Song In The Key Of Me

He was out on a farm, 18 years-old, an aspiring guitarist and country boy enjoying himself. Next thing you know, Bruce Mathiske is flat on his back, accidentally shot in the head, close to death 15 miles from the closest hospital, a bullet having smashed into his skull leaving his left arm paralysed.

“Yeah, some stuff's happened to conspire and to challenge us,” he suggests laconically. “When that happened, the doctors didn't know what would happen. It was a brain injury, but I somehow, as stupid as it sounds, knew it would get better, and then after a few weeks I started playing guitar, scales and that… You know, I couldn't even hold a fork to feed myself. Maybe the belief in the mind thing overpowered the other – I don't know – but I ended up, from playing scales and arpeggios, if you look at my two hands, my fingers on the left hand have grown more through all the exercise that I've done.

“And I may not have been as good if I hadn't have gone through it, 'cause I got such great discipline from doing those things, you know, that guitarists aren't really renowned for. I was still playing in mates' rock bands and just practising classical and hearing some other things, so I hadn't really embarked on where I am now.”

And it's the journey from childhood to where he is now that informs his latest and 17th album, My Life, the aforementioned incidents giving deeper meaning to the two instrumentals that close the album, The Close Call and Fifteen Frantic Miles. That journey has taken Mathiske down the path of the solo acoustic guitarist with the chops to match the best in the field, providing him with not only a national but also an international career. Even so, he feels, at 50, he's only now reaching his stride.

“A few years ago I started to question what I'm doing, you know, eventually it becomes the same, and I started studying different wellbeing and mind things and I just got a bit of calm 'cause you're always bubbling with energy and angst and all that. It wasn't one thing but I took an extra year to do the album, and the last year was actually doing very little – I was really getting myself away from the album and coming back with fresh ears and I think I've reached the point where I'm really comfortable with myself and my playing so the album's not about ego guitar. I think that's the other really important thing. I was really honest with myself about what music I should put on it, and not about guitar licks. If you've spent months and months on a piece and ultimately it doesn't work, you've still got an attachment to it, but I threw away some things. So I think it was the extra and the fact that I know where I'm at, so I didn't need to prove guitar chops. I made sure the music overrode any of my guitar ego.

“I'd already recorded about a third of the album and it was gonna be 'another' album, but I was coming back from Victoria, where I was born and raised, and thought 'I always wanted to do an album called Somebody's Life,' 'cause you go through regional towns and there are little farmhouses in the middle of nowhere and those people have got a story. Then my publicist said it should be My Life, with all the stuff that's gone on.”

Bruce Mathiske will be playing the following dates:

Thursday 2 May - The Playhouse, Mittagong NSW
Friday 3 May - Milton Theatre, Milton NSW
Saturday 4 May - The Clarendon, Katoomba NSW
Wednesday 8 May - The Basement, Sydney NSW
Thursday 9 May - IPAC, Wollongong NSW
Saturday 10 May - Avoca Picture Theatre, Avoca NSW
Sunday 11 May - Newcastle Conservatorium Concert Hall, Newcastle NSW
Saturday 25 May - Zenith Theatre, Chatswood NSW
Saturday 15 June - Manning Entertainment Centre, Taree NSW
Wednesday 19 June - Powerhouse, Brisbane QLD
Thursday 20 June - Civic Centre, Nambour QLD
Friday 21 June - Gold Coast Arts Centre, Gold Coast QLD
Saturday 22 June - Jetty Theatre, Coffs Harbour NSW
Wednesday 26 June - Fly By Night, Fremantle WA
Saturday 29 June - The Street Theatre, Canberra ACT