeah. Actually I got a royalty for one of my songs the other day and I found it 'cause I didn't know that it was somewhere else. Yeah. It was like 30 bucks for five years of like online digital streams.
I was like, wow. Even after a hundred years of like my life and my kids receiving royalties, if that continued at that rate, it'd be 600 bucks. I'm like, do you know how much it costs? Make a song? And I'm like, oh, that's so bad. Anyway. We we don't live on the royalties, that's for sure. Tell me about you.
Who are you? Where do you come from?
8 ball aitken: Yeah, look, I've, I'm from north Queensland, but that was a long time ago. I've been on the road for longer than I haven't been at this point.
music: Okay.
8 ball aitken: So I started playing in pubs and stuff when I was like 15. I. And then I ended up putting my first album out, age about 23.
Wow. And I've been on the road ever since. So that's
Rae Leigh: very early. Yeah. How does one go to performing in pubs at 15?
8 ball aitken: That was just the thing to do, but I guess that's where the gig was. That's where the gigs were,
Rae Leigh: but how did you pick up a guitar? Like you didn't pick up a guitar at 15?
8 ball aitken: My dad was quite a good guitar player.
Okay. And so we just you, our campfire sessions was where I started. Awesome. Really getting into my guitar. And my brother still plays in my band plays at Hammond Organ. Yeah, he was, funnily enough, I'm not another little jab at my little brother, but he played whatever I wanted him to play.
I was like, I need a drummer in my band. I need a bass player. I need a whatever. Sounds like my kids. But he drag the big Hammond organ around. That's so funny. And he's got his own band. I've been producing his album and with him and stuff. So we were just awesome.
We still got a, quite a strong bond after all these years and would keep and make music.
So
Rae Leigh: for someone with two boys who work well together, even when they have their brawls. That would be like a mother's dream to see. Yeah. Wouldn't it be the two boys like Harmon harmonizing? Yeah. It'd feel
8 ball aitken: like you'd done your job of actually creating a community of people that love each other
Rae Leigh: as a parent.
I don't know. And I know you've only got one, haven't you? You got, that've got three. I didn't, I had three within three years.
music: Yes. I think
Rae Leigh: the greatest thing you can give a child is a sibling. Because even after you're gone, hopefully they will still be there. And I'm one of six, so like I have that.
Yes. And they're not, I've got lots to choose from. They're all different. Oh, for sure. But yeah, it's I'm not trying to go on
8 ball aitken: better, but I'm one of 11.
Rae Leigh: Oh my
8 ball aitken: gosh. And yeah, there was And where were
Rae Leigh: you in the mix?
8 ball aitken: I'm number two.
Rae Leigh: Okay.
8 ball aitken: Yeah.
Rae Leigh: Interesting.
8 ball aitken: But there's. Everyone's got some music talent, just, there's only a couple of us that have really dedicated our life just to, yeah.
To music as a job. But it's a music family and it's a wonderful thing to, to be a part of when it, your
Rae Leigh: parents supported you obviously as well.
8 ball aitken: Yeah. Look, they they supported us in the best way they could. In the best way than you. How
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
8 ball aitken: In different ways.
Rae Leigh: In different ways. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I love that. And I think, that seems to be in, in the hundreds of people I've spoken to, one of the biggest core differences in a musician's lifestyle and their life cycle is when they've either had supportive parents or they've had parents who go get a real job.
8 ball aitken: I think it's not that it's not bad.
I think it's more complex than that. Yeah, because sometimes parents can support. Certain parts of a dream and maybe not others, or, yeah, maybe they approve of some things and not of others. So it's not just a, it's not just cut and dry. They're either supportive or they're not.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. Yeah.
8 ball aitken: As a parent myself, you want to give your kid as much opportunity as you possibly can.
Absolutely. And let them decide,
Rae Leigh: yeah. When I first got into modeling, my mom said, that's fine, but just keep your clothes on. Now. I was 21 and I was like, oh, mom, you're such a prude. But I did keep my clothes on because I wanted to keep my mom proud, and I'm so glad I did. I was so glad I did because I would be like, I, you cringe at what you used to be, but yeah, good advice.
Thanks, mom. Okay, 15. First album at 24. What was the process from recording in pubs at 15 to God. Thanks Gabriel. My son's gonna be the camera man. Now you all okay.
