Matt Walker Reveals How Inspiration, Chemistry And A Living Room Built ‘Before The Show’ With With Tex Perkins

Tex Perkins & Matt Walker have released their highly anticipated debut album, Before The Show. This collaboration between two of Australia’s most respected musicians is a no-brainer, with Perkins and Walker having shared stages over the years both as a duo, and as members of The Fat Rubber Band and The Cruel Sea, they have developed a natural musical rapport – and this shows throughout the album. Recorded in the winter of ’25 by Matt Walker, using his mobile recording unit, every performance was recorded live in his living room as a first take, preserving the spontaneity, and instinctive chemistry that emerged in the room between the two.

Whether it’s the future-blues of A Little More Time or the swaggering twelve-string jangle and vocal harmonies of Maybe Tomorrow, there is a propulsion and warmth to the songs that feels effortless. The sound of feet tapping on the wooden floor, along with the crackle of an open fire, was captured by the microphone, placing the listener directly inside the performances. The Truth makes us question if anyone really is to blame, as we may “never know the truth.” Elsewhere, the album opens the door to a more imagined world. Additional instrumentation draws the songs into stranger and more surreal territory, expanding the duo’s acoustic foundations into an evocative folk-blues landscape. I Have My Doubts, in particular, ventures into this more atmospheric terrain, revealing another side of the album’s sonic palette. Before The Show documents the sound of two musicians with decades of experience, trusting each other enough to simply play. The result is a warm, intimate collection of songs, rooted primarily in acoustic folk-blues with Tex’s familiar brand of storytelling. Matt Walker talks to Rob Lyon about the album.

Congratulations on the new album Before the Show with Tex. It’s an incredible listen.
Oh, I’m glad you like it. Thanks, man.

What is it with your partnership with Tex that just keeps delivering all these amazing songs?
Oh, gee, I don’t know. I mean, we’ve kind of been crossing paths for many years, and then in the last sort of ten or maybe even fifteen, we’ve been working together, writing songs and doing different shows. So I guess it’s been… yeah, something works about it because we’ve been doing it a while, I guess. I don’t know, it just kind of clicks, you know? We have similar inspiration, music that we draw on. It just kind of works, and we’re always kind of doing something new, so it sort of keeps a sort of momentum.

I think you said something there, it just clicks. There’s just something about the chemistry that you’ve both got, and you can even just see that from the artwork as well. Is that something you wish you could bottle and unleash when you’re struggling to get inspiration for a certain song?
Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of rare to have really productive collaborations that keep going on for a few years. So when you do get them, you, well, I hang on to them. I really like collaborating and when I think about it, I’ve only really collaborated with a handful of people during my whole time playing. Yeah, that’s because when you find it, it takes a while to find it, so you don’t want to take it for granted.

With this particular album, how did it all start? Was it pre‑planned, or did it just evolve from sitting in your living room and jamming out initial ideas?
Well, no. Usually with an album, I always like to have some kind of idea or guiding principle or framework of what the album’s going to be, and then it usually changes from that. I’m not very strict at staying to it, but I usually have an idea and for this one, Tex and I had been doing a lot of shows, just the two of us, for years now, drawing on back catalogue and songs we’d written together. We’d done some albums with the band we formed called Fat Rubber Band, and songs from those records we play, and some from Tex’s back catalogue.

So it came to a natural point where we thought, yeah, we really need to do a record that we recorded just like this, because we love playing like this and I had just moved right near Tex. I had a little mobile recording setup, and I said, I reckon we should just do a really stripped‑back record, and I can record it here. So I started writing music for it and sending them up the hill to him. The great thing about Tex is when he’s engaged with something, he’s very productive. Sometimes you give an idea to someone you want to collaborate with and nothing happens for six months. But with Tex, nothing stands in his way once he’s got a vibe on something creatively. So it was very quick, sending music, he’d write words, he’d come down the hill, have dinner, and we’d bang a song into shape, do a few phone demos to get the arrangement, and then record it. Each song happened in less than a week, from writing it from nothing to having it. Rather than put them in a folder of demos and then go to a studio and stress about recreating the moment, we just captured them all at the time. That’s why I wanted to record it myself.

Was that the real magic, seeing these songs start to take shape literally then and there?
We were just really enjoying the process. The guiding principle was to make a stripped‑back record with not even much reverb or effects, but to make it intimate and nothing too distracting in the production. Tex’s voice has so many frequencies in it anyway, he’s got every frequency in his voice from low to high and I just always loved the guitars, so to me that was like… I’m happy with that. I’d usually play a second acoustic guitar afterwards to embellish a little bit, make it sound a bit more full or give it a bit more push in some places. But generally it was just guitar and vocals and then on a handful of songs there ended up being a few more things, dobro, harmonica, a bit of synth. We just did what we thought would be cool on the song. Often I’d try extra instrumentation and then get rid of it anyway, it was just better stripped back. But there’s a handful on there that have some piano, still pretty minimal.

