Archer is a local country music genius. I told you that – he’s too modest to take much credit or accolades for anything. In fact, he needed some convincing that anyone would be interested in anything he would have to say. I beg to differ…
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Tell us a bit about your love of traditional music.
Traditional music from any country is a beautiful thing some come about from developing completely isolated and others from the early cultures coming together and bang bang bang. I couldn’t imagine any new kind of music coming out that could ever compare to what’s happened in those early days, but I could be wrong. The good lord knows I’ve been before.
Hank Williams Senior is a big influence. Can you tell us about any of your other big influences?
Blind Willie McTell, Tex Morton, Woodie Guthrie, Smilin’ Billy Blinkhorn, Billie Holiday, Leadbelly, Goebell Reeves, Jimmie Rodgers, Buddy Williams, and about a million others.
I love a quote I heard from Justin Townes Earle, where he reckons country music lost its soul somewhere in the 60s/70s when it lost it connection to the blues. Does this ring true for you? I can’t imagine you playing any Garth Brooks, for example.
I don’t listen to any modern stuff really, but it probably lost it a bit earlier even.
Something amazing happened in those early days when African banjo players and Hawaiian slide players and Ukranian fiddle players and Cajun accordion players and who knows who else came together, and bang the early days of country music was surely a golden era.
Or you could call it folk music. I think plenty of them did. People music – birds still do it better and always will.
I think you are one person in the local area who can fill the room with barely any need for a mic, and you are a great example of how you don’t need to spend a heap on instruments to get a great, beautiful sound. Are you still playing with the same guys in the band, The Long Gone Daddies?
The good ol’ Long Gone Daddies are still going when I can scrape myself and the boys off the floor.
What’s in the pipeline, re gigs over summer?
Probably going and hiding in a hollow log or going to Siberia to enjoy some snow.
Any recordings on the horizon?
Making a record at the moment, be out next year.