8 ball aitken: Yeah. The process, so from age 15, singing, credence covers and stuff in the pub and whatever was the entertainment, the songs of the time.
I went to John o's Blues Bar for the Gong Show. In Cannes and that was a legendary place where people played. They, the big jam night every Sunday. So at age 15 I actually was playing some BB King and I won the Gong Show and I was supposed to win a carton of beer.
Rae Leigh: Oh, but how old were you?
8 ball aitken: 15. So they said you're only 15. You can't have the carton of beer, you have to have this t-shirt. And and it felt pretty ripped off. 'cause you know you want the car, you.
I think he probably was pissed off too. Like we were, like, we, that's, we want the normal prize, we want the beers and for funnily enough, I still have the t-shirt. It's one of those t-shirts that you paint the house in these days. Oh
Rae Leigh: Yeah. I've got a lot of those.
8 ball aitken: But
Rae Leigh: I've just refinished, repainting my house.
8 ball aitken: Yeah. The whole thing is you just gotta be dedicated and committed and keep learning. I tell people basic advice, like to young kids starting out or anybody. If you learn one new thing on your guitar every day, then a week you'll know seven things and a month you'll know 30 things. Yep. And a year. That's a lot of things.
That's of, that's 360 something things. Do you teach guitar? I'd avoid it because I'm too busy doing other things. I'm, I'll prefer to have my time to, for creativity and gardening and parenting and other things I like to do.
Rae Leigh: I'm gonna take that tip on online guitar. But
8 ball aitken: yeah, I think people can look, teach themself lots of things on the internet these days.
Yeah. But probably the best way, depending on what type of learner you're, I always like to get out, go to a music festival and go to a workshop.
music: Yeah. With
8 ball aitken: a. Collective with that collective consciousness. Get buzzed up on Yeah. On excited about it.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
8 ball aitken: And then you, it'll probably that momentum will carry further.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
8 ball aitken: That inspiration will carry further than motivation
Rae Leigh: in a lot of ways. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely believe in inspiration. I am I'm still learning the guitar. Like I, I learned on piano and then I've been self-teaching guitar. But my problem is every time I learn something new on the guitar, I'll write a song.
And it won't have anything to do with the skill. It's just whatever that thing I've learned, it inspires some other, brings a new song. Song. It is a new story. So let's talk about songwriting, 'cause this podcast is about songwriting,
8 ball aitken: right?
Rae Leigh: Where did songwriting start for you?
8 ball aitken: I think I've always written songs since I could talk about, according to my mom.
I was writing songs when I was four, three or four while she was cooking dinner and I was writing songs about the rain and sitting on the bench and stuff. She tells some stories like that and I wrote a songbook when I was six called Rock and Roll Corn Flakes. Now, I don't think I've, I don't think it was a hit, I'm not gonna pull it out and release it or anything.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
8 ball aitken: I don't even have a copy. I
Rae Leigh: Want it though. It could actually be like a TikTok hit now, I reckon. Rock and roll Corn Flakes. Is that how not, I dunno,
8 ball aitken: probably that's, or
Rae Leigh: just sell it as a jingle to place.
8 ball aitken: But it's, but I think the whole idea is the way your brain works and you really need to get to know your instrument better.
Each time you learn more, you can express yourself further. I'm just on a mission to try new things at this point in life I love a lot of collaborations. I've got a new album coming out with Taya Charney, my favorite soul singer from Australia.
music: Yeah,
8 ball aitken: she's in Sydney and we've toured Australia together and done a lot of work for a lot of years.
Wow. So we've talked about this album. It's been five years in the making.
Rae Leigh: That's crazy.
8 ball aitken: And it's finally, we've dropped two songs online and there's another one coming out this month.
Rae Leigh: Okay. So that's the one we're touring at the moment.
8 ball aitken: So yeah, we're do a touring through the middle of the year. We're going all over Australia.
I'd already did my American run this year.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
8 ball aitken: Yeah, just, and I have a studio on the Sunshine Coast. Yeah. So I just work on new songs all the time. And you just don't want to be plagiarizing your own self and doing the same things if you can just, if you can help it, if you can push yourself out of the box, the, the box that you've made for yourself.
Rae Leigh: Absolutely.
8 ball aitken: And if you can, your audience can come along with you.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
8 ball aitken: Then you are all right then. I don't think there's anything that's a good life to Yeah.
