The Highs And Lows Of Producing Her Debut Album

It's a big day for Ruby Boots, aka Bex Chilcott, this scribe the first in line for a day’s worth of interviews. Such is the life when you’ve just won a WAM Song Of The Year Award and have a new record to plug: Solitude. It’s a bit of a bizarre feeling for Chilcott, who began her career as Ruby Boots in 2011 and has been working on these songs since day dot. “It’s an interesting place to be because it was finished so long ago, I’ve been sitting on it for a long time, so I feel so detached from it now. But it’s strange because it’s been this long-winded journey and it’s almost like walking to the very top of a mountain, and that last peak is, you know, you’re dog tired, and that last peak is the most challenging part. It’s almost like I’m at this point where I’m about to tip over. I just need it to be out so badly, and as it gets closer I tell myself, ‘Ok, it’s only a couple more weeks now,’ so it’s cool, it’s nice to have a positive^—as an artist, you want to see the reaction from people, and when you’re sitting on a piece of art for so fucking long, it’s like, forest from the trees kind of thing, you’re like ‘Oh my God, does this even exist anymore?’ You’re so in your own head about it you need to feed off what other people give back to you about it, whether it’s good or bad.”

Chilcott sought the help of a number of people for the album, which saw her travelling around the world. “I had a band here in Perth and we broke up right before we were looking to do the record. I decided I was going to do it anyway because I’ve written too many songs and I’ve come too far to sit on it more, that would just prolong everything. I went forth and did that, but I did it with about six or seven bands across the album. I spent time in each state twice, and a bit of back-and-forth overseas. So that was a year-long process.”

At the beginning of this year, Chilcott signed to Americana-focused label Lost Highway Records – they were so impressed with the record they wanted to represent her immediately. “The good thing about it is that you’ve got someone backing your record who’s in your corner. I think the more people who are in your corner backing what you do as an artist, the more exciting it is, and it frees up more time for you to be the artist... They’re my dream label in many ways. Lost Highway’s got such an Americana blanket over it and a long history to it – Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Lucinda Williams, Ryan Adams – you know that the people who work that record get what you’re trying to do. You’re not just joining any label because they’re offering you some money and they’re gonna give you some marketing – these guys are passionate about Americana music and that’s the most important thing to me.”

While many peg Ruby Boots as a country/Americana singer, and rightly so, this album doesn’t lend itself specifically to folky guitar hooks and typical outback banter. Chilcott tackles an alternative spin on some more sobering tracks. “I knew I wanted to ditch the fiddle and the mandolin and the band sounds of it, and I think I might introduce some of those sounds on maybe one or two tracks on the next record if it lends itself that way. If it can communicate to more people, obviously that’s the best part about it. That’s the thing about Americana music: I was reading this article the other day and five years ago we were scared to use that term in Australia, but it’s always something that I’ve loved because it doesn’t sit in the fucking box. That’s what people want; people want music that doesn’t sit in the fucking box. I don’t want to sit in the box because I want to be free. I respect people like Emmylou Harris, who went, ‘I’m not gonna sit here and be a country music singer because you guys called me a country muso. I’m gonna do this record because I want to do this record,’ and I want that throughout my career. Americana lends itself to that, as opposed to country music, which is fairly straight down the line in what it does – I love country music so I’m not bagging it – but you know, I think that’s the appeal of Americana and I think people are slowly getting into it over here. Hopefully the record does translate to a wider audience.”