To Yourself Be True

"I worked harder on these songs than I've ever worked before,” Melbourne-based blues-rock singer, songwriter and guitarist Mia Dyson admits of the ten songs that make up her fourth album, The Moment, recorded in California in January this year. “And when I say 'harder', I don't mean 'gruelling over a hot stove,' I just mean I took the time and I didn't leave lines that I thought were weak at least unexplored. I mean, you can't always make yourself find something better, but I got some really constructive criticism from the producers that I worked with, and we both had the same ideas about which parts of the songs needed work.

“So it was really good. Like, normally there's a place that I get to with a song where I've kind of mined all the inspiration out of it and that's as far as I can go, and to have them, [Patrick Cupples and] particularly Erin Sidney, the drummer/producer – he just encouraged me and was sure that I could do better and left me with suggestions and 'this line perhaps could do with some work', and I just went away and did another round of work on the songs after they were all finished and I'd never really done that before. I'd never let anyone give me any sort of feedback and I think it was really beneficial thing to do. I'm really proud of this record. I don't have the same regrets that I have about certain songs on the other records, which I won't name,” she chuckles.

The Moment was the perfect and happy outcome of a three-year journey that saw Dyson relocate to Boston in order to immerse herself in the country from all the music and popular culture that has shaped her as a writer and performer, that hadn't always proved quite what she'd hoped or expected. “I did have an agent who booked me some shows heading over there, but other than that, I didn't know anyone and going to Boston, I didn't have a plan, I didn't have a budget,” Dyson laughs. “I didn't have any of the things that a sensible person would have, and maybe if I'd had those things I would have realised that it was a bad idea and not gone. So, in some ways, I'm glad I didn't look too closely, but I went, on a wing and a prayer, just that pull I had to go and live over there and explore the American music culture and history and everything.

“I didn't survive particularly well, especially the first year. I had no money and I couldn't afford a band. Like I thought I could go over there and just play with a band like I had here, and the reality very quickly came upon me that the cost of touring – it's cheaper over there to tour, but still, if you're only making $US100 a night from a gig, you can't really pay three people and a van and a hotel and all of that. So I had to learn how to play solo. I'd done it just occasionally when absolutely forced to back here, but I had to set my mind to it and rearranged my songs so that they would work solo and, again, that amazing surprise of something seemingly bad, i.e. not being able to have a band and really not wanting to have to play solo but then learning how to play solo and discovering this is a great skill to have and I can actually enjoy this, and it meant I got to tour with Chris Isaac, and I could never have taken a band with me, both logistically and because they wanted a solo act.”

Boston might seem an odd choice of city for someone so obviously passionate about the roots of popular American music and culture, where Nashville, Memphis or St Louis, even New York City, would be the logical lodestone cities in which to be based. “My booking agent recommended I be on the east coast,” Dyson explains, “to tour and because the options were pretty much Philadelphia, Boston and New York, and New York seems just too overwhelming…

“I'd spoken to musicians who'd lived there and it's super expensive and very difficult to make it work, whereas Boston's got quite a tight-knit rock-roots scene, as well as that whole Cambridge folk thing; it's just a much smaller city. I love visiting New York and toured there a lot but I ended up thinking Boston was the go and I really enjoyed living there, great musicians and just a beautiful city. But I ended up moving to Los Angeles with the opportunity that came up to work with Dave Stewart.”

Apart from the end of a long-term relationship, that opportunity to work with the man that had been one half of The Eurythmics proved to be the worst experience of Dyson's time in the US. Taking into account the possibilities of capitalising on certain androgynous aspects of Dyson's image that recalled his former Eurythmics partner, Annie Lennox, Stewart decided to repackage her under a new persona – 'Boy', and recorded an EP, You And Me, to that end.

It quickly became obvious to Dyson however that this wasn't why she'd signed up to make music. “I guess I would now say, in hindsight, I am really grateful for having been sort of tested in that way of, would I listen to my intuition? And would I, in effect, turn down some potentially big opportunities in order to stay true to what I feel and get to make the music I want to make? And it was really tough, and I made myself, I think, a little sick, being in that dichotomy for a little while.

“Coming out the other side I feel glad that I had that experience and it just solidified my belief in the idea that it's not success that's going to make me happy. Not that it's not worth pursuing but that the first goal is be creatively fulfilled and go after that first, and if success comes out of that, then great. So I ended up staying in Los Angeles and strangely, unexpectedly, I loved Los Angeles and met [Erin] and a whole raft of musicians there and it became quite a home.”

Mia Dyson will be playing the following shows:

Wednesday 12 September - Brisbane Festival Spiegeltent, Brisbane QLD
Friday 14 September - Lizottes, Newcastle NSW
Saturday 15 September - Notes Live, Sydney NSW
Sunday 16 September - The Abbey, Canberra ACT
Friday 21 September - Republic Bar, Hobart TAS
Saturday 22 September - Corner Hotel, Melbourne VIC
Saturday 6 October - Lizottes, Kincumber NSW
Saturday 27 October - Sydney Blues Festival, Sydney NSW
Thursday 8 November - Mojos, Fremantle WA
Friday 9 November - Bridgetown Blues, Bridgetown WA