By Tanya Steele
Footwear icon RM Williams has inspired a country music artist to write a song which has gone on to be nominated for an international award.
Upwey local Jon Collins has recently been nominated as a finalist for the MLT Songwriting Award and will play his unreleased single ‘Boots’ at the APRA Country Music Song Awards in New Zealand.
“He was an interesting character with a fascinating story – he’s an iconic rag to riches historical figure,” Collins said.
Collins initially entered the competition with his song ‘Boots’ with the intention to take a shot and was happy to receive news he was one of ten songwriters to get to the finals.
The artists hadn’t written a song about a historical figure before and said he had been considering the concept for awhile before he landed on RM Williams.
“I think he was overall a positive character and the country community as a whole – very worthy of a song,” he said.
‘Boots’ presents with harmonica, strong chorus lines and beautiful lyrics that engage the ear and playfully weaves the history of RM Williams into a poetic ballad that leaves the listener feeling inspired.
Collins will head to New Zealand this month to play at the Country Music Honours and will also be competing in the Gold Guitars, which is a sister event of the Tamworth Gold.
“The song feels really good to sing – there’s a little bit of an Irish sort of feel to ‘Boots’,” he said.
Collins said he is quite excited about the nomination but the sudden momentum had been a little can be a little overwhelming at times.
The initial ‘bones’ of the song emerged in half an hour writing in his home studio.
“It was really powerful and I’ve gone to edit it and played with the lyrics, but the core of the song was done in 30 minutes,” he said.
The MLT Songwriting Award acknowledges unreleased songs from writers from New Zealand and Australia and is presented by the NZ Songwriters Trust in the ten day annual festival from 24 May to 2 June.
Writing in this storytelling character style was a new experience for Collins who said the concept behind ‘Boots’ was like ‘dipping his toe in the water.’
“I’ve become more interested in it since writing this, you can’t really fit a whole life into a song, but you can fit small moments and then those small moments are representative,” he said.
“Choosing from those moments is really cool – you get to filter through an entire life worth of experience and distil it.”
The song was inspired partly by the act of buying himself a new pair of boots himself and becoming familiar with the story behind RM Williams.
“I was visiting my family in Sydney, and my dad’s always won RM Williams boots –and I’ve always had sort of second hand worn out pairs,” he said.
Collins grew up with music and has been playing guitar and singing for over 20 years, studying music and then going on to play in the events and bands space,
He moved to Melbourne in 2010 and can often be found performing in the hills in places like Killik or Micawbers Tavern.
The Upwey country artist has been making great strides and is currently part of the Cardinia Arts 2024 Music Residencies program which gives local emerging musicians vital industry knowledge and experience to advance their individual careers.
Through a tailored program, delivered by Cardinia Arts and local industry whiz Daniel Kelaart, Collins will record a new song in Dan’s professional studio and partake in a series of professional development activities.
“He’s produced the song ‘Bloom’ by the Papercutz – and I get to work with him as one of the residents, which is pretty exciting,” Collins said.
The unreleased single ‘Boots’ – which releases in late June, will become the masthead for an album Collins is producing called ‘Lovestrong’ and heralds the first steps of this pathway in releasing produced music.
Performing at the the Country Music Honours Awards has been catalyst in bolstering many songwriting careers and Collins is very much looking forward to the trip.
