Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tammy Nielsen seems to be getting ever bigger internationally lady.
This year she's touring the US with Willie Nelson and
Bob Dylan. She's into Europe as well as far as
we're concerned. There are five shows here in October, which
is good. The single is Borrowing My Boots. The album
is called Neon Cowgirl, which is out next month, which
is exciting. In Tammy Nilson's back, whether it's a very
good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
To you, good morning, how are you?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I'm well, thank you? Do you join us with rollers
in your hair or something? Are you getting ready for
tonight already?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah? The music awards prep.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
I have two kids, so my day starts usually around
six thirty and that's every day, so I'm gonna have to,
you know, by the time the awards rolls around, I'm
propping my eyes open with two picks, you know, to
stay away.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
But you're up for some awards tonight. Is it a
good gathering? Is it one of those moods? I haven't
been for a number of years, but there's the mood
in the room. You can get a vibe for the industry.
Is your vibe At the moment, the music industry is
in good, good heart or not.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I always love the awards because it is it's a
gathering of our community. It's celebrating each other and lifting
each other up. And you know, when you're a musician,
your career is you're quite siloed. You know, you're out
on the road, you're not in a work environment with colleagues,
and so whenever we get to have awards, it's like,
I guess, you know, like you guys having a Christmas party.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
You know, it's like staff Christmas party.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
That's when we actually get to all see each other
and celebrate each other.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
So yeah, I love it fantastic. These are random questions
that I just kneed before I forget them. I watched
you video the other day and you're at the Grand
Old operating. Does that ever get old? Being at the Grand?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
No?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Hell no.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
When you've been waiting thirty years of your life for
a dream to come true and that dream actually comes true,
it can come true, you know, one time or a
hundred times, and it never gets old because it's something
that you've been you've been with. It's making up for
thirty years of want to do it. You know.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
It doesn't have a vibe about it is there a
magic about the place.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Oh absolutely like you feel like you're you're getting to
be like a tiny little thread in this massive tapestry
of history and country music. And you know you're you're
walking onto a stage. You're standing on a circle in
the middle of the stage that comes from the Rymann
Auditorium where you know Patsy Klein and Johnny Cash and
(02:32):
Elvis Presley all stood on that circle and the history
of not just country music but music itself is you
feel it surrounding you and bouncing off the walls like that.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
And the watching and watching the video. That outfit you're wearing,
where do you get that from? That must be made
for you.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
All that outfit is of course made by my favorite
New Zealand girls, the designers who make most of my dresses,
and it's usually collaboration between Curvy Coture by Judy d
Judy Martin up here in the North Island and then
down in Wellington Zoe Hall, who is one of our
celebrated New Zealand artists. She normally see her work on
(03:16):
huge murals all around the country, but she, you know,
shrinks it down from my dresses.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
How did that co labby thing come about then.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Oh it was years ago.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
It was years ago, probably ten or twelve years ago
now that Zoe reached out to me and said, I'd
love to make you a dress. And her very first
dress that she ever made me was on the cover
of my Sassafras album. She made this incredible Oh god there,
I think there was like three thousand rhinestones on it.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So I met my match.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
You know, well, it's no, it's just it's an eye catching,
fantastic looking thing. The next random question I have for
you and we had fly my prottues on the other day,
Bannaby Willa. Anyway, I've become fascinated with how long albums
take to put together and what's creatively acceptable and how
long did this get take me on Cowboy take to
get put together? And do you ever have the psychological
(04:12):
thing thinking I haven't spent enough time on it, or
this thing is you know, correspondingly gone on so long
now I don't know whether it's any good anymore.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
I remember once Don mcglash and saying to me, I'm
at that stage in the album creation where you know,
I've written my songs and I'm wondering, like, are these
brilliant or is it just a turd in a milkshake?
And I think of it every time I'm like writing
these songs and going are these good?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Or are they turds in a milk shak?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
But it's uh, He's so eloquent, even in just not
even songwriting.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
It's fantastic. So this one took a long time or
a short time or I mean, Nashville's involved with us again,
are they?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Well?
Speaker 3 (04:56):
I do my albums all myself, and I recorded this
in New Dealing with my New Zealand band at Roundhead
uh Neil Neil Finn's beautiful studio. And most of my albums,
by industry standards, happen pretty quickly from the time I'm
kind of laying down.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
The music to when it comes out.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
It's usually a year, and that sounds long to the
average person, but you know, when you're talking an industry
where people take years to make an album.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I usually write my albums.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
And then track them track them within a week. So
most of my albums are live off the floor. The
takes that you hear are full takes me and my
band in the room performing it live, so there's yeah,
it's real, and I think in this age of you know,
impending AI, the more we can lean into our humanity,
(05:49):
you hope that comes through in the music and connects
with other human hearts, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
And that's this, this William Bulb thing, tell me, tell me,
tell me about that and how does that work?
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I just I just love how we're just casually William
Bob where William Bold.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I was asked to be part of the Outlaw Festival Tour.
It's a touring festival that's gone on for ten years now.