Rae Leigh: Like, when I first started, for example I only knew four chords, a minor, FCG. And so I wrote a ton of songs in those chords and it's just a part of the journey.
But now I look back and, I think I think the rule or the thing someone said was, if you can't cringe at who you used to be, you haven't grown. So that's a good one. I can cringe. Because it's that's where I was at that time and I was learning, and I was just writing what I could with what I knew.
But you're right, the more you learn, the more you can express yourself, the more you can inspire others, and the more you can, I don't know, just do with it and have more fun with, it's like more colors. If you only have three primary colors, you gotta create the rest of it. From that,
8 ball aitken: there's, there are people that use four chords for an entire career.
And. That can be enough.
Rae Leigh: It might be my career, but I'm learning to, I'm learning to expand, but like I said, every time I learn a new thing on guitar. I write a new song and it's it distracts me from then learning more guitar because then I'm learning the song. So you just got to, that's, I think that's where I call myself more of a songwriter then singer, then guitarist.
I usually try to avoid the guitarist part if I can.
8 ball aitken: My favorite Henry Ford quote you, you probably know this one.
Rae Leigh: Go on.
8 ball aitken: It's if you believe you can or believe you can't. Either way. You're right. Yeah, I like that one too. So it's
Rae Leigh: I don't know. Actually, I think a lot of people have said that. Don't know who said you believe you can.
8 ball aitken: You can you can become a better singer. You can become a better songwriter or guitar player. It just comes down to whatever your water grows whatever.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. And I believe that you were putting
8 ball aitken: energy into
Rae Leigh: speaking it out and writing it down or I used to be one of those people that, 'cause I definitely struggled with mental battles of not being able to do it.
And I didn't really know why, but I knew I didn't believe in myself. But I would put sticky notes on my mirror and it's believe in yourself. You can do this and. Something at some point clicked, but I used to feel really fake. Like they tell you to say it in the mirror in the morning and they'd be like, I believe in myself.
And then I would feel like a weirdo going, because it doesn't align with my core values, like my core, not my core values, my core beliefs, core beliefs are like, have you done much core belief work? Yeah. So we all have core beliefs that are developed before the age of five. And I had some really bad core beliefs and so I was trying to.
Rework those. But it feels so weird when you say something that doesn't align with the core beliefs, but the more you speak it out, the more it starts to impact and like it, it worked for me, so it just, it took a long time though that it worked. You just gotta keep going. Change those core beliefs.
I. Yeah. Keeps going. Songwriting, you've been doing it for a very long time. What has been one of the best experiences for you when it's come to writing a song like it just came to you or whatever happened, like that was a moment. You're like this, that was a really good experience for me.
And how did that happen? Was it collaborating? Was it on your own?
8 ball aitken: I've written songs in all different types of ways because I've collaborated with hundreds of people living in Nashville for a long time.
Rae Leigh: Yeah, where did you live in Nashville?
8 ball aitken: I was there between 2012 and 2021. Oh, wow.
So for me, like you'd. You're just learning every day, working with people that are super talented. There's hundreds of thousands of talented musicians in that town. That's incredible. Yeah. So intimidating.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
8 ball aitken: But. It'd just be you. Yeah. At the end of the day, the best thing you can do is refine who you are and have something to offer.
That's just you and you've, you'll find a way if you stick out it long enough. So I made a living there for a long time working at gigging and touring and
Had a great time in studio work and. Inevitably you just refine what you are and it's just part of rubbing shoulders with all those legends over there hanging out with people.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. You can become the, I feel like we are quoting a lot of stuff, but I feel it's, you become the average of the top five people you hang out with. Is that the rule? Or like the people you spend time with impacts your. Trajectory in life. Okay. Yeah.
8 ball aitken: Yeah. So for me, there wasn't any big one, big breakthrough.
I prefer co-writing because I've written so many songs by myself. Like I couldn't even tell you how many hundreds, if not more, over the last, 30 something years that I've been doing music I just, it's a bit lonely sitting there writing songs yourself. So the songs I write myself these days are the ones that just hit me.
Like I wake up and there's a song, there's a whole song delivered at before seven in the morning like this slightest song. Keep believing that. This soul rocker that Tara and I just put out last month.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
8 ball aitken: That was one that I wrote on tour. I just woke up in Adelaide one day. I had the whole song written.
Straight as soon as I woke up, just went, it was down in a minute.
Rae Leigh: Wow.
