MAD FACTS TOO: TAMI NEILSON ROAD WORRIER

Hitchin' a ride with Tami Neilson. photo by Alexa King Stone

SHE IS NO JOHN DENVER, thank god: her powerful voice with its tender heart, not to mention an aversion to half measures when it comes to country music, as her new single, Foolish Heart, shows, renders that impossible. But right now Tami Neilson has all her bags packed and she’s ready to go, and while she may hate to go, in the morning she will be leaving on a jet plane.

For the moment though she is squeezing in an interview before she flies out of Auckland to the USA where she will be joining some new kids on the block, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan, on tour. No biggie: it’s only the 10th anniversary of the Outlaw Music Festival, and Willie, who has been a friend and touring partner since duetting with Neilson on her 2022 album, invited her personally.

If there is some reluctance in Neilson it is because this time it will be her alone, not the whole family of husband and two kids on the road. She has done that before – for five months in a mobile home we are obligated to describe as a 36ft RV, so it looks like we know what we’re talking about – and has the songs written on the road to prove it. In fact, has a whole album, Neon Cowgirl out next month, to prove it. (And in part two of this interview we’ll get stuck into the record.)

But her eldest started high school this year so three weeks away is not on the cards, as people get all thingy about things like that these days. Unlike when Neilson spent most of her childhood on the road through Canada and America with her all Christian/all singing/all country/all the time family band (“with all the adventure and trauma that goes with that,” as she puts it). And what harm did it do her?

Actually, don’t answer that.

“I’m a terrible example,” she chuckles now. “When [her eldest] started high school I basically was like, well buddy, you are officially farther than I ever went in school, so you’re on your own!”

So, while tomorrow is solo, “this album is very much documenting that experience and kind of preserving it for my kids to look back on.” Or, I suggest, for Family Services to use as evidence in a future case.

“Exactly that,” she says with a characteristic huge laugh.

What does she think her two children learned from that five months in close quarters with mum, dad, quite a few thousand Canadians and immersion in their Indigenous roots?

“I think the most beautiful thing for me was when I heard them speaking to their friends when they got home. Talking about ‘well, you know, I’m half Canadian’ and speaking with this authority, really owning their heritage,” Neilson says. “I said to Grant [Tetzlaff, husband] pretty much from the time they were babies, I really want to have a window of time where we actually spend a decent amount of time there so that they can really know where they come from and know that experience. Now they just understand how I grew up and how it felt, and have way more understanding of the job.”

They understand even more than you might think, ending up on stage more than a few times, singing Willie’s part on Beyond The Stars.

“They would come out and look at the venue and gauge how big it was. At first it was like, ‘ah, no, that’s too big, I don’t feel comfortable doing that’, then they would get brave and come out together. Then it was gauging if it was too small [for them to perform],” she laughs.

They don’t get out of bed for anything under 3000?

“It did not take them long to turn into divas. My ceiling very quickly became their floor!,” she says. “I had played Edmonton Folk Fest, it was something like 15,000 people on the main stage, and they got brave and did that with me, then we came back home to New Zealand and I was playing the town hall, which holds about 1800 people or 2000 people. I said to them, do you want to sing with me tonight? They said, ‘well how big is it? Oh, so just tiny then.’

“And I was like, okay, savage, just savage.”

Yeah, ouch. It’s a bit cruel when the people closest to you are the ones putting you in your place.

“I’m very used to it,” Neilson says with a roll of the eyes before an even bigger laugh than we’ve already had. “They’ve been putting me in my place since birth, without even realising it most of the time. ‘You think you’re hot stuff? Come wipe my ass!’ It puts everything into perspective really quickly.”

It even puts singing with Willie Nelson into perspective.

“I remember coming home after duetting with him for the first time and walking in the door, and within minutes the dog puked on the floor, and the kids will like pawing through my luggage trying to find presents. And I’m like, I guess I’m cleaning up the dog’s puke.”

If it’s any consolation, I reckon Willie would clean up his own dog puke.

“He seems like he would be that guy. Although, his wife Annie, she definitely is the one who if the toilet needs fixing, she is the one in there fixing it.”

True, no one is going to ask an artist to do anything practical.

“She just runs everything, she’s a powerhouse. He calls her his little rattlesnake,” Neilson cackles. “Willie has always been an easy natured kind of person, but he has always surrounded himself with people that you don’t want to mess with.”

Hey kids, there’s another lesson from the road.

NEXT MONTH: In part two of this interview: Tami Neilson on unleashing the full drama in music, why joy without pain isn’t real joy, and what you build when plans go awry.

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 Tamil Neilson’s Neon Cowgirl is out on July 11