Nathan Cavaleri Is Taking ‘Miracles’ On The Road

Nathan Cavaleri is one of Australia’s most highly acclaimed singer /songwriter /guitarists. He has worked with some of the world’s finest and most celebrated musicians across the course of his career, including Bonnie Raitt, Diesel and Mark Knopfler to name a select few. He was once labelled “the future of blues” by B.B. King. Nathan’s fourth album Miracles comes out tomorrow which features some awesome singles in Broken Lines and Querencia and he talks to Hi Fi Way about the album and tour which starts next month.

How exciting is the build up to album number four?
Oh my God! This album’s been going on for a year and a half now, so that feeling when I submitted it to the label, I didn’t realise how much space it took up in my brain until I handed it over.

Do you lose time with Covid?
I did it a little bit. Not because of the recordings, but because it messed with my touring schedule. So, my touring schedule got pushed back into when I was supposed to be recording. That’s why it’s a little later than what I wanted it to be, but it all happened for a reason.

Absolutely. It’s good that the planets are aligning and it’s all going to plan now?
Feels that way.

Is there, is there a hidden sort of meaning behind the album title Miracles?
Yeah. I mean, ‘Miracles’ as the sentiment of the song itself came about during Covid when I was dealing, not so much with fear, but just a lot of anger. A lot of anger, because I felt this wrestle between the constant bombardment of bad news and just fight or flight triggering broadcasting and information. I kept thinking to myself, that’s an element of what’s happening in the world right now, and obviously an important one, but that’s not full picture. I’ve got a lot out reminding myself of the everyday good that happens as well. The everyday miracles every time you wake up, like I’ve got a heartbeat, I’m still breathing, I’m still here out of all the possibilities and it maybe me wonder whether the new generation that are coming through, whether we’re bringing up kids that are so a lot more focused on world issues and compromising a lot of their own creativity and youth. That’s essentially what Miracles is. Just a reminder to include everything that’s going on in the experience, not just the bad stuff.

Did you find that the ideas for the songs, particularly in the early stages, come to you relatively quickly?
Some songs were really quick and other songs, it was just a real slog. There are a couple songs on there that have been around for a long time. One in particular I wrote back in 2011. It really just depends how connected I am to my creative subconscious at the time.

The song that you mentioned you wrote back in 2011, was it one of those songs that would always see the light of day and too good to let go of?
I think just my relationship with it kept changing. I loved it when I created it, then I sort of went somewhere else creatively, it no longer was relevant and then it’s just become all of a sudden relevant again. Even the message of it, it’s called Dry Ice. It’s essentially about fear. I needed one extra song on the album and I thought, you know what, maybe that’s meant for Dry Ice, this slot. I gave it a chance and put it to my little team around me of ears that I trust and got thumbs up all the way around, including myself.

Did everything go to plan to the studio and did it change much from what you originally intended?
It’s better than what I imagined. I’ve been a producer, mixer and writer for a long time, but I’ve never really felt a hundred percent comfortable in producing my own work because I don’t necessarily trust my opinions from the inside. Originally the plan was to get somebody on board to produce it with me, and for whatever reason, the world, it just didn’t work out, like there would be budget problems or just availability problems. It was just a lesson in listening to the world, and they all just kept coming back to me going, dude, we know the work that you do, you should be producing it yourself, do it Kev Parker style. I took that leap and figured that this was something that I needed to do myself.

There was one part of it that I brought on somebody else, and that’s a guy called Andrew Scheps. He’s been around for a long time. He’s mixed everything from Lana De Rey to Michael Jackson to Red Hot Chili Peppers. I put it to him and said, everyone keeps telling me to mix my own music. What do you think? He said, mate, do it yourself and just use me as a backstop. So I’d send my mixes to him at the end of the day, he would give me some notes to refine it. I think that was a really important part of the process and the reason why the song and the album as a whole has turned out better than what I imagined it was going to,

Have you been able to listen to the album as a fan would? What did you think?
I think it’s probably too early to say, I think I need to have about two, three months away from it to be able to listen to it with fresh ears. Having said that, when I decided on the track order for the album, which I’ll say is probably one of the hardest decisions that I’ve had to make. I must have been flinging around ideas for about three, four hours and it was driving me nuts that I could create a whole album and including mixing it and I can’t work out an order. Finally when it worked, and I took some time, I went for a walk along the beach and listen to it from start to finish. My head was spinning. It was definitely a real moment. I think the process of letting go and just surrendering as well and getting out of your head because once you hand over an album to a label, it’s out of your hands. In the words of Paul Kelly, when I was watching him speak at a panel, he said, the song, once it’s out there, it’s out of my control. The song will do what it’ll do. As an artist, you really have to learn how to accept that instead of trying to give it all sorts of expectations and manhandle it. That’s the kind of the philosophy I’m adopting at the moment.

Did you have it in the back of your mind exactly how you want it to sound?
Overall, most of the songs, I could hear them in my head before I recorded them, I had a map that I could follow in order to get there. There were maybe one or two songs where the process was quite slow because I couldn’t hear it fully in my head, then you’re in a world of experimenting, let’s try this, let’s try that. It’s just sort of trial and error for the most part, how it sounds is how I imagined it in my head. There’s always going to be things that bother you, there’s a quote that’s like, an album is never finished, it’s just abandoned! You wouldn’t really put that on your resume if you’re trying to get work from a label but there is some truth to that because you can pick things apart because that’s what your mind does. Your perfectionism quite frankly can ruin things if you let that take over.

You must be looking forward to getting back out on the road and touring, playing here at The Grace Emily in Adelaide?
Oh, yeah, I’ve heard so much about The Grace. Good friends of mine, Taasha Coates and Dusty Lee Stevenson from Wanderers were raving about The Grace. We’re getting down to Mount Gambier as well the next day. Every gig that I’ve done in Adelaide has been a lot of fun. We’ve just came back from a big trip, three weeks around Western Australia, up and down the coast, we also played New Zealand which was great. We’re itching to get out there. Still got a bit of work to do to prepare a lot of these songs for the format that we play them on stage.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Miracles is out through ABC Music on Friday 16 June…

Catch Nathan Cavaleri on the following dates…

Tickets from https://www.nathancavaleri.com/tour