Hookey in tune with new name
A NEW ALBUM HAS EMERGED AFTER YEARS OF SOLITUDE
IT is ironic that Harry Hookey was a legal student before he gave his heart to music. That’s because Hookey signed a record contract that means his old label currently owns his actual name.
Hookey’s 2014 debut Misdiagnosed, produced by his mentor Nash Chambers, was nominated for an ARIA award for best blues and roots album.
Two years later he’d recorded a follow-up, which not only remains unreleased, his old label owns not just the music but his artist name.
“The first lesson out of law school was never do your own legal work, always outsource,” Hookey, 32, says.
“I was so dumb. I was a street busker when I was signed, everyone’s telling you your song is going to be a hit, you get sucked into it.
“I don’t wish anybody ill, it’s a corporate beast. People who sign you end up leaving the label, you’re left there like this dead weight and no one knows quite what to do with you.
“That’s not good for your self-esteem. The whole name thing is a financial transaction that I don’t have the money to afford right now.”
Around the time of his debut Hookey had started dating Kasey Chambers – Nash’s famous sister. Media reports at the time painted him as the “toyboy” Chambers was seeing after the end of her marriage to Shane Nicholson.
Even after their three-year relationship ended they continued to work together – Hookey co-writing and playing on Chambers’ 2017 album Dragonfly.
“We’re on good terms,” Hookey says of Chambers. “I mean, it was surreal to be in a relationship with someone you used to listen to in the car driving to school. She passed on a lot of wisdom. But I came away with a feeling of really wanting to go in a different direction, I found that doing all that writing in the country world, the bucket was full, I couldn’t add anything more to that, I’d given them all my best lines. It gave me real impetus to try a new direction.”
A trip to Nashville, with Nash Chambers, sealed that decision. Hookey found himself “hustling, hustling, hustling” to get co-writing sessions or record deals and wound up playing Open Mic nights after midnight to an audience of the artists playing after him.
Hookey turned to alcohol in Nashville when nothing was working out.
“You can get in a pretty nasty headspace if you don’t take care of yourself and I was definitely there. Feeling like a failure, wondering what the purpose of this thing I used to love was.”
Hookey returned to Australia broke, but had enough of a loyal following to do Parlour gigs, where fans pay to have you play in their house.
“My passion for music was really low but what saved me was meeting all these people along the way. A lot of the families I played for had these hard stories that put things into perspective for me. Dude, get back on the horse, you’ve got nothing to complain about.”
He relocated to a “dilapidated” farmhouse at his parents’ beef farm in Gippsland and spent three years learning the technology to make his own album.
“I cut myself off from the world, I wanted to go as far into solitude as I’d ever been and see what came out of it. I did go quite far down the rabbit hole.”
The result is album No Snake In the Tree, released under his new artist name
Harry Hook is Real. His singer/songwriter roots are on display, but in a more experimental manner as he plays every instrument himself with songs about last year’s bushfires, drinking, Nashville, falling out of love with music and falling in love with wife, ABC radio presenter Mim Cook (his new artist name is a nod to her surname too). “I’m proud of my first album, but I always wanted to offer something original. Push the boundaries. Why do we have to stay in genre lines any more?”
He married Cook last May in their backyard in Sale, exactly a year to the day after meeting her at a country rave, and is now stepdad to her two kids.
“We were able to build this little nest in lockdown, it was great,” Hookey says. “In one year I went from losing my mind by myself in a shed to homeschooling a seven-year-old boy on how to do multiplications. It’s been a head trip. But Mim and I still party. I haven’t gone from Jim Morrison to Ned Flanders.”
No Snake in the Tree by Harry Hook is Real is out now
$4.63 PER SERVE
INGREDIENTS
• 415g can red salmon, drained, skin and bones removed
• 1 brown onion, grated
• 1 cup cold mashed potato
• ½ cup tasty cheese, grated
• 2 tbs dried parsley
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 tbs lemon juice
• 1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
• 2 tbs olive oil
• mixed salad leaves and lemon wedges, to serve
DILL SAUCE
• 1 cup creme fraiche
• 1 tbs lemon juice
• 2 tbs chopped fresh dill
• ¼ tsp lemon pepper
METHOD
1. Flake salmon in a large bowl. Add onion, potato, cheese, parsley, egg and lemon juice. Season well with salt and pepper. Mix well to combine. Shape mixture into 8 patties. Toss in breadcrumbs to coat.
2. Heat oil in a large, non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Cook patties, in batches, for 4-5 minutes each side, or until golden and heated through, adding extra oil if needed.
3. Meanwhile, make dill sauce. Combine creme fraiche, lemon juice, dill and lemon pepper in a bowl.
4. Serve patties with dill sauce, mixed salad leaves and lemon wedges.