Singer-songwriter TOM COONEY gets grilled about wanting it all: a band, and control, and collaboration, and freedom. Ha! Good Luck! says interviewer JESSE MACPHERSON, but good-naturedly. Tom’s a nice guy.

When younger, Tom Cooney was in bands. Now he’s not. But he’d like to be. But he wouldn’t like to be. But if he gets a band, he has some name ideas. Let’s try that again. It’s like this:

Like other folk-noir guitar composers, (Elliot Smith, Ryan Adams, Jack Johnson) Tom writes alone, starting with a melody on guitar, working up lyrics, then building the song around it. This works fine for him, but he still misses “having other people to bounce things off.” So why compose alone?  “You have complete control over what’s happening. “  Fair enough. How about playing shows? “To be on stage on your own is pretty free.” So you don’t miss a band for gigs? “Well, there are so many layers that could make a song come alive, but you don’t have, so you’re stuck with, ‘yeah I’ve got control but just of my guitar and my voice and that’s it.’” Poor Tommy – he needs some friends to play with.

Well, turns out he has some. He has already recorded a quarter of his forthcoming full-length album, hopefully out next year, and on these few tracks he has already used more instruments and musicians than on his current ‘mini-album.’ The current release is receiving praise for the level of song complexity with such paired down instrumentation. Seems like he’s got a good formula he can stick with. But Cooney doesn’t see it that way. He wants the next release to be “all new territory” and he plans to bring in more musicians he’s been working with. Tom wants to be careful, though, not to crowd the album. “I enjoy the space in music,” he says. He would like to eventually put together a band to tour with, but for now it is still just him, up there, all alone.

Tom opened for Toni Collette, in front of the sometimes silly starlet-struck audiences. What is that like? “There are people who come to the gig expecting something else and they just see me and go, ‘well, what’s this? He doesn’t even have a drummer?’”

So what’s worse, playing for hundreds of people waiting for someone else, or playing tiny venues of wall-to-wall clatter and chatter?

“Either way, when you’re pouring your heart out and it’s not being received, it’s pretty tough. But there’s a part of you that knows that even though there’re people talking, there’re people listening, too.” He also says it’s rewarding when people come up after.

Tom’s happy with his new video, as well. And he should be; it’s good – just him and his lonesome guitar isolated in the dark, while stars and cosmic bodies dart around them. The set has a grade school play feel, where illusion is broken by cardboard props and wires. That’s what they wanted. Joathan Oxlade, of Queensland Theatre Company, and Danny Ryan helped develop the concept and set. As Tom explains, “we wanted it to be a world away from reality, but then reality creeps in.” It works well with the wrought drift of Hold Me Down, the title track off his mini-album. Considering what he can do with just his six-string, all alone, his buddies album should be great. 

Cooney kicks off the Roads and Mirrors tour with Aussie songsmiths Earl Grey and Leena at the Troubadour, Thursday May 31, 8pm. Tom’s seven track album Hold Me Down is out now on Footstomp Music, available at www.myspace.com/tomcooneymusic and www.tomcooney.com.au

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