Nick Keogh is one of ten young, emerging artists who will grace the Port Fairy Folk Festival stage next month as part of a new youth program for the 2022 event.
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The energetic folk-pop performer hails from a sheep farm in Mullengandra, NSW.
- Hear the singer-songwriter on making music in the country and collaborating from afar in our new series The Folkie Podcast, only on Spotify.
"I'm really excited to be playing it, I'm really glad that I got chosen for the youth initiative that they run," Keogh said.
"Everyone who plays music wants it to be heard; that's why you record it, you record it so other people can listen to it.
"I think like an opportunity like Port Fairy is so incredible because you know, you get that opportunity to play in front of lots of people who actually really care and enjoy folk music."
Keogh joins Henrietta Barker, Abbey Titmus, Grace Moloney, Ruby McKenna, Maddie Jackway, Evie May, Gabby Steel, Andrei O'Connor, and Flynn Gurry in the youth installment of the festival.
The youth program provides an opportunity for up-and-coming musicians to present their brand of folk music to a large crowd and work alongside established artists involved in the 2022 festival.
Keogh creates disarming and catchy lyrics, blended with his unique brand of tongue-in-cheek storytelling with soaring horns and catchy choruses.
The energetic folk-pop performer hails from a sheep farm in Mullengandra, New South Wales.
"A lot of those places are based on sports - I love sport and I must have driven my parents crazy because there were times where I'd play footy in the morning and then I'd get get driven to a gig or a dance competition or some other arts thing that I was doing at the time.
"In regional towns not everyone gets the arts in the same way. If I ever chose to play a gig instead of playing footy, people were confused by that.
"I do wonder if I didn't play sport, if I'd have the same connections there."
After craving attention from a young age, Keogh began performing at the age of five and writing at 12.
"My family was always really supportive of anything that I wanted to try," he said.
" I remember my dad was like, if you're going to keep doing this music thing, we better buy some actual equipment so that you can do it properly.
"I remember this one time I applied for busking in Ballarat and I didn't realise it was like an eight hour drive or something and I didn't have my licence or anything so my mum and dad to drove me there and back in a day."
Growing up on a farm meant Keogh learnt responsibility at an early age.
Ever the young entrepreneur, on top of sport, music and animal parenting he found time to start a business with his brother and sister.
"We had to go under the shearing shed and dig out all the sheep poo and put it in like big like bags and sell it," he said with a laugh. "That was our first capital venture, which is funny to think about now.
"We sold it so cheap as well for the amount of work we were doing, like $4 a bag.
"I remember that we sold it to like my old school principal and whoever wanted manure on their garden, it was so bizarre."
For young, particularly rural musicians, tools like social media have opened up opportunities to collaborate with other artists in ways not always possible when you live hundreds of kilometres from the nearest city.
It's how he met Warrnambool artist Nancie Schipper and producer James Seymour.
"I met Nancie when she was on tour with Alex Lahey and I started following her on Instagram," he said.
"In 2020 she put up a story asking does anyone want to do a co-write? And I replied yes, here's a demo.
"Then we did a Zoom and we wrote a song called Red Flags which was super fun.
"The first time I met her in person was when we were recording it at Small Time in Brunswick, which was really great."
Keogh's new single Baby Blue is out March 4.
"I've had an EP ready since about August but I've just kind of been sitting on it because I don't want to release it during another lockdown or if venues can't be full capacity," Keogh said.
"I just started thinking about what I would say to an ex if I ran into them in person, and all the things I want to say but couldn't.
"It's a very jovial song and it's a thing that I love in music, when you listen to the song on face value it seems like a fun and like a nice song, but maybe third or fourth time you listen some of the lyrics are like, oh he's not doing too well.
"It's called Baby Blue: Part One because I wrote it with a second half. The bridge is like the bridge between the first and second song and it's kind of like I'm really bitter now, b it used to be really nice.
"It's kind of like remembering to not be so bitter about how it ended and remembering the nice things that happened along the way."
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