“Paddock Buddy” is The Sure Thing for Mick Thomas.

Mick Thomas and The Sure Thing have released their fourth studio album “Paddock Buddy”. The album reflects stories told and memories pasted with such tracks as “Tommy Didn’t Want You,” “Forgot She Was Beautiful,” and “Last Holiday With His Family,” all echo the strong musical narrative that has become associated with Mick Thomas.

Thomas’ process of making the new album “Paddock Buddy” was innovative but relatively simple. The group got together in a remote farmhouse in Bealiba on the Northern Victorian goldfields. Thomas went up and wrote a total of thirty songs. He was then followed by the rest of the group. Craig Pilkington on guitar and horn (who also engineered the album), drummer Al Barden, bassist Rory Boast and a dog called Dulcie. Together they went through the songs and decided which would go onto the album. “We took the gear up to the house in the sticks and set up there with a sixteen track tape machine and spent ten days, just the four of us without an engineer or producer. It was very productive, we recorded more than we needed,” says Thomas. After the ingenious stint in the bush Thomas and The Sure Thing came back to civilisation and worked on the result in the studio. Back in the big smoke they were joined by such guest artists as Sime Nugent playing the harmonica, Bruce Haymes on keyboard, and Chris Altman on steel pedal as well as having the vocal styling of Barb Waters, Angie Hart and Anna Burley.

Thomas likes the idea of going away to do an album as it helps to focus and means that everyone is there for rehearsals. “I was pretty intent on having the core guys together. I always thought that was a good model for making music,” says Thomas. Although he is not whether he would revisit that same process as it could become mundane.

Thomas is originally of Weddings Parties Anything fame, who struck an ARIA hit with ‘Father’s Day’ in 1992.

Thomas says his inspiration to get involved in music came from the vast cultural majority and variety of music that was being produced in the sixties. “I was born in 1960’s and grew up in a time where music was seen as culturally more important,” says Thomas. “Nowadays in The Age’s Green Guide there might be three record reviews; one classical, one jazz and one popular, but ten years ago there would have been ten record reviews and only one of them would be jazz.” While today Thomas sees culture spreading to include more areas not just live music but back in his day it was everywhere, “it wasn’t hard to become besotted with it,” says Thomas.
Thomas feels that although his songs are ‘Australian’ in nature they are able to translate to a variety of audiences. Thomas believes that a song translates as much as a person is willing to translate it. “It’s all about the willingness to find out,” says Thomas. In Europe the crowds are relatively small, but they are there because there interested. In London, the crowds are up to a hundred and include many Australians or those who have not been to Australia but are fascinated by music. “Music is important to people who have travelled and that’s an important thing… when people leave home issues of culture become really strong,” says Thomas. That music is part of our culture and part that we can take with us and share with the world. “A lot of our success - Weddings Parties Anything – overseas came from people moving backwards and forwards, discovering music in hostels and whatnot.”

When asked about music today Thomas feels that it is still living up to it potential. “The music made these days is as exciting as it ever was. Which is a paradox in affluent and potential creative society; it’s a great scene.”

“Paddock Buddy” is available through all good music retailers through Liberation Music.

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