Today, 3 x time ARIA Award and 11 x Golden Guitar winning Shane Nicholson announces extra live shows and releases his new radio single ‘Helena’ the follow up to his Top 15 Country Radio single ‘And You Will Have Your Way.’ In line with the release, Shane will also release a live video of ‘Helena.’
Shane describes ‘Helena’ as a dream song. “I’ve never had a dream song before. I was a little bit jealous of people who had. I woke up one morning and had the title and sort of a little melody in my head. ‘It only hurts for a while’ is the tagline. In the dream it was ‘Helena it only hurts ’till you die’ – that was a little bit sadder [he laughs], maybe not as hopeful. That was the original version I wrote. I backtracked a bit and thought no I’m gonna make this a little more hopeful and open-ended.
“It was fun to record. I was having a great time, playing and playing, then I started adding backing vocals and I got carried away with it one night. You know, a couple of whiskeys and a microphone. It ballooned into something bigger and shinier than I thought it would.”
Living In Colour was released in August, hit Top 5 on the ARIA Country Chart and is nominated for ARIA Best Country Album. It was written and recorded in Shane’s Central Coast studio pretty much on his own due to Covid restrictions. I just found it fun to be doing it myself. It was sort of a return to the old days, my teenage years, when I had my first Pro-Tools set up on old computer and I was making demos and putting songs together, learning about the mechanics of production in a bedroom in Brisbane in my parents’ house,” he says excitedly. “I haven’t really done that since then, being able to sit there by myself and pick up instrument after instrument. It was mostly me and a bottle of whiskey into the night, that was it.
ABOUT SHANE NICHOLSON
Nicolson’s storied career started in the late 1990s with his first Brisbane based band Pretty Violet Stain. With a solo career launch in 2002 with the release of ‘It’s a Movie’, he’s since followed up with nine albums, including 2015 ARIA Award winning ‘Hell Breaks Loose’ and 2 x ARIA Award winning albums with Kasey Chambers – the platinum selling, ARIA No.1 album ‘Rattlin’ Bones’ and ‘Wreck and Ruin’. With 11 x CMAA Golden Guitar awards under his belt including 2021 APRA Song of the Year for ‘The High Price of Surviving’, Nicolson has also been recognised internationally with 2 nominations for USA Americana Music Association awards. As a seasoned producer, Nicholson has been busy working with Alex Lloyd, Tori Forsyth, Beccy Cole, Michael Waugh and Camille Trail.
Nicholson is a rare talent who has bridged the gap between Alt-country and the mainstream. He crafts his songs seamlessly and can wrap up difficult subject matters with music of uplifting beauty and charm. He has released 4 songs from Living In Colour – The High Price Of Surviving, Harvest on Vinyl, Life Ain’t Fine and his latest single, And You Will Have Your Way’ which captures Nicholson’s charismatic talent for writing striking songs that pay tribute to the unpredictability of human experience.