James Johnston: 'You Have To Keep Working At The Craft. Nashville Taught Me That'

Australia’s hottest country hitmaker, James Johnston—with 60 million global streams and rising fast—knows Nashville well.

The country music capital is where he started writing the kind of songs that would transform his life, taking him from playing pubs to any audience he could find to headlining sold-out tours and dominating the Australian charts with his debut single, Raised Like That, and the album of the same name released last year.

A key part of the story happened on his first visit to Nashville, on holiday as a backpacker. Finding himself alone at a piano in the early hours at the hostel where he was staying, he took inspiration from the fabled music city, and original songs came tumbling out—country songs like the ones he loved growing up in the small town of Wingham, New South Wales.

Johnston says: “That night, I wrote a song called Nashville, about what life could look like in the years ahead, and that song came to life over the next five years.”

Nashville is where he connected with producer Justin Wantz, and they worked on tunes like Raised Like That, with stories that reflect all the joys and heartaches of life on the land.

“One of the biggest things I took from Nashville is that songwriting is a job,” Johnston says. “Before Nashville, I always had this idea that you write a song, and hopefully, you get lucky and write something great that becomes a hit.”

Now he knows that, like any craft, writing songs is more like 1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration.

“A great sculpture like the Statue of David, is it the first thing Michelangelo made? Of course not. He made mistakes; he threw things out. It is the same for a musician. If you want to get good at anything, you have to keep working at the craft. Nashville taught me that.”

Before that ambitious 20-track debut, there were many misfires, songs discarded and obstacles to overcome. 

“I’ve been making music for a living since I was 17,” Johnston says. ”Everyone sees the moment when it all kicks off, but it has been a winding path to get there.

“When I meet a struggling musician, I say, ‘This is your apprenticeship. You are not going to get paid a lot of money. Sometimes, you have to do the gig for free, but that’s how it works.’ I have played to less than five people. Some nights, you wish five people were there, to be honest.”

In Australian music, there is seldom a fast track to the top, but all those shows, all the kilometres, all the different kinds of venues and songs he played meant Johnston could not have been better prepared for what lay ahead.

“In Nashville, there is a big industry in songwriting and making records. In Australia, if you want to make any sort of a living, you have to play live. As you grow, you can develop those other things. I would say, be ready for the moment. You can’t be prepared for everything that comes your way, but playing a thousand shows in pubs was a good thing for me when I started.”

Johnston first reached a wider audience as a teenager when he placed third in Australian Idol in 2009. He tried his hand at material from John Mayer to Queen, but country music was always the place he felt most at home. 

“I go back and forth to Nashville a lot. I don’t think necessarily the musicianship is any greater there than what it is here. But what you have is tens of thousands of people in the one place who share the same passion. When you go to a restaurant, the person serving you is a musician, the person who picks you up in an Uber is a musician.

“You are surrounded by music constantly, people talking about music constantly. That’s so much a part of culture that it is always an inspiring place to be.”

The people he met along the way have also played vital roles, like songwriting collaborator Nolan Wynn and Justin Wantz, who produced most of his debut album’s tracks.

“Justin was a young producer just starting out like I was. We recorded almost an album’s worth of songs that will never see the light of day. I didn’t feel those songs cut it, but we kept growing together, and finally, we stumbled on something that was right.

“Nolan and I first wrote together seven years ago, and that song sucked. We kept at it until we started to write great songs together.”

Johnston’s latest release is his first collaboration with his childhood hero Lee Kernaghan, the co-release of Who I Am. They first met in Tamworth in 2001 when James was ten. Kernaghan signed a tour poster that stayed on James’s bedroom wall for years.

“As a kid growing up in a country town, when I heard Lee’s music, I felt this sense of identity,” Johnston says. “That had a huge impact on me, this feeling that I belonged to something bigger, and that has carried through all the music I have released. I made a decision that was the kind of music I wanted to create. Now it has come full circle, spending time with Lee, writing the song, getting to know him on a different level, that’s been such a cool experience.”

Johnston is working on songs for his next album. This week, he released snippets of three new songs, Blame, Hellboy, and Down By The River, to his social media followers. He is asking his fans to vote on which one will be his next single.

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In September and October, he plays his first arena shows, supporting American country star Kip Moore in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

“I’m a huge fan of Kip’s music and what he does, playing to huge audiences in places like South Africa and the UK. I want to be that kind of artist who reaches an international audience, and I am so excited to be playing for Aussie fans in venues where I have seen some of my favourite artists.”

Kip Moore, with James Johnston, plays at ICC Sydney Theatre on September 28, Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne on October 3, and Brisbane Entertainment Centre on October 13. Book through Frontier Touring.