Thirsty Merc"One constant that I'm realising is that people always wanna hear music and their lives are enhanced by music," Thirsty Merc frontman Rai Thistlethwayte opines. "Music can be a really great healer; it can really help people through difficult and bad times in all sorts of capacities, and that's what it's been for me."
Thirsty Merc's world was turned upside down late last year when a tragic car crash claimed the life of their stage manager Shane Cooper and left drummer Mick Skelton in critical condition. Skelton wound up in an induced coma for five days and, Thistlethwayte explains, "He spent since then 'til almost, like, very recently kind of just getting his strength back and going through all the recuperation, and he is gonna be back playing drums for pretty much most of the tour actually… He's not gonna be playing in Melbourne, because the crash sort of happened on the way from Ballarat to Warrnambool so, yeah; it's just been really emotional for everyone. But, you know, life goes on and he's got the right attitude."
"He's not gonna be playing in Melbourne, because the crash sort of happened on the way from Ballarat to Warrnambool so, yeah; it's just been really emotional for everyone."
At the time of the accident Thirsty Merc were touring to promote Shifting Gears, the first album of "new material" the band released after "a good number of years", and Thistlethwayte commends Skelton: "He's been probably the most inspiring kind of element of the last while for us. I've been through a real rollercoaster emotionally, to be honest. Yeah, it's just really difficult to keep everything together." Thistlethwayte says he's thankful he has music in his life: "[Music] definitely has a healing element to it, I think."
As the band prepare for their upcoming tour dates, Thistlethwayte allows, "There's quite a lot going on. It feels like we've spent a lot of the last 12 months really just kind of paving the way for what is happening now… it sort of takes you a while to re-convene, get back on the scene."
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Thirsty Merc released Shifting Gears independently and Thistlethwayte admits, "It been pretty cool to sort of prove to ourselves that we can do things independently, but also kind of go out and keep cruisin' through and still enjoy the creative side of it as much as we always did so, yeah! It's really quite a positive time for us in 2016."
Thistlethwayte believes "even if I was in a vacuum, there would have been a love for music there within me". He recently spent ten days in LA where he has "a little recording studio" and managed to fit in "a couple of songwriting sessions". "It's still a big challenge to write music in a lot of ways," he muses. "It's almost like there are sort of weird growing pains that are associated with a song… it doesn't feel satisfied until something's happened with it — like, it's been a completed demo or it's come out on a record or you've done the definitive recording of it as a live performance or something. But until it's at that point there's this level of yearning or something that goes along with it and, yeah! It's often, like, a beautiful experience, but sometimes it's like pulling teeth, you know: a bit of an equation… it's like a little puzzle or something."