They started a couple of weeks ago on the West
Coast at the Hollywood Bowl and then they work their
way across the country until basically end of September, and
the lineup kind of rotates all throughout the festival or
(06:27):
the tour, but the remaining headliners are always Bob Dylan
and Willie Nelson and the rest of us come and go.
So it's it's it's a it's a tour I've dreamt
of being on for the past, oh my goodness, five
or six years since I heard of it, and now
(06:48):
I can't.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I can't believe I actually get to join it.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
You've got to have the saints that you've made it now,
don't you. I mean, if there was Aberney, you've got
to have a saints that things have like coming your way.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I think that everybody has different definitions of making it.
And you know, to some my career wouldn't you know,
wouldn't look like making it for them. However, I get
to do what I love. I get to still live
on the other side of the world, have my family,
have my children, and get to kind of zip out
(07:22):
for little pockets of tours that aren't too long away
from them. And to me, that success. You know, I
know people who are far more I guess as the
industry would call more successful than me. But they're friends
who have you know, they don't have families. They're on
their road twenty four to seven, and that's not something
(07:43):
I'm really interested.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
So it's your success. If you're successful, you're successful. This
co writing business. I'm into Nashville before the co writing.
Do you do it all by zoom?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
That's you know.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
I haven't done a lot of co writing in Nashville
other than you know, these couple songs and it. You know, initially,
I really I try to zoom session.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
I'm like, this is so weird.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
You know, like it's weird not being in the room
with someone, and I do try to write in person
as much as I can when I'm in town. However,
this session for Borrow My Boots with Ashley McBride and
Shelley Fairchild was a pretty magical experience.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
You know.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
It was just like a one hour zoom and we
were basically cackling and laughing for most of it and
a song came out of it, so you know, it
can be a great experience as well.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
It's not my preferred way of doing it, but that
you know, if you have to do it, that was
the best.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
I mean, you mentioned round here before, which is the
Finn studio and kneels on some of the album. Isn't
he does he just get? Does he like Poppin'? Does
he go you hide my studio? Do you want me
to play something? You'll get some coffee or how does
that work?
Speaker 2 (08:54):
He wanders the halls like a ghost.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Yeah. No, it's pretty special that my last album was
recorded kind of in the midst between where the world
was kind of closed up and there wasn't a lot
of touring going on, and so Neil was actually home
and he did pop in and you know he I
remember him coming shyly up to me.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
And being like, is it okay? Do you mind?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
You know, you're you're laying all the strings today and
that's a beautiful way to spend the day.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Would you mind if we came.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
And watched him and Sharon and I'm like, this is
your houseboy.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Like you can go anywhere you want.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
But this album, he was actually overseas touring his new album,
Gravity Stairs, and so he wasn't around the studio, And
it ended up I was working the same producer, Stephen Shram,
who produced their latest album, was in town from Australia
and he produced my album as well. So it was
(09:50):
kind of this beautiful lucky thing that I got to
use Steven as well.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
And he's still here.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Has worked with some amazing Kiwi artists.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
So with that connection with.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Steve and I said, oh this, you know, the title
track keep Me On Cowgirl, Like do you think Neil
would would put some harmonies on it? And he's like, well,
just ask him, you know, And so I reached out
and said, I don't suppose you would want to, you know,
in the midst of all your touring, you're probably too busy,
and he came back to me right away. He goes, actually,
I'm home in a couple of days before we head
(10:23):
off to Australia, I'll be home. Let me get my
stuff set up. And he didn't just lend his vocals.
He like, he put on piano, he did a remix.
He was just he fully invested. He's like, I love
this song so brilliant.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
He's a gem, fantastsolute, fantastic.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Well, good luck to not album of the Year Neilsen
sings Nielsen of course based country music artist. And you're
in the people's choice of and mind you you hit
the country music be Out the Die and you won
that as well. What was the lifetime achievement or what
do they call it these days.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yeah, for contributions to country music and out, which was
pretty I was very surprised by that they just started
this honor and I was the first recipient recipient, so
I was I cried my eyelashes off on and have.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
You tried the new iHeart country music station. They worked
you on the playlist, which I didn't realize you'd never
been on a linear radio station playlist, which I suppose
is something appalling about you. Know broadcasting in this country
that we haven't recognized country music before. But there you go,
you're on you know, you're on a playlist for goodness sight.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
It's it's pretty amazing after all this time, and this
is the first time one of my singles, you know,
it's it's a testament to New Zealanders. All of my
albums have gone number one because New Zealanders love country music,
but none of my singles have ever charted or gotten
played on the radio, because, as you say, the industry
isn't really kind of cottoned onto country music until recently,
(11:48):
and so for the past two decades it's been, you know,
a pretty pretty barren desert when it comes to radio play.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
And so this is the first time. I just noticed
this week.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
That my song has gone to number nine on their
Hot Ones chart, which is massive.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, really exciting, fantastic.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Great to catch you up, good luck tonight, and we'll
get you back real soon.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Thank you mate.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Nice to talk to you, Tammy Nielsen. For more from
the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks. It'd
be from six am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.