By Leigh Reinhold
Pictures: Paul Broben
The country legend and his wife open up their gorgeous homestead…
On the banks of the Brisbane River, under the shade of a magnificent old poinciana tree, life can’t get much more laid-back for Troy Cassar-Daley as he reclines in an old bath and strums a few tunes.
Known as the nicest man in country music, Troy reckons he’s also the happiest, surrounded by his beautiful wife of 13 years — singer and radio presenter Laurel Edwards — and their two children, Clay, 11, and Jem, 8.
Flinging open the gate to his weekend retreat, Troy invited Woman’s Day in for a cuppa and a chat about life on the farm, his year off the road and his old mate Keith Urban’s personal influence on his new album, I Love This Place.
So this is your country haven?
Troy: Yeah, mate. It’s our home away from our other home in Brisbane. It’s a perfect spot. Quiet. We picked it because it’s on the river and we can go fishing and spend time in the kayaks or on the horses. There are also some unfriendly natives — you stay right away from the brown snakes.
Laurel: I won’t put furniture in the lounge room because, when we’re having a party, everyone turns up with swags, and after an eight-hour sing-a-long, they’ll crash there or sleep it off in the cubby house.
That cubby house is a work of art!
Troy: Laurel and I built it. We had all this old hardwood lying around. It took us the good part of three weekends to build. Laurel is pretty good with a hammer. It’s even carpeted! It’s now known as The Duplex because there are two rooms — one for Clay and one for Jem — because they couldn’t agree on the decor.
You’re giving your kids a different start in life to what you had?
Troy: I had a pretty rough and tumble start, the single parent thing. And you try and make it better for the next time around. That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to fix what was broken with my own childhood. I would have loved for my parents to stay together, but it wasn’t to be.
Are you pleased with the finished result of I Love This Place?
Troy: It’s a happy record. We had a lot of laughs making it. I wanted my music now, at this very moment, to reflect my life. Some of the other records have been a little bit more down; they are story-telling and me reflecting on my past and things that make you sad. But I wanted to make sure that people could see in this stage of my life that I am actually happy. I am not down in the dumps.
Singing about Australia is important to you?
Troy: I think it’s about time that we sang good songs about this country — you get so many people being negative about where we’re at, whether it’s economical or environmental, there are so many things people can choose to whinge about but there’s so many good things too. Aboriginal people sang about this country for thousands of years and it’s time we all got together as one big mob and started singing about this place again.
You were part of the Sound Relief Concert at the MCG for the victims of the Victorian bushfires — we were certainly singing loud and proud about this place that night?
Troy: It was the biggest crowd — 81,000 — I had ever played to and to feel the soul at the MCG that night was amazing. I think the bushfires bought a lot of people together. It was a leveller and no matter what background you came from everyone pitched in and that’s a testament to who we Australians are. We don’t desert our mates.
You went to Whittlesea just days after the fires too?
Troy: I wanted to get up there so bad. I knew a lot of people up there because of the Whittlesea Country Music Festival, which they had to cancel because the fires came through. I felt very humbled by some of the people I met. There was one lady, one of the committee people, who I cuddled, and when she moved away one of the other ladies said, she had lost her two kids and her sister. And you don’t get more sobering than that. It makes you never want to complain again.
Troy’s new album I Love This Place comes out April 17 through Liberation Music.
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