Rider Essentials: Henry Wagons

Henry Wagons’ has a knack for pulling you right into his world of impressive storytelling and songs – as evident on the recently released South Of Everywhere – his third solo album in six years.

Inspired by the American Outlaw Country greats, as well as stories of his travels in his own backyard, Henry also collaborated with hip-hop/pop song-master Mr. Hudson, as well as Matt “Linny” Linesch (Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros) and Lachlan Bryan on the record. The album features the singles Felix Granger The Finger Pickin’ Boy with Chris Cheney and the catchy (Don’t Be) Down And Out, which was added to high rotation of ABC Country.

To coincide with the release of South Of Everywhere, Henry and his band, The Only Children, will launch the album around the country (February-March), followed by a performance at Bluesfest Melbourne in April.

Last month, the alt-country singer-songwriter co-hosted the Golden Guitar Awards red carpet alongside 2023 Toyota Star Maker winner, Loren Ryan to hilarious results.

We caught up with Henry Wagons to find out the things he always takes on the road with him for this week’s Rider Essentials.

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1. Gold Grilled Microphone 

I always treat my microphone with fire and brimstone. With all my flailing around, the mic always gets thrown around and spat into far more than it should. If I forget to use my own gold topped Beta 58, I get in trouble with the sound engineer for destroying their mic. I'm pretty sure I've had to replace my gold grills more than Flavor Flav has had to replace his.

2. AirPods

The world is a crazy place at present. You never know who you may need to tune in to, be it music or a podcast, to help get you through and process the day in the best way. Perhaps more to the point, the AirPods are often handy to tune out whoever you might be seating next to on the plane too!!

3. Hip Flask

Since we are talking about riders, us musicians always get ushered into a room full of booze to help us do our job. It’s quite the weird and amazing office space! Despite my beard and pot belly, I don’t drink much beer. The hip flask is a great way to keep up with the level of tipsy of my rhythm section, but also have some nice whisky in doing so.

4. Dry Shampoo

When on tour, hurtling from place to place, you often don’t get a chance to check in to the hotel before heading to the venue. A little gust of dry shampoo can soak up the grease like nobody’s business... and get that bit of “air in the hair” that every country singer needs. I'm not sure what dry shampoo is made of, but I'm sure it'd provide some help for oil spills and floods.

5. Golden Rough

When you pull up to the country roadhouse to fill up, I often don’t feel like a whole Crunchie or Bounty… often due to the fact that I had a whole one already at the last truck stop! So, the only thing left to do, when you still want something sweet, is to grab a cheeky little Golden Rough. The coconut hockey puck.

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Keep up to date with Henry Wagons on his Facebook page here.
You can find out more about the South Of Everywhere tour here.