Beccy Cole’s Triumphant Return With ‘Through The Haze’

For over thirty years, Beccy Cole has been delighting Australian music fans with her unique brand of true entertainment. The South Australian star’s glowing warmth, husky tones, bawdy sense of humour and hundred-watt smile have helped make her one of the nation’s most loved and celebrated artists.

With eleven Golden Guitars (Country Music Awards of Australia) to her name, Beccy is the most awarded Golden Guitar Female Artist Of The Year recipient, having won the prestigious title five times from 2001, 2002, 2007, 2012, and again in 2019. She also has multiple ARIA Top 10 Country albums, Top 40 mainstream releases, a Top 10 DVD, three gold-certified albums and more than a dozen #1 Australian country singles and stands among Australia’s most successful singer-songwriters.

Through The Haze is Beccy’s first solo album in seven years and is out now via ABC Music. Recorded on the NSW Central Coast, produced by Brandon Dodd of Dingo Music Productions and The Sisters of Twang including Julz Parker, Leesa Gentz, Ali Foster (and Beccy), the album was mixed by Matt Fell and mastered by Jeff McCormack. Beccy talks to Hi Fi Way about her triumphant return with Through The Haze.

First things first, congratulations on the album. You should be really proud of what you’ve achieved with that.
Thanks so much! Yeah, I’m speaking to you now, it’s been out nearly a week, so I’ve had an opportunity to have feedbacks. It’s nice to do interviews now, because when I was doing the interviews at first, I hadn’t had very much feedback, so you sort of go, oh, are people going to like this? I’m a little bit more settled in my heart to speak now.

How did you celebrate the release day?
Popped a bottle of champagne, I was actually in Sydney doing some promo, so I caught up with some friends there. But I’ve been sort of in half‑celebration all week, really, blown away at the ARIA results, and yeah, it’s been great.

Is it a feeling of relief, or satisfaction, or a combination of both now that it’s out there?
The scales tip in the way of relief, I just heard from the record company that this is my highest‑achieving album in the first week. I don’t know how that happened, I still think it’s more dumb luck than the actual performance of the record, but that’s just the way my brain and heart think.

Some of the lyrics are incredibly powerful. You tell quite a story. Did you expect it to be as personal as it was, or did it just evolve that way?
Probably not. I think it’s probably the evolution of it. I mean, I knew that I’m unafraid of being personal and being vulnerable. Therapy has taught me that. But also, years of writing songs and being a singer‑songwriter, you’re less worried about wearing your heart on your sleeve. I did delve pretty deep, and I was only reminded of how deep I went while doing the interviews, with people like yourself saying, geez, you’ve told us everything, and I go, oh, yeah, I guess I have.

When you get to the end of it and reflect, does it feel like you’ve put a full stop on a particular chapter of your life and can move on to the next phase?
Yeah, more than a full stop, it’s like a page turn. It feels wonderful to get it out there, and to have an opportunity for people to relate and see themselves in the lyrics. That’s a really lovely by‑product of putting your heart on your sleeve and telling your truth. But yeah, it does feel like it’s the last piece of the puzzle to be able to open up a box of a new puzzle, I guess.

It’s going to be hard to top a song like Shit Magnet. That must have been like a gift when it came to you?
You know, it was so funny, that was one of the really fresh songs that I only wrote last October. In fact, I did a festival earlier in October, and I referred to myself as a shit magnet, and it got a laugh from the crowd, and I thought, I’ve got to write that song. I’m actually doing the show with the lyrics starting to form in my head, going, oh, this song’s coming. Sometimes that happens as a writer, the old song writing fairy starts tapping you on the shoulder.

I was literally at a festival in Caboolture in Queensland thinking, I’ve got to write Shit Magnet, and it’s got to be a three quarter feel, and it’s going to be funny, and it’s going to be a very funny look at my own… you know. I think you’ve got to laugh at yourself, and I think we Aussies love that self‑deprecating humour. I guess because of my age, I’m less likely to dull it down. There’s nothing else I could have called it. It doesn’t get a lot of radio airplay, but I’m surprised at what radio have been playing it, to be honest.

Yeah, you’re going to have to do a tour t‑shirt with this.
I’ve already got them. They’re singlets and they have the cutest kind of shit emoji on it with the big cheeky smile. They were actually even more popular before the album came out, when I took them to festivals. So yeah, it’s cute.

