Charley Castle is a singer and songwriter artist from Sydney who started releasing music with her sisters in their band The Fallen Robins (EP Stupid Little Girls released in 2020). A couple of years ago she committed to a more countryfied musical direction in the form of bluegrass and assembled a band, the Boys in the Well, with members George Teasdell (mandolin and guitar), Reuben Ryan (slide and acoustic guitar) and Henry Junor (bass). In 2025 they won the Best of the Buskers competition at the Tamworth Music Festival and they’ve been in high demand ever since, appearing as a support act to country artists performing around Sydney, and Charley also plays solo in that capacity and in her own right. At Gasoline Pony, in the Sydney inner-west suburb of Marrickville, she runs a country-folk jam night once a month.
It was in Marrickville that Castle and the Boys in the Well launched their debut EP, in a garden filled with native plants and cacti, next to a work shed that had cattle skulls hanging on the outside and in front of a silver caravan parked in a carport. As the sun set the band faced west, so with sunglasses on, then off, then lights turned on around them as the sun disappeared, they played the songs from the EP – some of which have been released as singles – and also a range of covers (including Lyle Lovett’s ‘If I Had a Boat’, ‘Life is a Highway’ by Tom Cochrane and Keith Urban’s ‘Somebody Like You’, which has been a staple of the Charley Castle set) that, as Castle said, are part of the story of how they’ve arrived at the EP release.
It was evident the first time I saw Castle and the Boys play that they are not only technically great as individual musicians but happily cohesive as a band, and that Castle is a charismatic artist who has the songs to give substance to the charisma. Every time I’ve seen her play it’s her originals I’ve wanted to hear, and also wanted to be able to listen to at other times, so this EP is beyond welcome.
To fall in love with Castle’s songs, I recommend starting with one of the first she wrote for this enterprise: ‘Lovin’, Leavin’’, which is also a single. Castle taps into bittersweetness like few others, in both lyrics and vocal performance, and that song will be your introduction to it. During the launch show it was exquisitely performed, the Boys bringing their vocals to make it even richer live. And there was a new fifth member of the band adding to the layers we heard: William Louis, who is already well known to Sydney-area music fans due to his prowess on banjo.
I still remember when I first heard Castle performing her latest single, ‘Goin’ to Canberra’, because I was pleasantly surprised to hear such geographically specific lyrics –as a lifelong Sydneysider, I can relate to her line about heading south on the M5 – and also realised that our nation’s capital doesn’t often get a guernsey in song. This specificity and the understanding of its power are part of what makes Castle such a great songwriter – she’s telling you her story but because she is drawing you into it with detail, it becomes your story too.
During the show Castle said that she’s a ‘slow cooker’ as a songwriter but it’s worth the wait. It’s been worth the wait for this EP, which will be released on 25 September, although selfishly I want even more recorded originals, including ‘Through and Through’, a song she introduced us to at the show. It’s a good idea to keep your audience wanting more, though, and Castle and the Boys do that each time they play live. This launch show was no exception – so entertaining, so satisfying, so fun and exhilarating, in the way that it’s always uplifting to know that great art is in the world. If they’re set to play in your town, you can find out for yourself how to want more from Charley Castle and the Boys in the Well, and also to be glad for what we already have.
