Adam Harvey On New Album 'Let The Song Take You Home': 'I’m Loving It Now More Than Ever'

Australian country regular Adam Harvey released his first two albums, 1994’s Adam Harvey and 1995’s Second Time Around, through a couple of now-defunct independent labels. He signed with Warner Music for his third album, 1999’s Sugar Talk, recorded with Joe Camilleri at Melbourne’s Woodstock Studios. But despite the major label contract, the album wasn’t a hit.

“That record deal was probably the shortest in history,” Harvey says, speaking to Countrytown from his home on the NSW Central Coast. “I put out this album that was an absolute stinker and they said, ‘Well son, you’ve had your shot at the music industry. There’s the door.’”

To say Harvey was undeterred by this inauspicious association would be a gross understatement. The three-chords-and-the-truth traditionalist’s new album, Let The Song Take You Home, is his seventeenth overall and his eleventh straight release through Sony Music Australia.

In the last two and a half decades, Harvey has sold over half a million records and won nine Golden Guitar Awards. He’s conducted umpteen tours of metro and regional Australia and travelled to all corners of the globe on the back of his music.

Born and bred in Geelong, Harvey spent the first phase of his career living in Warrnambool on Victoria’s south-western coast. His fortunes began to shift around the turn of the 2000s when his next label, ABC Country, compelled him to move to Sydney.

“Back then, they wouldn’t give you a record deal unless you moved to Sydney,” Harvey says. “Gina Jeffreys had moved to Sydney from Toowoomba. Troy Cassar-Daley had moved down from Grafton to Sydney. I know Kasey Chambers came across from South Australia, so did Beccy Cole.”

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Harvey would know: he’s recorded songs with Jeffreys and Chambers and released entire albums in collaboration with Cassar-Daley and Cole. The latter was Harvey’s sparring partner on his previous LP, the covers collection The Great Country Songbook Volume III. Let The Song Take You Home marks a return to original material.

Harvey recorded the new album in Nashville, Tennessee, with producer Luke Wooten (Brad Paisley, The Wolfe Brothers). In contrast to the more stereotypical country themes that dominated his early releases – heartbreak and boozing – the new album demonstrates how Harvey’s songwriting has quietly evolved.

“As you get older, you have more life experience, and it gives you more things to write about and different ways to look at different subjects or things that are happening or people around you,” he says.

A prime example of Harvey’s expanded songcraft is the single Remember Me, written in response to his mother’s experience with dementia. Harvey considers it the most personal song he’s ever written. “It’s heartbreaking and also just really special,” he says. “Anyone that’s got family that are going through dementia knows it’s just so horrible.”

Remember Me is a stripped-back ballad in the style of country greats like George Jones. Harvey says writing the song was a therapeutic exercise as much as anything else.

“I took my mum out for a great lunch, and as I was driving her back to the aged care place that she stays at, my mum said, ‘Gee, it’s nice to chat with you. You’re like the son I’ve never ever had.’”

He thought the comment was a joke at first. “I looked across and laughed and said, ‘Oh yeah, that’s really funny, mum.’” But he quickly realised she was serious. “It dawned on me that the time is coming when she won’t remember me at all. And that’s how the song started to evolve.”

The song had originally revolved around the lyric, “Please remember me,” but Harvey tweaked the line on the advice of fellow country artist Mike Carr, who receives a co-writing credit.

“I showed it to [Carr], and he said, ‘What if you get rid of the word “please” and just have “remember me?”’ And then he said, ‘Every time you say the word “me,” put an upward inflection on it so that it’s a question every time,’” Harvey explains.

The Remember Me music video premiered at the CLIPPED Music Video Festival in late October. Harvey was joined at the event by the clip’s director, Shane Drake, whose filmography includes award-winning videos for Panic! At the Disco (I Write Sins Not Tragedies), Tim McGraw (Highway Don't Care feat. Taylor Swift) and Carrie Underwood (Love Wins).

Premiering the clip in a public setting was not only a moving experience for Harvey but a moment of creative vindication. “Everyone who listens to it or has watched the clip, they all cry,” he says. “It’s something that I’ll cherish forever, and whenever I think of it, even though it’s a sad song, I’ll have beautiful memories of my mum.”

The Let The Song Take You Home album tour starts with shows in regional New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria throughout November. A second run of tour dates will follow in January and February 2025. Harvey’s known for his personable on-stage demeanour, but he can’t rule out tears during performances of Remember Me.

“It’s something that I’ve had to sing quite a few times to get to the point where I can think about Mum when I deliver it, but I’m not going to break down and cry my eyes out,” he says.

There’s another milestone on the horizon for Harvey: he’s turning 50 in December. The music industry has changed massively in the last 30 years, but he’s feeling optimistic about the next phase of his career.

“I’m never going to be filling arenas or headlining these massive big festivals, but as you get older, you realise, if I can just hit the road and basically pull up in almost any town in regional Australia and do a show and pull a good crowd, that’s pretty fortunate,” Harvey says.

“If it all ends tomorrow, well, it’s just been fantastic. But if people will still come along to the shows or they still want to listen to my music, then I’m just going to keep going because I’m loving it now more than ever.”

Let The Song Take You Home is out now. Adam Harvey will tour in support of the album throughout November. You can listen to the album and purchase tickets to the shows here.