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Interview: Wesley Dean shares the story behind ‘Gypsy’ and opens up about moving to the US

Australian singer-songwriter Wesley Dean gained plenty of momentum in 2020 with his releases including ‘Magik’, ‘Are You Gonna Save My World’ and ‘This Thing Called Life’.

Earlier this year, Dean moved from his native Australia to Nashville, Tennessee to capitalise on the opportunities that have been presenting themselves for him and his music. With plenty of new music to share, Dean unveiled new track ‘Gypsy’ recently, his second new song of 2021.

I caught up with Wesley to discuss his big move, talk about the incredible story behind ‘Gypsy’ and to find out how he’s settling in…

Since we last spoke, you moved from Australia to Nashville. How’s that going for you?

We are 10 weeks in to Nashville. Myself and my wife and my two boys moved in a global pandemic (laughs), which is nuts. This is the week where we’re just starting to feel like our feet have just touched the ground again. It was pretty overwhelming, the whole uncertainty of moving from Australia where there’s not many cases and the international borders are closed, to Nashville where there were lots of cases of COVID. We’ve just been feeling a little upside down the last 10 weeks and getting used to driving on the other side of the road (laughs).

Why did you decide to make move, especially now during the pandemic?

The opportunity knocked for me with my music. I was getting a lot of attention here in America online. The momentum started happening with my music and what I was doing, and I was set up before the pandemic happened. I had recorded 20 songs and I just kept releasing the songs, and every song gained more and more momentum online. I thought I needed to be in America to be able to set up a band. When the pandemic slowed down and everything started to open up again, I needed to be ready. Tomorrow I’ve got my first band rehearsal and we’re putting together an all-American band. All of my songs are registered here now in America and it’s all about America so I needed to physically be here in order to keep on going. I didn’t really want to sit around and mope about missing a lot of opportunity (due to the pandemic) and I believe in always keep waking up and giving it your best shot no matter what situation you’re in. You’ve got to turn lemonade out of lemons sometimes, and that’s what I am about; making the opportunity work for me.

I had the opportunity there already and I was about to move to America before the pandemic happened but when that hit, it delayed me a year but I had the opportunity to release songs online. When the time came to make the move, I was confident enough to do that. I have a beautiful wife, who supported me with that, and two boys that are eight and two. I want to be able to send a message to my boys too when they grow up and look back on on this time. I think we’re going to be talking about this time for the next 20 or 30 years. When they do look back on this time, they’re going to say, ‘well, Mum and Dad did this crazy thing and so I can do this crazy thing too if I want to. I can believe in myself too if I want to’. It’s an empowering thing I think as a kid to look back on.

Had you been to Nashville before you decided to move there?

I had, I’ve been here three or four times on writing trips and visiting, just hanging out. It’s an amazing place for music. Everybody’s a musician (laughs). The plumber comes around and we get talking and all of a sudden he’s a guitarist and he plays in this band. Everybody’s had their hand in music at some stage because it’s the culture here.

Years ago, I touched down in L.A., and this is one of the first times I’d been to America, and I ran into Andrew Farriss, who was the lead songwriter of INXS. I’d worked with him when I was a kid and I remember him saying to me, ‘America is an incredible place, because it’s like they invented entertainment’ and that’s always stuck in the back of my mind. He’s right, it’s a place where anything is possible and if you’re a musician or an artist, it feels good to be a musician and artist here. Sometimes I felt a little bit like I needed to do something else growing up because people would ask me, ‘well, what else do you want to do?’ (laughs) I was one of those guys that left school early and I’ve been backing myself since I was really young in music and whatever. I’m one of those guys that left school early and chased a dream, and I’m still chasing it down.

Wesley Dean
Credit: Kelli-Jean Black

It’s only people in the arts that ever get asked about their back-up plan isn’t it? You don’t ask someone training to be a lawyer if they have another career planned just in case it doesn’t work out…

We all need lawyers at one stage (laughs). We all need music, too. It’s a funny one isn’t it? Art is just a whole other beast that a lot of people don’t understand. I don’t want to speak badly on those people’s behalf but it’s that thing that if they’re going to be an accountant or whatever, they can’t comprehend that you want to be a musician. That’s where I grew up, where a lot of my friends from school were accountants and lawyers. Some of my best mates aren’t musical at all and they just look at me and go, ‘wow, what the hell are you doing?’ (laughs) Sometimes I wake up and ask myself the same question, but it’s in me. I’ve never thought about doing anything else.

I’m loving the new single ‘Gypsy’ that came out recently. It gives another glimpse into the fantastic new music you’ve been working on. What’s the story behind it?

I was in a place in the outback of Australia, and I was playing these garden gigs, they were called Tea Light Tales, and they were for communities around Australia. I’d go to really remote rural towns in in Australia and I’d play to 100-150 people in the backyard of someone’s house or an iconic part of their town, where it would be an old 1800s kind of place. This time I arrived, whatever you believe this is the story, and I just felt this presence in this place. It wouldn’t leave me alone. It was like this feeling of someone’s here and it was just an eerie kind of feeling. Not a scary feeling, just that this place has got a lot of history and it’s almost talking to me. I had a long soundcheck and I started playing the chords to ‘Gypsy’ and then then I started singing the song almost as if it was nearly done. It all kind of came pretty quick.

