Trevor Hall Returns for Bluesfest
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Trevor Hall Returns for Bluesfest

In 2017, American roots and folk superstar, Trevor Hall, made his debut at Byron Bay Bluesfest. Now celebrating the festivals 30 year anniversary, the ‘Moon / Sun’ singer will make his return down under to one of his favourite festivals.

“It was amazing, it wasn’t my first time touring Australia but it was obviously my first time at Bluesfest. I’d heard so many good things from my friends so you build something up in your mind I guess of how you think it will be or how you expect it to be but it really exceeded all of my expectations,” Hall reminisces. “It’s just the calibre of the festival, the way they treat their artists, the musicians playing. It was such an incredible experience that I was sad to leave for sure.”
This year, Hall joins a colossal line-up of talented artists including Jack Johnson, Iggy Pop, Ben Harper, Paul Kelly, and The Saboteurs and he cannot wait!

“Selfishly, I’m looking forward to seeing so many artists at the festival. You now growing up Ben Harper was the one for me that really was my main inspiration and to be on the same line-up as him and to see him play, I’m super excited about,” laughs Hall.

His Australian stopover will include two sideshows in Sydney and Melbourne where he will be bringing good friend Bobby Alu as support, with a collaboration or two in the works. Audiences should be ready for a showcase of his latest album, ‘The Fruitful Darkness’, which has taken his fan base of ‘villagers’ by storm, particularly considering they invested in it via a highly successful Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign.

“As time’s gone on a lot of things have changed. The industry has changed, the internet has changed and you know as artists we have to learn how to adapt to the times and do what’s best for our music and for our craft. And nowadays with the internet and with platforms like Kickstarter it makes it easier for one to take that independent route,” Hall says of the album making experience. “It was something that I wanted to experience because I had experienced a major label, I had experienced a smaller label, and it was like ‘okay I just want to see where the energy is going and I want to experience trying to release an album on our own’. It was an incredible, incredible learning experience and really successful.”

He continues, “I feel like when you’re on a label and you’re recording an album there’s a little bit of separation from you and your fan base. But with this experience with Kickstarter we were kind of doing it from the beginning with our whole community so we wouldn’t have been able to release the album if it wasn’t for our community. That was very special to us.”

While The Fruitful Darkness was only released in 2018, Hall already has his sights set on releasing his next record, confirming new material is on the cards in early 2020.

“I’m always writing and always creating. I already have so many songs to choose from for the next project so it looks like later this year- towards the end of this year- is when I will really have the chance to wrap my head around that next project and kind of have the space for it to take shape. So hopefully there will be some new music by early 2020. That’s the plan as of now!”

For now though, catch Hall playing tracks from The Fruitful Darkness at Bluesfest, April 18 -22, or at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne on April 18.

By Tammy Walters