After causing a lot of buzz with his 2014 release Dead Man’s Garden, Geelong based singer Tim Hulsman is back with his long awaited sophomore release Get Loved. With the albums lyrical content tackling all things love, Hulsman’s soaring voice highlights truly how diverse of an emotion it can be and the different ways it can impact our individual lives.
“I wanted to come at it from a whole heap of different angles. When I was writing the album and collecting the songs for it I just realised how many different ways love can affect you. There is a love song on there, but there is also a love song for my guitar – it’s not just about people,” Hulsman says, “There are a lot of main areas of love that you face throughout your life; romantic love, love for something like a hobby, family love and that unconditional aspect of it, love for friends and your social community and also loss, because sometimes love doesn’t work out. I feel we are constantly dealing with some aspect of love in our life; it affects us in some kind of way whether it is a positive or a negative. Even addiction is a type of love, you can love something so much that you can’t live without it and that again can be a good or bad thing.
“It wasn’t an intentional theme, it just kind of showed itself, and then once that theme showed itself it became a big part of the refining process. I had a lot of songs written for the album and then some just didn’t end up working with the overarching theme. It’s not like I sat down with Get Loved as a title and then wrote the album. I do write about love a lot, but I’m not really interested in writing sappy love songs. I just find the subject itself and the complexities that it brings to human interaction very intriguing. I also write about death a lot, which is kind of the end of the spectrum.”
In support of Get Loved, Hulsman will be touring around the country playing a stack of shows, as well as stopping in for a gig at Geelong’s Kubo Studios.
“I’m really excited about the Geelong show. We have The Sequels playing with us as well and they are an awesome band – I saw them play with Residual a few weeks ago and they were fantastic. It’s going to be a really good night. I’m hoping quite a few turn up for it because it would be really cool to have a packed crowd and a good vibe down at Kubu. It’s a great place with a really cool warehouse vibe there. I love the vibe of it, and it’s not just the average pub gig.”
When & Where: Sutton’s House of Music, Ballarat – June 2, Sooki Lounge, Belgrave – June 4 & Kubu Studio, Geelong – June 9
Written by Alex Callan