I started imagining this woman running down by the river and screaming to her God about her baby who had just passed away. It sounds pretty dark, but her baby had just passed away from cot death, which was quite a regular happening back in those days. I later found out that she was the wife of a bishop that had a lot of children and that she had lost a small child to cot death. The gardener of the grounds that I was at had told me this story, and it blew me away that I’d seen this image of this woman walking down by the river that I was looking over. I had the feeling that she was calling me the ‘Gypsy’ walking into her house and telling me to behave myself because this was her place. She was very staunch, a very 1800s woman with the whole get up on, the Victorian looking dress.

Whether it’s a figment of my imagination, or whether she was a ghost, I don’t know, but, I’ll never forget it. The song really landed in my lap from that experience. I went home and recorded it in my studio by myself, and it was this conversation that I was having with this woman of what she was saying to me. (laughs) I’m talking about it like she’s actual person but I guess she was at one stage. Some people could say, ‘wow, you’re crazy man’, but it’s not that, it really is that feeling of there being something else. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the story myself (laughs) but it’s a piece of art and expression of that experience,

Well you got a cracking song out of it either way…

Exactly. Whatever you believe. I’m really proud of this song. I imagined Stevie Nicks actually singing it. I would love to hear Stevie Nicks sing that one day, that would be kinda cool, but she’s got her own song called ‘Gypsy’.

Now that you’re in Nashville, ‘Gypsy’ is out there and you’ve got all these songs you’ve written, what is your plan for music over the coming months?

I’m always writing songs, mate. I never slow down with songs. I’ve got another 20 or something on the go. I’m actually in my little studio here now, demoing new songs. Getting the band together, I’ve got a gig at Nashville Palace every Thursday in June, which will be my first live shows for two years. That should be fun. I played a place called Whiskey Jam in Nashville the other night, which was awesome to get up and just be in front of a crowd again. It’s about me touring with the band and solo in America now. I’ve played the one show in America ever and that was only two or three weeks ago, three weeks ago. I’m really looking forward to getting out on the road and playing these songs live. It’s gonna be really exciting.

Wesley Dean
Credit: Kelli-Jean Black

We need to get you over to the UK next year for some live shows…

I’m really excited about taking this to a worldwide audience. I can’t believe I’m saying that but it’s gonna be a lot of fun to to play in different places. I love the UK and I love Europe. I’ve been around there a few times. I’ve been in London many times and I love London. It feels like there’s a piece of me there because my grandparents on my dad’s side are from London. Even to get back to Australia and do a tour as well, it would be great to come home after touring a place like America and play these songs live too. I’m looking forward to all the possibilities in the future.

I’ve said it to you before but I feel like your music would be embraced here in the UK as we tend to lean towards the more heartfelt singer-songwriter aspect of Country music..

I’m a massive fan of those Damien Rice’s of the world. Paddy Casey, the Irish artist who sang ‘Sweet Suburban Sky’, he was brilliant. Then there’s Glen Hansard… all those guys, man, they all come from your part of the world. I grew up listening to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and was heavily inspired by the British rock’n’roll sound of the 60s and 70s. I love it over there. It’s another place with rich history just like Nashville.

This is such an exciting time for you and I can’t wait to see how America responds to you and your music. Is it quite nerve-wracking to embark on this journey knowing just how competitive America is?

It is mate. For the Whiskey Jam show, I played three songs so it wasn’t a whole show. It’s a snippet of what you can do and you had to get up there, plug in, bang and you were on. It was the first dip of my middle toe in the water and it was surreal, because I haven’t played like that since I was really young. When I was 14 or 15 and started playing shows, they would whisk me on and whisk me off, in these little local bars in Sydney. I’d turn up with my guitar, nervous as all hell and I’d play songs that I wrote in my bedroom. It was a baptism by fire.

It was like that for the Whiskey Jam show, I felt like I’d gone back to my roots again. It was a surreal experience to see people know some of the songs even though I hadn’t played in America. They’d turned up to see me because they’d seen me on social media. There was quite a few people there to actually see me play, which was surreal and I only found that out afterwards. When I first got on, it was like, ‘wow, this is my first gig in America and I thought nobody knew who I was’. Here was this crazy Australian guy with this hat on, ready to rock out, and as soon as I opened my mouth, it silenced the room because they weren’t expecting an Australian accent.

All of those sorts of things, I’d never really experienced before on stage. It was inspiring and it gave me so much more inspiration to move on in this climate of people not playing as much and feeling a little nervous that I was up in front of people on a stage. We’re still in this pandemic, and all these different uncertainties rolled through mind mind that you don’t usually have as an artist or performer. Normally you just get up and the world disappears and you’re ready to rock, but right now the world’s still a little crazy every way you turn. It was something I’ll never forget.

Wesley Dean’s new song ‘Gypsy’ is available to download and stream now. Take a listen to the song below:

Pip Ellwood-Hughes
Pip Ellwood-Hughes
Pip is the owner and Editor of Entertainment Focus, and the Managing Director of PiƱata Media. With over 19 years of journalism experience, Pip has interviewed some of the biggest stars in the entertainment world. He is also a qualified digital marketing expert with over 20 years of experience.

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