8 ball aitken: And had the whole melody and everything. I recorded it, I picked up my guitar and recorded it straight into my phone and sent it to her. Yeah. And she says I'm singing that she bags which one she sang and I knew she'd sit, it was the right sort of a song for her, so that's why I sent it to her anyway.
Wow. Yeah. And things just happen. But, she comes up and I've got two main collaborators that I've worked with, one guy in Texas that I've written a lot of songs with that that we both have in our albums. And Taya and Sydney. When you find somebody that you click with, I recommend just sticking with them and being productive.
I just wish that tale of closer because we would be writing, so we'd have every Tuesday night songwriting session or something like that, whereas now we just have to do it. After gigs or before gigs on the road somewhere when we're touring.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. Yeah.
8 ball aitken: So we don't have, we're super focused in that time because we have limited time, so we're very productive.
You make it work, but it's better if we could just allot time. Like I know some people go to yoga or darts or some other club on a one night of the week.
Rae Leigh: Like I started the summer morning. Songwriters workshops. Because I wanted to collaborate with people and I wanted to do it weekly, and I wanted to have some me time away from the kids as well, like at night to just go and write songs.
And I've written great songs with some people and they're on the new EP coming up, but it's also, I agree. It's like some people. The only thing you ever learn by writing with them is that you don't wanna write with them, but you're still learning that's okay. And then you, but then you meet people, it's wow, like we work well together.
Like their talents and their natural skill matches your talents and natural skill in a complimentary way. Whereas sometimes you meet someone who might have a similar skill set to you, like maybe you're both really cool with melody. Yes. And then you like, but you both struggle a little more with lyrics and story and you're like.
So then, I don't know, I just find it a bit more jarring.
8 ball aitken: Yeah. It's funny which roles we take on. 'cause I've got a few different co-writer mates that I've, they're more, a bit more lyrical and often people usually come to me to write lyrics. Most of the time people come to me for the lyrics when I write, I don't know.
And
Rae Leigh: did you write letter? Is that something you
8 ball aitken: just said? Yeah. I wrote. About 90% of the lyrics. And my mate, Tom Ham Bridge in Nashville, he wrote he helped me with the chorus. 'cause it was originally a different chorus.
music: Yeah.
8 ball aitken: To that song. And we refined that one together.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
8 ball aitken: But I basically wrote all the verses Yeah.
To that. And he yeah, the chorus came about, which, it's. You can't ever go count a percentage of what song, because it would not exist if both of you didn't contribute your ideas. Absolutely. So I don't think any, I don't think, even though I wrote most of the verses, I had all that pre-written before and it was it, the song was never anywhere near as strong until we put the whole packet.
The bit that, that chorus makes it come together, they
Rae Leigh: say the
8 ball aitken: difference between
Rae Leigh: a good song and a great song could be $0 and a million dollars. And the difference between a good song and a great song could also mean just one word or one way that it's a phrased. And yes, that's, I think that's why they have the Nashville rules of who, whoever's in the room kind needs a cut.
'cause that's how, it's how it hits you one in Yeah.
music: Yeah. Yeah, that's
Rae Leigh: why they're really, they lock the doors in Nashville to makes you like, all right, there's three in here, that's it. Or there's five, or whatever it is. Yeah, don't come in and make's coffee 'cause we have to give you a cut in the song.
Yeah. Okay. So much time in Nashville. My first trip to Nashville was in
8 ball aitken: 2019 actually. Oh yeah. And I was listening in public at that point. I sang my first open mic at Nashville at a Oh, open mic
Rae Leigh: thing, so
8 ball aitken: Okay.
Rae Leigh: Got pushed out. Okay. So I have one around your inspirations. If you could collaborate with anyone in the world, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
8 ball aitken: Oh, yeah. That's a really interesting one. I always feel funny about wanting to write a song with dead people, but, and yeah, man,
see I go way back to the roots of the blues. I love the old traditional blues and jazz and. Bluegrass and country music and I always think the roots of American music is a gold mine of a lot of the best stuff. Pretty much most of it. But, living, it's hard to say 'cause people aren't who they.
People like modern artists, if you get to live a long time, say Hendricks was still going and still doing his thing, it would be, it wouldn't be such a, such an icon, I think. And yeah, I almost don't wanna answer that one but I'll tell you, one of my guitar heroes is, is Derek Trucks. What a freak of a slide player and Tedeschi Trucks band.
