Wollongong and all its glory will feature in a new documentary being filmed this January, following country music star Lachlan Bryan as he road trips from Melbourne to Tamworth for the Australian Country Music Awards.
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Bryan is travelling with Deep Down South, a bunch of unique “alternative country” musicians ranging from gothic country troubadours to Americana sweethearts.
The group is a slight departure from his usual band, but aims to highlight the unique interpretation of the country music genre by eight Melbourne musicians.
Bryan leads the group with Mat Alford, which also stars Tom Dockray, Jemma Nicole, Brooke Russell, Les Thomas, Andrew Swift and Fretta Zilla. They will take to the stage at Wollongong’s Encore Bar on Saturday.
“I haven’t played in Wollongong for a while, but it’s similar to Sydney, there is an underground country scene there,” said Bryan.
“It tends to be fairly young people. The fashion is kind of part of it as well, there seems to be a correlation between cowboy hats and hipsters.”
As the Deep Down South make their journey from Melbourne up to northwest NSW they’ll have a camera crew tagging along.
They’ll capture behind the scenes antics on the tour bus and at venues, including camping between gigs in traditional music festival style. Bryan said it will chronicle how these artists do their craft and how they survive.
“It kind of hasn’t been done before, having eight different artists tour like this – it’s almost like a mini-festival,” he said. “There’s a whole lot of different personalities.”
Bryan will culminate the tour and meet up with his usual band The Wildes at the home of the Golden Guitar.
The band is hoping to walk away with a much coveted trophy, nominated for Best Alternative Country Album for their latest release “The Mountain”. Previously they’ve won this category for their offering “Black Coffee”.
“When people think of country they often think of Keith Urban or Leigh Kernagen, those main stream acts. But us alternative musicians aren’t anything like them,” he said.
Bryan described his sound with The Wildes as a mashup of folk music, blues, rock’n’roll and country, erring on the side of Hank Williams and Willie Nelson. While he said their songs were “more authentic” and true to real country music.
“We don’t sing about utes and girls in short short’s that the mainstream sing about. We have more personal stories, a little bit deeper and hopefully more intelligent lyrics.”
The documentary is slated for release mid-2016, for more info visit www.lachlanbryan.com.