With 9 Golden Guitars, 14 #1 singles on the Australian Country Music Charts, 7 songwriting awards, 3 gold records and 4 Entertainer Of The Year Awards under her belt, country music singer Beccy Cole has won enough awards to fill Darryl Kerrigan's pool room several times over.
Despite having a list of achievements that would make any musician envious, Beccy Cole's career is showing no signs of slowing down. With her tenth album ready for release and a biography about to hit the shelves, Beccy Cole is undoubtedly one of Australia's most successful country music performers.
The South Australian songstress is bringing her trademark country vibes to the sunny shores of the Gold Coast where she will play the Broadbeach Country Music Festival. Though the Gold Coast is normally associated with dance music festivals and major events like the Big Day Out, the Broadbeach Country Music Festival actually suits the Gold Coast rather well. Twanging country guitars and pristine white sands go surprisingly well together, and Cole says there is definitely a big market for the festival. “I think there's a big market. I don't think there's enough of it and when you can get the council behind the arts, it's such a great thing for the local area.”
Regardless of the location, whether it's on the white shores of the Gold Coast or on the red sands of the outback, jumping up on stage and playing a killer live show is what's most important for Cole. “My preference is simply just playing live, rather than in the studio or at home in the office, I think playing live in front of an audience has always been and will always be my greatest pleasure.”
That's not to say Beccy doesn't do much work in the studio – her tenth studio album 'Sweet Rebecca' is scheduled for release in April and unlike a lot of country musicians who seem to release the same song over and over again, Cole manages to release something fresh and original with every album.“As an artist you don't want to be bringing out the same stuff every year. It's album number ten now so I wanted it to be from the heart. I wrote the album shortly after finishing my autobiography and I realised that I liked writing songs a whole lot more than writing my book. Even though I enjoyed working on the book, I'm really just an old gig pig and I love writing songs and putting it all together and the whole album writing process.”
The book Cole talks about is her highly anticipated biography 'Poster Girl', due out later this year. Despite being a little nervous about her writing skills in her first ever book, Cole says the book is a sincere and genuine account of her life. “I have to be honest, I'm absolutely shitting myself. It's the first book I've ever written, and I'm no Shakespeare, but I've just written my story in my words. It was important for me not to have a ghost writer – I didn't want anyone else to have any power of manipulation over my thoughts and feelings. It's my story and I have to be OK with that.”
If a biography release wasn't enough to hint at the success Cole has had in her time as a singer-songwriter, the recent release of a greatest hits album certainly should be. “I don't know whether to feel old or honored,” Cole chuckles. “It's a thrill and an honour that people think I'm worthy of a greatest hits album, but the reality is I'm only half way through my career, I feel like I'm only just getting going. But I'm so lucky, I think in this genre especially people have more longevity as artists than in other genres.”
After quite an illustrious career, Beccy Cole has no intentions of slowing down. Despite having won numerous awards and sold a huge number of albums, Cole says the best reward a musician can get is longevity and staying power within the industry. “I just wanna hang in there. I don't want to leave. As far as where can I go – I just wanna keep going. There's no better reward or award in my mind than longevity in this industry, the best part about it is the friends I've made along the way and I just wanna stick with it and keep going.“I'm very lucky because I've just signed another record deal and it's nice to have a record company willing to invest into any talent that I may have. My goal is just to stick with it.”
You can expect Beccy Cole to stick around in the country music scene for many more years to come, with the possibility of doing some shows in the United States too. “I recently did a show for this whole cruise ship full of Americans and they were all trying their hardest to get me over there to play different festivals and things like that. I haven't said no, and I'll never say never, so who knows. Apart from my trips to entertain the Aussie troops over seas I really haven't done too much overseas career-wise, but who knows. It would always be great to go somewhere to play music.”
For now though, she's just happy to stay in Australia where she's right at home. “I've always been able to find my audience here.”
'Sweet Rebecca' is out 10 April.
Written by Matthew Sales
Beccy Cole Tour Dates
Fri 27 March – Melbourne Arts CentreSat 28 March – Her Majesty's Theatre (South Ballarat)
Fri 1 May – Urban Country Music Festival (Caboolture)
Sat 16 May – Mount Isa Music Festival
Thurs 28 May – Hallam Hotel
Fri 29 May – The Gateway Hotel (Corio)
Sat 30 May – York On Lilydale (Mount Evelyn)
Fri 19 June – Broadbeach Country Music Festival