I'd love to write a song with those guys 'cause they have, they're just one of the most amazing American roots, soul blues bands. Of all time and my favorite singer of all time is Al Green. So yeah, I'd love to sing with him one day. I have so many. Yeah. Oh look, I'm right into a lot of soul music. So they're soul music's not really on the radio much, but yeah, I, yeah, Chris Stapleton's another legend. I used to watch him play in the park to, to, with 50 people watching before he made, I was one of his first ever Facebook fans and I was like, wow, this guy, I was just in Nashville at the right place to, to see him just as he before he broke. That was mind blowing to watch.
A dream of mine would be. Performing all the time. Yeah, I've had friends who've seen him play live and it's just amazing. So experience. Yeah. There's so many great musicians out there and I think on your own music journey, you just gotta be as creative as possible and. I'm just always on a michel.
I call myself a dabbler 'cause I dabble with all types of music and all different sounds and I just try to play my guitar in a way that I've never played it before. I love that. Yeah. So I keep growing and learning. I
Rae Leigh: was called a wobbler last week,
8 ball aitken: A wobbler
Rae Leigh: by the guys. 'cause I was at, my dad's at the Anzac Base Service.
Yeah. I was in Beza for that one. And I got, I met the head of the RSL and he's oh, I've heard a lot about you. You are the wobbler. And I'm like, what's that? And they're like someone who sings a lot.
8 ball aitken: Oh, do you mean a warbler?
Rae Leigh: Warbler? Is that a wbl?
8 ball aitken: A warbler is a bird, isn't it? I know W-A-R-B-L-E-R
music: sounds
8 ball aitken: A wobbler sounds like a wobbler.
A wobbler is a singer bring in
Rae Leigh: BLE and
8 ball aitken: getting dressed. But for dabbling, just trying different musical pursuits and things and
Rae Leigh: creatively experience in that area. I love that.
8 ball aitken: And when you've got a studio yourself, you don't run out of studio time, but there's no reason why anyone can't have a computer that's a studio these days.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. It's like this is our little. Studio set up. That's pretty portable now, but I still need the expertise of someone who knows how to mix and master and all that sort of stuff. But I'm getting better at being able to collaborate with international people because I can record my own vocals and I can coro with them and send it to them, and it's usable in a recording mix, which is.
8 ball aitken: Yeah, we live in the best time for, so yeah, we have the best time for home recordings.
Rae Leigh: Oh, it's so good. So good. So you don't have to actually be in Nashville to be able to write with people in Nashville. And I think COVID-19 really opened that up because I used to write with people from Nashville and they'd be like, yeah, we'll write when you come back.
And then during COVID-19, everyone was locked down and they're like, oh, we could write online. That's, I'm like yeah, we can. That'd be great. Okay, so is there anything coming up that you'd like to promote? So we've got festivals and you've got.
8 ball aitken: I am very active. I get around a USA and Australia every year do a comprehensive Australian tour every time I have an album release.
And I have an album just about every year except last year actually, I. Yeah, I missed last year because I had a good excuse. I had a little baby to look after yeah. Thank you. Yeah, he's definitely the best release so far. However, he's been on tour yet. Oh yeah, he's toured, he toured since he was two months old.
Oh, wow. So he's been all over Australia, everywhere and he loves people because he's grown up in that environment. Just cruise around to find some new friendly, happy people to hang out with. But I'm def I'm definitely back in the studio a lot more at the moment. And so this new album coming out called Night Bird with Taya Charney.
So if you check out my website there's a lot of tour dates at the moment. All the links will be on there. Yeah. We'll follow your socials, however they be on all social Instagram. I do silly things on Insta, like play guitars made outta junk, like I've been playing a toaster guitar that flicks toast out in the crowd.
And fishing rod guitar and some, there's lots of different funny videos to watch. Excuse me. Okay. And then we've got the songwriter festival, man, Keith, the Songwriters Festival in its 21st year. Wow. So I started that as my TAFE assignment. It was originally a grant, a pretend grant writing assignment, and my teacher said, that's actually a really good idea for a music festival.
You've written the grant as an assignment. How about you submit it to the council? So I did. And 21 years later. We're still happening, which is amazing. Yeah. The council loves the event. It's. Been showcasing songwriters from Brisbane for over two decades, which blows my mind. So that's such an incredible, yeah.