Did it feel like a cleansing of the soul, the whole song writing process this time? More so than any other album you’ve worked on?
One hundred percent, yeah, you’ve nailed it. It felt to me like part of my therapy, real therapy, was learning how I operate, how my heart operates, how when my values don’t align with a partner, it’s never going to work. All those pearls of wisdom you learn from therapy, I was able to gain even more wisdom by putting it into poetry. It’s the most powerful thing.

I went to a facility to try and get myself back on track, and when I realised that music therapy is part of a rapid therapy course you can do, and art therapy in general is so important, getting yourself in touch with your heart… it sounds pretty woo‑woo, but…

The music therapist at first didn’t know what to do with me, because normally he’d help the person write a song, and that’s what I do for a living. So we were staring at each other for a little while, and then he said, look, if you can’t write a song about your own experience because you’re so blocked, why don’t you write about someone else?

So I did. I started getting that skill back by writing about someone else I had met, because you tend to open up in those places with the other, what I affectionately term as inmates. So definitely, it’s been a therapeutic exercise that is the gift that keeps giving, writing the song is therapeutic, recording the song and seeing it given a heartbeat in the studio, and now performing it live and getting feedback from people and realising they are hearing themselves in the song or having their own feelings validated. It is kind of the gift that keeps giving.

That’s a perfect way of putting it, but did it feel like a huge sort of emotional weight was lifted once you came out of the writing phase, and maybe even once you got the songs down in the studio as well?
Yeah, it absolutely felt like a huge weight was lifted, even though on one hand I didn’t have any doubt that these songs would make the record. I kept thinking someone was going to say to me, hey, you can’t say that, and maybe not record it, you might not be able to put that one on the album for whatever reason.

But nobody stood in my way, and every song that I wrote, apart from the bonus track, which I wrote years ago, there’s twelve songs I wrote for the record, and twelve songs are on the record. There’s not one that didn’t make it. In fact, there were eleven songs, and we had one extra day in the studio, and we were going to cancel it, and I said, oh, let me see if I can write one tonight, and I did. So for me, that experience… I’m still really close to the songs. Sometimes I even change lyrics as I’m singing them live, as you do, you tweak, you keep tweaking.

It is a compelling listen. For me, I’ve probably played it about half a dozen times this week, and it’s one of those albums where you don’t feel like skipping any track. It feels like a book. I’m curious how that will translate live, do you have to play them in a certain order, or were they written in such a way that it doesn’t matter where they’re slotted into your live set?
Well, I didn’t think it mattered too much. To be honest, I did the order on the album mainly in order of tempo and feel, so that you’re not exhausted with too many up‑tempo songs, or that real kind of ballad story, you don’t want two of those in a row, because that might get exhausting.

But I think we’re less compelled to… you know, a lot of people don’t listen the way you have from track one to the end, because of streaming, and because people make their own playlists. You can see on Spotify the popular songs, which have surprised me so far. Obviously people aren’t necessarily listening to the album from track one all the way through. It’s an interesting thing. I’m constantly changing the setlist, because there’s an expectation that you’re going to do some of your well‑known songs from thirty years ago, and then building up to this one.

This is probably the most of a new album that I’m doing live. Normally you would do four or five songs off the new album, but I’m definitely into more, like most of the album, actually, as well as trying to fit in the older ones. I’m trying not to talk as much between songs, because I’m sort of known for gabbing on a bit.

It’s too good not to play all these songs live, I think go your hardest on your album.
That’s really lovely, thank you. I’m really glad you like it.

Did you learn a lot about your own personal resilience, especially when you’re putting everything out there, warts and all?
More so this time than any other time, I think, because I’ve been through trauma, and a lot of these songs are a result of where I’ve come and coming through that as well, a reflection on the early part of that as well. I have learned a lot about myself. I only just sent an email before I spoke to you, someone said, oh, you sound nervous about something, and I said, no, no, no, I’m not nervous, I just have really strong boundaries these days. I never would have said something like that before.

For me, it’s a reflection on who you are, and I’ve always thought that I have this ability inside me. I think my superpower is my grandma, who I had up until 2023. She was this incredibly strong, funny, but really strong and capable woman, and I’ve always drawn on her. I think even more so at this time, and my mum, who’s eighty two and still going strong, and can still sing so well and bring the house down. So I think I come from this really strong, resilient line of women, but I had never tested that superpower in me as much as I have in the last few years after this trauma. I’m really proud of that, and I think with that strength comes the ability to share your vulnerability, which I think that’s the era we’re in, where you can share that kind of stuff and not be afraid of it.

