Born and raised in a small town, singer-songwriter Jack Carty takes his music along Australia's lesser-known touring trails as part of the Festival Of Small Halls.
“My favourite gigs are always in quirky old halls,” Jack says. “I love intimate gigs in old halls, they're literally my favourite gigs to do in the world, so this tour is essentially completely that, which is kind of a dream come true.”
Festival Of Small Halls takes place as part of this year's extensive Woodford Folk Festival programming and will feature Jack alongside Scottish troubadour Siobhan Miller. “Touring Australia these days, I don't often get to go places that I haven't played before,” Jack says.
“But this tour is mostly places I haven't played before because the whole point of the festival is that it gets out into small towns and regions that don't necessarily get a lot of artists coming through and bring some music to those places. I'm going to get to discover a bunch of towns in Australia I've never gotten to and, to be honest, probably wouldn't get to play if it wasn't for Festival Of Small Halls.”
In addition to Festival Of Small Halls, Jack will also be performing at Woodford Folk Festival (Sunshine Coast) itself.
“I've been [to Woodford] as a punter a bunch of times as well, and after all these years in between playing festivals everywhere all over the world, it's still my favourite festival I've ever played. I'm really excited to get back and play all this new music and enjoy the festival,” he says.
It's been more than a year since Jack released his last album 'Hospital Hill', which was written with Papa Vs Pretty bassist Gus Gardiner and explored the nostalgic pull of small towns. “It was a really good year and the record seems to have been received really well,” Jack says.
“It was kind of a departure from stuff I had been doing before and maybe a little more cerebral in the sense of the string arrangements and the format of it. . . it's a little bit classical I guess, so it was interesting to see how that was going to go but people seemed to really respond to it and the shows were incredible.”
This year has also seen the birth of Jack's son, which has had a profound impact on his songwriting as well as his creative process. Jack says there's plenty of new music for listeners to look forward to over the coming months, as he completes work on a backlog of songs for a new album coming next year.
“I was writing heaps even before 'Hospital Hill' was released, because we recorded a little bit before it came out so I've been writing and recording heaps of new music and I'm fairly close to finishing a new album,” he says.
“There's lots of new music coming and I've been making it in a bit of a different way to my previous records; previously I'd write the songs then go in and record them in a short period of time, within two weeks or a month of being in the studio. I'd just started working on this new music when we found out we were going to be parents, so I made this record in a much more meandering way.”
Jack Carty Tour Dates
16-17 Nov - Mullum Music Festival (Northern Rivers)30-31 Dec - Woodford Folk Festival (Sunshine Coast)
1 Jan - Woodford Folk Festival (Sunshine Coast)
4 Jan - Southport Community Hall (TAS)
5 Jan - Derby Town Hall (TAS)
6 Jan - Rowella Hall (TAS)
7 Jan - Nunamara Town Hall (TAS)
8 Jan - Longford Town Hall (TAS)
9 Jan - Mole Creek Memorial Hall (TAS)