I reckon also with this album, there’s a certain vulnerability and a different side to Tex that I probably haven’t seen before.
Oh, that’s good. I’m glad. Because, you know, it’s Tex. That’s just what… I mean, that’s how he’s writing, responding to the songs we worked on together and the music. Usually I just give him music, and he comes back with words. If he connects with a piece, he writes what’s on his mind and maybe he doesn’t have to push so much, like he does when he’s with the Beasts or the Cruel Sea. When you’re playing with a whole band, you have to sing differently and I think just having an acoustic kind of record, he could mess around with singing in a slightly different way, maybe.

Do the songs as you’re writing them, are they deliberate for whether it’s a Matt Walker–Tex Perkins record or whether it’s a Cruel Sea or whether it’s your own solo project or whatever?
Well, these were all definitely written with this album in mind because it was such a short period of time. The whole record would have been done in a couple of months, from writing to finished recording. So these ones definitely… I mean, when I first started writing with Tex, it was interesting. When we started writing songs for the Fat Rubber Band first album, because that was when I was writing songs, and I’d said to Tex, we should do a record together, and I gave him a few references of what I was thinking. He’s like, yeah, yeah, let’s do it and I’d been writing a few songs with lyrics, and so I started sending them to him, and then I was writing more with lyrics, but it was one of the first times I’ve written songs thinking of someone specific other than me to sing them and it was actually really fun doing that.

I wrote a couple of songs for the last Cruel Sea record and one of those songs could have easily been on this record. If it hadn’t have been used by the Cruel Sea, it probably would have ended up on this record, because it’s a bit of an acoustic kind of song, so… yeah, like I said, generally it helps me to have some kind of guiding idea of what an album’s going to be like, like what the instrumentation is going to be like, even if it’s just a feeling or a sense, like a certain mood that you want to create, it doesn’t have to be specific.

It must be also really satisfying that it was all done in a couple of months?
Records can go either way. So this did not have too many people involved. As much as I love going into a studio and working with an engineer who can handle all the microphone stuff, and watching levels, and also having input creatively. Usually, when you’re in a studio, the engineer will be saying, try this, oh, I’ve got this bit of gear sitting here, or, oh, I’ve got this guitar, try this, and that’s all great. But it’s nice every now and then to just be doing something where you can just record it yourself, it’s a little bit more direct and you don’t have conversations about as many things, you just get into a really easy workflow. Less people involved is always feels a bit quicker.

Heading out on tour, that’s exciting, particularly here in Adelaide at the Trinity Sessions. Are you planning on playing it start to end?
Yeah, I’ve never played there, but it sounds pretty special. We’re doing a lot of songs off the new album, we’re loving doing that. We’ve got some songs that we’ve written for other records that work really well as a duo as well. So yeah, I’ll let my twelve‑string and a six‑string, and Tex will probably bring his electric. So yeah, we’ll do a bit of a mixed bag, but definitely a lot off the new record.

Is there still a little bit of life left in the Cruel Sea?
I don’t know. I don’t have a huge amount set in stone for next year. So at the moment, Tex and I have got a busy tour pretty much until mid‑December. We’re playing constantly, like every week we’re off somewhere playing. Yeah. So we do that, and it just feels great to have this record out and we have a lot of shows. I’m just kind of really enjoying that, and we’ll see what next year brings.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Before The Show is out now via Cheersquad Records & Tapes.
Available on vinyl, CD, and all streaming platforms.
Purchase a physical copy HERE.

Don’t miss Tex Perkins & Matt Walker live:
THU 5 NOV – THE J THEATRE, Noosa QLD
FRI 6 NOV – SOUNDLOUNGE, Currumbin QLD
SAT 7 NOV – LEFTY’s, Brisbane QLD
THU 12 NOV – BRUNSWICK BALLROOM, Brunswick VIC
FRI 13 NOV – MEMO MUSIC HALL, St Kilda VIC
SAT 14 NOV – THEATRE ROYAL, Castlemaine VIC
SUN 15 NOV – ARCHIE’S CREEK HOTEL, Archie’s Creek VIC
THU 19 NOV – TOWN TALL, Hobart TAS
FRI 20 NOV – ISLAND STATE BREWING, Devonport TAS
SAT 21 NOV – THE TRAMSHEDS FUNCTION CENTRE, Launceston TAS
SUN 22 NOV – SPRING BAY MILL, Triabunna TAS
FRI 27 NOV – TANK ARTS CENTRE, Cairns QLD

more dates to be announced

TICKETS ON SALE AT TEXPERKINS.COM