“Bill always wanted to come with me everywhere I went but he was always asleep by the first gate,” he says.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
“The song could have been written about any of my kids though.”
Lost in peaceful dreams mate and be sure that you don’t hurry them,
Take your time, ‘cause for now I’ll do the worrying.
Danny collaborated with The Longreach Band on another of the album’s songs.
How the title came about – The 3 Parts Drunk 4am After Hours Domestic Terminal Blues – is a tale in itself (but that’s a story for another day).
With the album done and dusted, Danny and the band are busy rehearsing for a raft of gigs up and down the country in 2017.
They will play the Mountain Cattlemen’s get-together at Buchan in January, the Man From Snowy River Bush Festival in April and the famous Weipa Bullride in August.
The boys are in constant demand at their “home ground” The Kinross and also have “great supporters” in the Albury SS&A Club, Danny says.
Either way it’s a busy schedule and one can’t help but wonder if a music career is indeed much closer to reality than is first suggested.
Danny insists none of this is about trying to be famous.
“To be honest I’m just as happy playing alone at home in front of the fire,” he says.
To be honest I’m just as happy playing alone at home in front of the fire.
- Danny Phegan
“But we love festival gigs, rodeos and cattlemen’s events – that’s definitely our scene and we’re not getting home at 4am.”
“I’m getting too old for that now.”
What Danny is never too old for is helping a good cause and he says the band is always the first to put up its hand to play at a fundraiser.
It’s nothing new for this knockabout bloke with a big heart and big dreams.
In 2002, with a loyal band of two-legged and four-legged mates, Danny completed a marathon horse trek from Darwin to Cockle Creek Bay, Tasmania to raise money for cancer.
The Campfires Against Cancer ride raised $531,318 for cancer research in the process.
A decade later, Danny felt it was time to transcribe the stories of that ride and the resulting medical advancements into a book.
In 2014, Trail of Dreams was launched at the Kinross with all author royalties donated to the Albury-Wodonga Cancer Foundation and regional trust centre.
Testament to the community support for this cause, more than 650 people packed into the pub to raise $52,000 that night.
Then – and now – the ongoing support from country communities whether it’s for his music, cancer cause or even the odd hare-brained lark, never fails to humble this “singing farmer”.
That and the unwavering forbearance of his childhood sweetheart and wife Caroline.
“If it wasn’t for Caroline, I’d probably be renting a room behind some pub singing Hank Williams songs,” Danny laughs?