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(Photo by WILK)
IF THERE IS A CHOICE between truth and legend, print the legend.
This cultural wisdom worked a treat for pulp novels in the 19th century, for westerns in the golden years of Hollywood â the original line after all coming from John Fordâs The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance â and outlaw country music in the 1970s.
Of those âoutlawsâ, Merle Haggard had done hard time (including being in the San Quentin jail when Johnny Cash did his first shows there) as had David Allan Coe, while Johnny Paycheck would go to prison in the late â80s. But Cash (an overnight stay in a county jail notwithstanding), Willie Nelson, military veteran Kris Kristofferson, Jessi Coulter and others could barely scratch up more than a speeding ticket.
Some of those singers had a past, some of those singers had of a dodgy future, but it didnât really matter if they had the beard, the denim and leathers, and the attitude. Print the legend!
Just ask a youngish Henry Wagons, now a bearded/hatted/booted singer and songwriter, broadcaster and raconteur, with an album called South Of Everywhere imminent, but then a kid who knew deep down that he would never walk into a saloon and silence the pianist and gamblers, or send the women scurrying for safety. Hell, he couldnât even make the people in front of him look up.
âI was playing in a lot of bands in the late â90s, of different sorts, as so many Melbourne ratbags did,â he says. âI was at uni, I was playing in a noise band that sounded like an out of tune TV, I was playing bass in an indie rock band called, Breaking The Law âŠ.â
Which he never did, right?
âI might have stolen a mint Aero bar from a 7/11 at 3 oâclock in the morning in Fitzroy, but that might be as bad as it gets,â he confesses under this relentless cross-examination. âBut I was noticing that in that sort of DIY scene, that shoegazing scene, everyone was kind of a shrinking violet. Everyone was kind of stand-and-deliver, they dressed the way they did at home on the couch.
"And I was 18 and 19 going back through my parents record collection, seeing people like Marty Robbins and Merle and Johnny Cash and Elvis and [pause] Rod Stewart, even the Blues Brothers, and thinking no oneâs giving it, no one is delivering on stage in this obnoxious way: I want to try that, it looks really fun.â
Such an epiphany, that would spark a two-decade (so far) career, came with broader cultural input than Stewart in animal print leggings and Jake and Elwoodâs porkpie hats.
âMy now bass player, Mark âTuckerbagâ Dawson, a dear friend who I played music with, gave me Johnny Cashâs American Recordings, the first one. At the time I was also reading Cormac McCarthy, the Border Trilogy. I also had just seen Dead Man, the Jim Jarmusch film,â says Wagons. âI was really attracted to that mythology, that trippy Western stuff that was a combination of Looney Tunes Foghorn Leghorn mythology from my childhood, these deep songs, the Blues Brothers.
But wait, thereâs more, possibly in keeping with the fact this budding cowpoke was a suburban Melbourne kid who had ridden a horse once, âbut really badlyâ, and was more tooled up for some of that fancy book learninâ them folks back east are always talking about. And I donât mean Zane Grey.
âI was studying philosophy as well, I was a real philosophy wanker, and I really liked grappling with those concepts. So I started writing some murder ballads, some death songs, and telling some tall tales,â and I feel like ever since then, when it comes to writing and engaging with the country music mythology, Iâve never been pushing shit uphill,â Wagons says. âIâve never had to fake it, or force it. Itâs had a momentum thatâs been out of my control such that Iâm still doing it, and to my immense satisfaction itâs taken over my life. And Iâm really thankful for it.â
We look at each other for a bit, that explanation having been a decent old ride but in truth I am fixating on the picture of Foghorn Leghorn riding with a death posse into the darklands of the Texas/Mexico border, possibly being chased by a dark-browed philosophy major and a love interest from Miss Prissy. Now thatâs an image to play with, one worthy of an outlaw country song on its own.
But back to young Henry and his new obsession. It took a while for people to realise this was not a fad, this was now him.
âSome of my bandmates, especially early days of [his alt.country band] Wagons, were like âthis country stuff is really fun, but when do we get to hear some real Henry songs?â. At the time Iâd try and please them somehow, and I never quite could,â he says. âI feel like what Iâve done is me. I feel like for better or worse Iâm telling stories, Iâm playing a character, Iâm having fun with dark concepts, and if you know me that is kind of exactly who I am.â
Donât let Wagons near a gun in Reno. Just sayinâ.
âEven though Iâm not listening to a transistor radio in a prison cell in the American South in the 1960s, this is all I can do. This is actually the most authentic expression of me and I feel like when Iâve tried to do anything else itâs then Iâm faking it,â he says. âI donât know whether I am brainwashing the mythology or vice versa, but either way, this is where weâve ended up.â
And where weâve ended up is a new album that could be said to work the same territory, but retooling its characters, touching on locations and characters not just local but tangible in Henry Wagonsâ life. Maybe even parts of him.
âSome of them are completely made up but they are very much embedded in stories of the road around Australia, and itâs a very honest record,â Wagons says, adding wryly. âIâm trying to be at peace with it and not trying to impress my bass player anymore.â
And who wants the truth all the time anyway? I tell him that after listening to the album I didnât want to know, in fact actively worked against knowing, whether Dover, in Tasmania, is truly âsouth of everywhereâ as claimed in Felix Granger The Finger Pickenâ Boy. Iâd rather exist in a world where that song and that character are very real and there are no narcs pulling out an atlas to prove Wagons or me wrong.
âWhen I talk about âthe Southâ to Americans, itâs like, this ainât the South; Iâm from Australia, now weâre talking the South,â says Wagons with a grin. âSpoiler alert: Dover is very south. And it is a real place. Though itâs not the furthest south.
âBut it harks back to what we were talking about: Felix isnât anybody, he is not a real person, but he is every guitarist, every lead guitarist I have ever met. When I approached Chris Cheney, who plays lead guitar in this song, he said âthis song is meâ, and I said thatâs really nice Chris, thank you. But in my head I was going, I know.
âSo [Felix Granger] is not true, but he is actually more true than anyone.â
Truth is legend is better than truth. Print that.
South Of Everywhere is out February 3 on Cheatinâ Hearts Records.