Absolutely, and it just gives you more power, more strength to move into that next phase, whatever that might be. Was that the silver lining in all of this?
That’s right, yeah. It definitely opens up more possibilities, and the ability to help other people who are going through hard times. And gosh, aren’t we all now? Look at the state of things, financially, I think… I’m wondering if we’re about to face something similar to COVID, but with some sort of shortage of basic necessities in a world that can produce the most incredibly advanced technological offerings, and we might not be able to get fuel or milk. It’s pretty scary.

The whole studio experience, how exciting was that for you, just to see these songs come together and take shape, and to think all the hard work and lived experience to get to this point was all starting to click?
That was amazing, because I sort of had a bit of a kick up the bum from my son, who said, come on, Mum, I know you’ve got the songs in you, let’s book the studio, you’ll write the songs. I said, I don’t even know where… because I knew I needed to feel comfortable in the space. He said, go to your best mate’s house. So Rabbit Hole Recording Studios is on Kasey Chambers’ property. We grew up together, and I knew I would feel comfortable there and then I surrounded myself with my favourite people, Ricky included, my son.

There’s an incredible amount of bravery that you need to actually play your songs to these people in the first place, because I still didn’t have the confidence to know whether they were any good. You sort of play them apologetically.

They kept saying, hey, are we going to hear the songs? It’s two days before we’re recording, have you got a little scratch recording on your phone? And I’m thinking, oh my god, people are going to hear these.
But from that moment I had such support and such love from those people. They were all with me every step of the way through my trauma and everything, so it was like making music with family. Just to hear the songs come alive was such a thrill.

That’s why there’s no one producer on this record, I credited everybody as a producer. The drummer wasn’t sitting there waiting to hear what feel I wanted; she was saying, how about this? What if I do this?
There’s interesting percussion, great harmonies, people did all that with love, and I think you can hear that. The first vibe I got that other people could hear what we had in the studio was when I got a text from Matt Fell on Christmas Day. He was mixing the album and said, wow, I can hear you guys were having the best time with these songs. I thought, wow, that transfers. That was the first feeling I got that it wasn’t just on the day, people can hear that on the record too. I think Jules Parker playing guitar, it sounds like you’ve got Derek Trucks on the album or something.

Did you get a moment to yourself once you had the finished version of the album to take it all in?
Yeah, I did. It’s very hard to separate yourself, but I remember feeling so incredibly proud of all the contributors. What starts as this tiny little seed and idea… the songs were so fresh that I’d say, oh, I don’t know if we should do an extra bar there, or I’ll write a lyric for that, but at the moment I’ve got this in, they were so fresh, and in some cases slightly undercooked. They just came alive.

That first thing of putting on a really good pair of Sennheiser’s and having a decent listen with it cranked and going that sounds really good. I was really proud of it, but more so proud of everybody. You can hear everything. This one and my last album are the first times I’ve played my own guitar. In the past it’s been, with respect, some bloke saying, let me play that for you, little lady. I go alright on guitar, and I’m really proud that my rhythm guitar, and some lines are up in the mix. You hear those and you’re reminded of the confidence I had, because I’m singing and playing at the same time. So any vocal I had to replace, I had to also play guitar. It did wonders for my confidence.

Did you high‑five yourself at the end of it? You’ve got to be pretty stoked.
Validation is a great word. I definitely felt really validated as a musician, as a songwriter, and as a singer, and as a storyteller. For that reason, surrounding myself with the right people, predominantly the women in my live band, three of those were in the studio with me, and my son sometimes on rhythm guitar. Brandon Dodd, who I’ve known for a long time, who is incredibly sensitive in his approach in that producer role, but also with his contributions on different instruments. He’d say, hey, you know what’s going to sound really good? Bill Chambers on the lap steel. He lives around the corner, let’s give him a call. He’ll come in, he’ll play on the band track. All those little contributions. There’s an amount of pride I feel in myself achieving this, but also with everybody around me. It was such an equal contribution from all.

Does it make you worry a little about how you’re going to top that when it comes time to think about the next album?
Oh, look, I’d be happy to just equal it, to just continue the story. I really hope I’m not going to have to go through another trauma to get a bunch of songs. There are so many stories to be told. My heroes, Aussie heroes like Graeme Connors, John Williamson, and Kasey Chambers, have proved that you don’t have to go through heartbreak and devastation to write a decent album. In this case, with my tongue in my cheek, it helped. But I don’t want to have to go through that again.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Beccy Cole’s Through The Haze is out now…

Purchase/Stream HERE