Landing on Australian shores in 2007, it took little time for singer Tracy McNeil to make good friends and, collectively, even better music.
Now considering herself a Melbourne local, Tracy & The GoodLife are on the verge of a lengthy east-coast tour promoting their new album 'Thieves', undoubtedly her most ambitious and pleasing outing to date. “We’re rehearsing like crazy and trying to get all our ducks in line; get all our merch. We’re waiting for our vinyl to come in from England. Heaps of radio interviews and stuff too so it’s busy. The ball is rolling now, it’s great.”
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On the unassuming therapeutic nature of interviews, Tracy likes the process. “You have good days. You have days where you feel like, 'Yeah that was a good interview'. Then you have other days where it doesn’t come as easily. It’s cool because you never think about your music from those perspectives, you don’t really analyse it or think about why you do it. It forces you into this corner and I feel like I work a lot of stuff out that I normally wouldn’t even think about.”
The move to Australia and the musical journey it started was somewhat unintentional, but infinitely beneficial for both Tracy and her audience. “I was only supposed to come for ten months. I had just released my first album in Canada and then three days later, after launching in Toronto, I moved to Australia for the ten-month course, always intending on coming back.
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“I ended up falling in love with Melbourne. I met musicians over here, started writing songs, I put my own band together and that was it. I thought, 'I can’t leave'. To many good things were happening with music. So I applied for a teaching job and thought if I get it, I can stay in the country, if I don’t then I’ll have to go back. And I got it so here I am.”
It didn't take long for Tracy to engineer her own band. “I put together a band when I first got here and it’s changed a little bit over the years; Bree Hartley was the first drummer I ever had and I’m still with her. I’ve got Luke Sinclair from Raised By Eagles, who happens to be my husband, on rhythm guitar, and now Dan Parsons on lead guitar.
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“We’ve got a new line-up for this album and it’s a little different from the last record and I’m really lucky, I feel so fortunate. Luke and Dan are both incredible songwriters in their own right; it’s kind of like I’ve got three front-people in one band.
“Our most recent band member Trent McKenzie used to play bass for Sal Kimber & The Rollin’ Wheel and now he’s with us. We convinced him; we got him really drunk at Port Fairy and then coerced him to join the band. I’d tried to get him to join about six months prior to that, bought him some beers at the Post Office Hotel and he was like, 'I can’t do it I’m too busy I love your music but I can’t do it.'”
Tracy McNeil & The GoodLife Tour Dates
Thu 30 Jun - Union Hotel (Sydney)Fri 1 Jul - The Stag & Hunter Hotel (Sydney)
Sat 2 Jul - Grand Junction – The Junkyard (Maitland)
Sun 3 Jul - The Marrickville Bowling Club (Sydney)
Fri 8 Jul - Baha’s (Rye)
Sun 10 Jul - Westernport Hotel (San Remo)
Thu 14 Jul - Lefty's Old Time Music Hall (Brisbane)
Fri 15 Jul - The Night Quarter (Gold Coast)
Sun 17 Jul - The Triffid (Brisbane)
Fri 22 Jul - Transwells Commercial Hotel (Beechworth)
Sat 23 Jul - Major Tom’s (Kyneton)
Sun 31 Jul - Old Hepburn Hotel (Hepburn Springs)
Fri 12 Aug - The Wheatsheaf Hotel (Adelaide)
