Australian singer/songwriter Casey Barnes has just achieved what is known as the holy trilogy in country circles.
Casey won the ARIA for Best Country Album at the end of 2022, then started 2023 scoring the Top Selling Australian Album of the Year and then the prestigious Toyota Album of the Year gong at the Golden Guitar Awards in Tamworth.
“That’s pretty rare,” Casey says of the hat trick. “I remember stopping and thinking ‘OK, this has actually happened, be grateful.'”
Gratitude is something Casey Barnes is very familiar with. He’s an overnight sensation nearly 20 years in the making. He’s perfected the hustle and patience required to make it in the music business, respected in the industry for his hard work and dedication.
“For quite a long time it felt like you’re taking a few steps forward but then you get a knock back but you keep going again. It happens in stages. However, in the last 12 months everything feels like it’s clicked into place. We’ve opened the floodgates; everything seems to be going right. And you get that new injection of excitement and coming off the back of the ARIA win and the Golden Guitars, you want it to go to that next level. There’s that expectation and excitement.”
Casey Barnes starts 2023 with his biggest success just ahead of him as he enters a new musical chapter. The first taste of that era is the wildly-catchy new single “Summer Nights “. For a songwriter who has documented everything from unconditional love to unthinkable grief, right now, it’s time to party. Written with Melbourne hitmaking team MSquared (Michael Paynter and Michael DeLorenzis), it’s a celebration of great times fuelled by beer, whiskey and your favourite song turned up loud.
Summer Nights is the future soundtrack to your next party – and it’s also purpose-built for small clubs and huge festivals.
“I wanted to write something universal,” Casey says. “That’s what people come to see you for. They’re working their arses off all week in a job they may not really love, so on the weekend they just want to let their hair down with their best friends, not take life too seriously and have some fun.”
Casey may be staring down the most exciting period of his career, but after years of hard work, he knows timing is also critical.
“If a lot of the stuff happening for me right now had happened seven or eight years ago, I probably wasn’t ready. Since then, I’ve become a better songwriter and on the live front our band can mix it with the best artists out there. I’ve learned a lot about the industry and I’ve got the right people around me”.
“You’ve got to do the hard yards and earn your stripes in the music industry, which is how it should be. It’s taken me a while to get to this point. People want to see if you are the real deal, if you are taking it seriously and not just sticking your toe in. Similar to the market in Nashville, you can’t just fly in and fly out, you have to be committed to it. Once they realise that, they take you seriously and things start to happen.”
One song that made things happen for Casey is “God Took His Time On You”, from the ARIA winning album “Light It Up”. The 2022 single opened doors for Casey in Australia and the US, with heavy radio play and over six million streams on Spotify alone. After successful shows in the US late last year, Casey returns to the US in June this year for shows across the country and the CMA Fest in Nashville. Casey has also just returned from writing with some of Nashville’s most successful songwriters as he continues to hone his craft.
“Every person you get in a room with there’s a different energy, so I’ve came back with some really great songs and they’ve bought out different musical sides of me and different lyrical topics. It’s important as you grow as an artist you don’t want the next album to sound the same as the last album, you want to evolve.”
And he’ll keep connecting with fans, whether it be on Tik Tok (“my two daughters gave me some tips on how to use it”) or an upcoming tour.
“I feel like I’ve played the long game by not giving up and now all that hard work is paying off.”