How Fatherhood Changed Bill Callahan's Outlook On Life

US singer-songwriter Bill Callahan has spent over 25 years at the musical coalface — releasing 11 albums behind the band moniker Smog, then through the last decade issuing five more under his own name — but he's been fairly quiet of late following the release of his acclaimed 2013 album Dream River (and its 2014 dub reimagining Have Fun With God).

The reason? He and his wife recently welcomed Callahan's first son Bass into the world, and family commitments rightly tend to take precedence over career factors. "I had a kid so a lot of my energy has been going towards being a papa," Callahan smiles. "It's amazing and lots of work and very tiring, so I've been adjusting because it used to be that music was basically my only responsibility and I could focus 100% of my energy onto that, and now it's not.

"I also had a phobia where I don't like to play the same club twice, even two nights in a row — that never felt right to me."

"I think it changes your brain having a kid, and it changes the whole shape of your life — it just changes everything. So I've just been trying to figure out what I want to say with this new brain, that's why it's been quiet for a little bit longer than usual."

But now he's returning to Australia for three Melbourne shows, and then heading up to play the Sydney Opera House for Vivid LIVE, where he delivered spellbinding sets in 2015, (according to Callahan "definitely a highlight of my touring existence"). Both cities find him playing two shows a night, a model he's taken all over the world recently. "The first one I did was in New York about a year and a half ago, and really it was a way to try and continue touring and still have a family," he explains. "That was one of the main drives, but I also just like the idea of; you do a big travel and go to a big city somewhere, but then you get to stay there instead of moving on the next day and the next day and the next day. It was just a way to sort of feel a little bit more grounded on tour with or without my family.

"I also had a phobia where I don't like to play the same club twice, even two nights in a row — that never felt right to me, but I wanted to overcome that. I think a club space should be your friend, so instead of looking at a club as something to step into for one night and get the hell out of there forever, I try to look at the performance space as something organic that you can develop a relationship with. A few days isn't much of a relationship, but it's always a way to push myself and the performances in a way that doesn't happen just doing one-off shows."