Benny Walker was immersed in strong musical traditions of jazz, country and blues from a young age which ultimately lead him to become the versatile singer and songwriter with a passion for the land and the people that he is today.
“One grandfather was into country music, the other was into jazz, and my dad was more into blues, and I always listen to all that stuff still, I love it,” Walker explains. “The fact that my grandfathers and my dad were into different kind of genres definitely would have probably set me on the path of the music I play now. They’re all very roots based music, and I love that stuff.”
A self-confessed country boy at heart, Walker began his full time singer-songwriter career once he moved back to his home town of Echuca-Moama after living and working in the bustling city of Melbourne while simultaneously releasing his first self-titled album.
“I lived in the city for a while and there was just always something pulling me back to the country. I guess I’m just a country boy at heart,” Walker says. “Driving through the city, I remember what it was like everyday, it was like I could never relax.”
Dedicating himself to his craft, Walker has since released three albums, an EP, and performed at a number of gigs and festivals across Australia and even travelled to the depths of Canada to share his music, discovering a new found love for travelling to work.
“There’s a difference between travelling to at the time a nine to five job, and now driving around, doing a show and doing the thing I love – it’s almost like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I do a lot of kilometres back and forth to Melbourne, but I don’t seem to mind it as much as what I did when I had to battle the peak hour traffic on a daily basis.”
Walker has now been spending his days travelling the countryside with his acoustic guitar for a number of intimate shows, playing the songs as they were written, which he will be doing in Geelong this weekend for Narana Unplugged III, an event for Rock For Reconciliation. “I’ve been loving that – just stripping everything back, no tricks. The song is the song. It’s been a great way to try some new songs which I’ve been working on and also just connect with the audience.”
With a focus on improving his craft and building an audience for his folk and country-inflected compositions, Walker has spent the last few weeks recording his new album, hoping to have it completed and released this year after 12 months already in the making.
“I’d love it to come out this year but I don’t want to put a date on it. I just want to give it the time it needs, I just don’t feel the pressure to get it out,” he says.
“I’ve always wanted to move forward and improve myself as a songwriter and explore different things within the craft itself, whether it’s playing or singing, I’m really trying to push myself as a singer and as a guitar player. I’ve put a lot of work into the actual songwriting and done a couple of co-writes which has been really really great and I’m just not settling for ‘that’s good enough’. I’m really wanting to go ‘okay can I give this song some more love and some more time and make it as good as it deserves to be’.
“In the past, I used to walk away from that and didn’t want to force anything, but now it’s not so much as forcing it as just refining it. Sometimes there’s a bit of re-writing, but it’s always for the better and I’m really enjoying taking this approach, and once I do it and put it in the world, there’s no taking it back. You can’t dig a big hole and throw them in there – they’re out there. I want to put them out in the world with my chest puffed out,” he laughs.
When & Where: Narana Aboriginal Cultural Centre, Grovedale – June 3 from 12pm
Written by Talia Rinaldo
Image by Cindy Power