He is packing up his young family, the Katherine Outback Experience horses and dogs (and maybe a few goats) and hitting the road visiting a number of rural and regional towns throughout Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia. This is the fifth consecutive national tour.
Tom splits his working time between his music and the Katherine Outback Experience – an outback show that he says, “combines the training of working dogs and wild horses, with a bit country music”. Katherine Outback Experience is operated by Tom and his wife Annabel in Katherine, Northern Territory from April to October. Over the summer months, when tourist numbers are low, the team hit the road.
It goes without saying they love this beautiful country and can’t wait to see everyone out there in rural Australia.
The Tour is celebrating the release of Tom’s fifth studio album Nothin’s Gonna Stop Us, due out 21 October 2022, from which Why We Live Out Here, a co-write with Matt Scullion and Garth Porter, was released earlier this year.
“It’s the way of life, country atmosphere / That’s why we live, why we live out here,” sings Curtain in the brand-new track. The love letter to rural living certainly hits the ground running; a booming drum beat tangled in soaring guitars creates the backdrop for what is sure to become an outback anthem.
Although, the joyous tune was born out of struggle, “the people out here in the bush have been smashed over the last few years with some pretty life changing events, with the extreme drought, bushfires, the floods to name a few,” says Curtain with a solemn tongue. “I heard a few people say, ‘why would anyone want to live out there’, and so I thought it could be a great topic to expand on and explain why people love it out here. There’s no denying times can be incredibly tough on the land but there are definitely some cracking reasons to spend your life in the heat and dust.”
Tom Curtain doesn’t just perform country music – he lives and breathes it. After discovering his passion for songwriting, while working in the stock-camp of Mt Sanford Station, NT, he released his first album, Smack Bang, in 2004. He toured with some of Australia’s biggest – Sara Storer, The Sunny Cowgirls – but eventually stepped away from music to establish his business and support his young family.
When he finally returned in 2017 (a decade later), with his third album, Territory Time, it was to many accolades. The album debuted at #1 on the iTunes Country Album Chart, while his duet with Luke O’Shea, Never Never Land, scooped up two Golden Guitar awards for CMC Video Clip of the Year and Toyota Heritage Song of the Year. But it didn’t stop there. Curtain also won the prestigious Australian Independent Artist of the Year at the 2018 Southern Stars Australian Independent Country Music Awards in Mildura, together with Album of the Year, Single of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year.
Tom Curtain’s “Why We Live Out Here” regales us with the simple pleasures found in rural living. Its direct message is beautifully communicated through Australian imagery, reminding us of Curtain’s unquestionable authenticity. It’s clear this much loved and awarded, singer-songwriter still has some of his best work ahead of him.
Tom’s next single When The Rain Comes Down featuring Robin Martin from The New Graces, will hit the airwaves on 7 October 2022 before the album Nothin’s Gonna Stop Us is released on 21 October 2022. Pre-order a signed copy of the new album today from our online shop.