Troy Cassar-Daley gets emotional on new album and memoir Things I Carry Around

TROY Cassar-Daley loves a good howl. His last body-shaking sob happened at Christmas when he, wife Laurel and children Clay and Jem, celebrated with his mother and extended indigenous family in Grafton, where he grew up.

Reminiscing about childhood shenanigans with his cousins and wallaby hunting trips with his uncles, missing relatives who were no longer with them while singing songs in the backyard provoked a communal cryfest that shocked his 15-year-old daughter Gem.

She cautiously asked her emotional father if everything was all right and he reassured you this was just how his family express their history together.

In his upcoming memoir, Things I Carry Around, the beloved Australian country music star cries a lot.

“You wouldn’t be a musician if you didn’t cry. If you don’t, I think you’re just a corporate wanker,” he says in a cafe just metres from the inner city terrace in Sydney he lived with his father when not with his mum in Grafton after they split.

“I was raised in a really emotional environment. My mum’s family, we used to cry at the drop of a hat, sitting around looking at old photos, we would relive them.

“We carry s--- around so much longer than other people. I don’t know what that is, it can be a lifetime of grieving. There are things you just can’t let go of.”

His memoir and his 10th solo record, which shares its title, reveals how much family and his indigenous heritage means to Cassar-Daley.

Widely loved for his warmth, wit and integrity, the child who punched a classmate for an racist slur when he was at high school and then became good mates with the boy who delivered it, is now a man who wants to educate rather than remonstrate.

The singer won’t hesitate to call someone out for an ill-informed insult against the Aboriginal community and he is a passionate advocate for the preservation of traditional language and culture.

He admits there was a time when he would let racism slide.

“Part of me wants to take them out back for a couple of weeks and have a look at what this country and these people are all about. Don’t judge,” he says.

“I have gone more for the educator role now. If a cabbie or someone on Twitter says something, I have to say something back, I can’t not say anything now when I used to be able to sit back and think ‘Well, if you are going to be that ignorant, go ahead’. It’s passive racism if you don’t say anything.”

His musical life has been entwined with both his Brisbane radio announcer wife Laurel — who beat him in a country music talent quest — and good mate Keith Urban, who beat him in many talent quests.

Cassar-Daley’s beloved wife never lets him forget her triumph should her tipsy husband dare to heckle her while she’s singing at a party.

Urban never mentions his wins over his mate but the pair of country music stars can bore the life out of a gathering when they start talking gear.

“Yeah, a competition became a lifetime friendship. He just kept winning and winning and winning so I was happy when he went overseas and gave me a chance to win something,” he says, laughing.

“I could see Keith was ready to be a star. Was it the mullet? You cannot deny the mullet, even in 1990 when it was hanging on for dear life on both of our heads.

“The thing that really brought us together as friends was guitar speak, that was our bond. And we still talk about gear, pick-ups, amps, guitars. Or some new artist he has discovered.”

The winner of a phenomenal 32 Golden Guitars has enjoyed the luxury of meeting some of his heroes along the way, particularly Slim Dusty and opening with The Highwaymen on their Australian tour in 1995 and later for his idol Merle Haggard.

While an unapologetic fanboy, Cassar-Daley says he was saved from becoming starstruck because he had come to regard these men as his companions, their voices familiar and comforting from the hours he spent playing their records at home alone when his mother was at work.

He recalls meeting Johnny Cash backstage at the first Highwaymen show, impressed by his hulking presence and “this huge f---ing handshake I will never forget”.

Willie Nelson got him passively stoned as he demonstrated the didgeridoo while the American legend enjoyed a joint that Cassar-Daley jokes was almost as big as the traditional instrument.

“I was having to circular breathe and breathed in all this smoke. When I walked out, I felt high and my band said I looked a bit funny,” he says, laughing.

“When the legal people went through the book, they pointed out the part about smoking a joint with Merle Haggard and said ‘that’s still illegal, you know’.

“Merle is holding court on a stool in a singlet, tracksuit pants and singing songs and getting me and the band to sing old songs with him while handing around a Bob Marley sized joint and I’m really going to say no to that?”

Diehard fans of the troubadour would also be aware of another chapter of his memoir — his Hollywood moment.

Halle Berry and Jim Belushi filmed the comedy drama Race the Sun in Australia in the mid-1990s and the film’s producers not only wanted to use a few of his songs for the soundtrack but cast the good-looking country music singer and his band in a scene.

“They kept saying ‘is everyone ready’ and we were all looking at Halle. She was stunning and so nice. Her and James Belushi would wanna come and sit with the band in catering,” he says.

“We didn’t have selfies then so it was just a handshake and hello.

“To be in the background of a linedancing scene was great but I was more proud when I got to see it and hear my music in there.”

Cassar-Daley sought out another revered friend to help finish Things I Carry Around, with Cold Chisel’s Don Walker unearthing some songs the pair had started and never finished from two decades ago.

“Don had stockpiled a few things we had started but never finished from when I was 25 sitting around in his loungeroom in Sydney. The man remembers everything and can find it,” he says.

The album will be released on August 26 with the memoir following on August 30.

He launches Things I Carry Around at the Gympie Muster on August 28; True South, Black Rock in Melbourne on September 1, Rooty Hill RSL, Sydney on September 2 and Brisbane Writers Festival, September 7.

For all dates, go to troycassardaley.com.au

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