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When I was researching this interview with Devonport, Tasmania-based country-rock artist Zac Weeks, the New Zealand Gold Guitar Awards – and his success at them – kept coming up, the point where I then went looking for information about where he was from in New Zealand. There was none, and therefore I decided that I’d start the interview by asking about this.
It turns out that Weeks is very much from Tasmania but on a suggestion from some New Zealand country music artists he met at the CMAA Academy of Country Music, he entered into the Gold Guitar Awards and emerged as a runner-up in the open singer-songwriter category, which is very good going for a first-time entrant.
It was at Academy that Weeks’s latest single, ‘Long Neck Long Gone’, came together. The title had sat in his Notes app for four years; it was a line borrowed from a friend as they were finishing a ginger beer on a night out in Devonport. At Academy Weeks was paired with in-demand songwriter Matt Scullion, and the song took shape within minutes.
‘What about this: “long neck, long gone, she left me alone”,’ Weeks recalls Scullion offering, before the two wrote the rest of the track together.
While Weeks has previously recorded with producer Matt Fell, who is also based in Tasmania, he recorded the latest single with Jacky McCormack, who is on the Central Coast of New South Wales.
At the time we spoke Weeks was currently touring Tasmania – and he does play quite a lot around the Apple Isle – before heading to the Gympie Music Muster, which starts on Thursday 27 August. He’s already had an action-packed year, and no doubt Gympie will provide even more motivation for him to continue performing and writing – so stand by for future releases!
Listen to Zac Weeks on Apple Music
Listen to Zac Weeks on YouTube