So we've showcased hundreds of songwriters at this point that 'cause they put a different lineup every year and always on the hunt for interesting people doing interesting songs. And it's not a festival with a huge bunch of. Flashing lights and fancy stuff. It's all about the Artis and the song. So it's mostly acoustic guitars or piano or something.
A songwriter and a singer with a limited backing, and the crowd knows that, so they come to listen to the words. We have food trucks and it's. Plenty of things. Kids chase IBUs up the hill if they get a bit bored of listening to the songs or whatever. But that it's, A bunch of my friends said they didn't really appreciate the festival until they had kids themself, because you can have a lovely picnic at the, it's at the bandstand and the date is Sunday, may the 25th from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM At the end of the day, we have a all-star jam with all the musicians that played all save a couple of simple songs that people can jam along with. So we get everyone up there together to, to play along. So it's a really heartwarming community sort of an event. There's it's free entry. We don't sell tickets, we don't sell alcohol. It's, you can, yeah, you can just get Chuck a little picnic blanket out and lie there and get a suntan and enjoy the, love songwriter. So it's play a few songs and the rest. Yeah. It's very much old fashioned fun, encourage people to get off their screens. The only reason we want 'em to go on their screens is to tell their friends to come back and give us a little rating on pretty much all that we are doing this, all the screen in digital
Rae Leigh: and podcasting, but we are doing it because we want you to, we wanna invite people to enjoy the live experience.
Yes. And I was telling someone, actually a grant writer who was giving me feedback because I didn't get. And I was saying you it is, excuse me, sorry. It's so incredibly hard to give people that, what it feels like to be a part of a live audience in live music via a screen and via digital. You can do you can have great cameras, you can have great audio, but you never really capture what it's really like.
And this person I was talking to was a visual artist, so I said it's like seeing a picture of a. Like, it's just not the same. No, you can't appreciate the texture and everything else that's going into that painting unless you see it in person. And that's why, original art is worth so much and copies of it are cheap.
Yes. So the same sort of thing. And and that's how I explained it to her and I think that helped her understand it's yes, you really have to be able to perform live, but it's such an amazing experience and it's a once off time, like what you get that day. You get to say that you'll be there and there are so many festival experiences that people will talk about as Woodstock.
It's like you have to be there, yeah. And when you were there, you get to be one of those
8 ball aitken: people that were part of that experience. I think it's, you can look back at the history books and look at the big events and the big things that happened, and that's all cool, but. That's the end of that.
Do you wanna
Rae Leigh: press video? Do you pause? Yeah. Wait. I can do this.
8 ball aitken: Cut. That's alright. We'll just have to I edit the video. That's, have you probably got enough to work with? Hey, yeah, it'll still be recording audio, so we'll, I was just gonna say, just a, just one more thought on that topic is we are living the good old days and we can always look back and think everything was better at Woodstock or whatever, one of these events, but yeah.
Anytime you choose to get off your couch and go out to a live gig and you get to meet people and listen to somebody's story, at the end of the day, we are all just storytellers.
Whether we were sitting around a campfire in the before, there was buildings and electricity and things like whether we were all rounding up herding sheep or something 5,000 years ago.
And we're sitting around a campfire and someone pulls out a little. A bit of wood with some, with a string on it and going Wang and we're singing a story or something relevant. Something to do with when to plant the next crop or, yeah, or the family traditions. That's the, in inherently that's our job as musicians.
We're storytellers, we're sharing
Rae Leigh: entertainers.
8 ball aitken: What's happening with stories about our
Rae Leigh: experiences.
8 ball aitken: I think it's just like when you get out and you're part of the music scene and you meet people and you go to love them and you share your story and we're all part of this thing. And it doesn't matter if you have a big stage and flashing lights or if you're singing at a house concert that you're part of music.
It's the greatest thing to to bring us all together. So there's different levels of the dream. You don't have to be the, at the top to, to enjoy the process. All you have to do is get out there and be part of it in some way or another. It's okay to be just a fan and just go and support people you love.
It's all right to sing at the pub. It's whatever level of the dream you do just embrace it, I think and you can always just keep going on that and never stop creating. 'cause creating is our highest purpose. Yeah, I agree. And I'm all for that. And
Rae Leigh: I think you've done you, you're a testament to that.
You've been in the industry for a very long time, doing it full time in, in different capacities. But like that for me is what I respect most about anyone in this industry is that they just, 'cause it's not always easy. In fact, it's mostly never easy. Yeah. It's not you get up and go to work and then just take a holiday and then, it's not structured.
