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The first time I interviewed country-folk artist Olive Mae she was in a caravan she shared with her husband and children, and they were travelling around Australia, embracing freedom – a concept that is at the core of Olive’s latest single, ‘Country Songs’.
Now settled in the south-west of Western Australia, about ten minutes’ drive from the popular Margaret River area, Olive is playing fewer shows on the road but certainly not playing less overall, as we talk about in this new interview.
‘Country Songs’ is, Olive says, her first attempt at writing a country song; she previously believed she was writing folk songs – although, as she says in the interview, when one of them ended up being nominated in a country music awards category, she reassessed!
The song is partly about how music might have been the path she wanted to take from a young age but instead she followed the advice of others to pursue more conventional paths.
‘Sometimes you’ve got to do the wrong thing just to realise what’s wrong,’ she says. ‘That’s just as important as finding what’s right.’
Ultimately, though, art won out, which is partly how she found herself in that caravan, touring the land.
‘I wanted to be free,’ she says, ‘to choose the path that you want to take and not take on anyone else’s thoughts on how you should be living.’
Of course, being free is not as simple as the phrase makes it sound – it requires courage to focus on what you know is right for you and ignore others who are trying to steer you away for their own reasons.
As ever, it was a great deal of fun chatting to Olive, who will be at this year’s Gympie Music Muster in August, attending the CMAA Academy’s Campfire songwriting programme. She’s also booked her first Tamworth headline show for the 2027 festival, at the Listening Room at the Community Centre on Thursday 21 January.
Listen to ‘Country Songs’ on Apple Music
Listen to ‘Country Songs’ on YouTube
