Blake Dantier is a Sydney-based singer-songwriter who, while a relatively late convert to country music (at 17 years of age), has more than embraced the genre, attending the CMAA Academy of Country Music, winning the 2020 Tamworth Songwriters Salute Awards for Country Rock Song of the Year, as well as being a finalist for Alt Country Song of the Year. In 2019, in the same competition, he won the award for Novice Country Song of Year, while the year before he was the winner of the Country Music Stampede’s Maton Rising Star Talent Search. He’s played at the Tamworth Country Music Festival, Bluewater Country Music Festival and the Central Coast Music Festival.
‘Ash & Dust’ is his second single, after last year’s ‘Mary Jane’. It’s a bittersweet song about the importance of not living with regrets that Dantier was inspired to write after the death of a family friend from cancer.
‘He was a fit and healthy guy,’ says Dantier, ‘and his death reminded me that the time we have here can be cut short at any time. We shouldn’t take any relationships for granted.’
Dantier recorded the song with Simon Johnson at Hillbilly Hut, after rewriting the lyrics several times – he felt the responsibility of wanting to do right by his friend, and the emotions in the song require a balance that can be hard to achieve but which Dantier has achieved.
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