Often you have to be able to just go with the flow and get up tomorrow and do something that you'd never thought you'd do, but you just gotta go with it, and yeah. And sometimes that's the way it is. And when I try and explain that to my parents, for example, they're just like, I don't know how you do it.
Like with acting for example, I'd be like can you sing this song on camera tomorrow for 5 million people? And you'd be like, yeah, sure. Okay. But if you're always prepared, then you just, and that's where you just be prepared and go. It
8 ball aitken: takes a lot of confidence and a lot of organization. And I think you just have to believe you have to back yourself.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. The confidence comes with practice too. And being prepared. And I think I've definitely seen people who potentially aren't quite prepared being overconfident. And I try to be the other way around, yeah. Try to be more prepared and then
8 ball aitken: that's do your best. True. But you don't actually always, ever know what's gonna happen next.
Rae Leigh: Yes.
8 ball aitken: And
Rae Leigh: you don't always get enough time to prepare for what's happening next. Sometimes you will only get a day. So
8 ball aitken: when you think of a trade, like most trades are like seven years, I think if you've gotta go on the road for about seven years nonstop, to have to be able to have seen every potential situation that could arise has already happened to you.
Yeah. And once you've done that amount of time, like you've become super relaxed because there's nothing that's gonna happen that you, we've
Rae Leigh: seen it all kind of vibe. That's
8 ball aitken: not, that's gonna be too much of a shock that you can't deal with it.
Rae Leigh: But even if you're like an electrician or something, they have to do their intern, like their trade.
Yes. And then they have to go out and do it and learn on the job as well. But you still have to our learning, our trade would be like learning out the basics of our instrument. And then there's like the business aspect and all the other stuff that you learn on the job. But you gotta you still gotta do the basics.
And like live life, I think as a creative I think Alan Caswell always told me, I always remember this, he goes as songwriters, a lot of songwriters. End up just writing songs about being songwriters and being on the road, because at the end of the day, like that's all they're doing full time. And you write what you know.
It's just like you gotta go out and live life and have relationships and do different things to keep you grounded in what. Is going on in society and things like that, which I found interesting.
8 ball aitken: Yeah. If you are writing to a brief or writing ev regularly with a goal of making songs, you, it's kinda like exercises.
It's kinda going to the gym.
So you're. You're doing repetitive things and you can start to repeat yourself. If you go live life and let the songs come to you, they're gonna be much more varied.
But there's merit to both because you gotta keep practicing. And so it's good to be writing repetitively and working towards things.
But if the more you live your life and get out and have things that just happen to your conversations to. You just end up with a more broad catalog of thoughts.
Rae Leigh: Yeah, it's an inspiration. Yeah. It's almost, you could like stare at the clouds for a bit, sometimes that's what you gotta do.
8 ball aitken: Yeah.
Hang upside down and let the blood rush your head and just try to think.
Rae Leigh: I think they have a grant, one of the awards, I think it might have been Gold Coast Awards or something, they said there's a grant to literally just pay an artist to go overseas somewhere. For a period of time we country and they don't have to do anything with it.
This country. Like just go overseas and be inspired to create something. I'm like, I'll take that. Alright I think we've promoted everything. Is there anything else you would like to say before we finish up?
8 ball aitken: No. Thanks for the chat. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. And felt forgot the camera's on there for a minute.
Rae Leigh: That's all right. I think it's been off for the last little bit. So this will be audio only special edition.
8 ball aitken: Okay. Limited edition audio extra. It's like the bonus tracks at the end of the cv if you wait long enough.
Rae Leigh: That's all right. Yeah. Oh, I'll, I've got enough to definitely edit something cool together and Okay.
And I'm looking forward to the songwriter festival and I appreciate you reaching out and this is really cool.
8 ball aitken: Thank you. Glad we got
Rae Leigh: to do it.
8 ball aitken: Thanks for the, the chat and plugging the show.
Rae Leigh: Yeah, why not? Why not? Yeah. Songwriter Tris and eight ball ing. Cool. Thank you.
Thanks for joining our songwriter Tris today, to join the family and keep up to date with future podcasts. You can follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. Please leave a review and subscribe. To support the podcast or contact me or our guest, please go to the website songwritertrysts.com, which I scream or shout.
