Tom Mac

IF I COULD TELL MY YOUNGER SELF

As a kid playing music was a hobby, but never seen as a realistic job. I went in musicals when all of my friends stuck to sport only. I taught myself guitar as I was dissatisfied with pursuing what others wanted me to end up pursuing.

I started playing duo gigs with a mate. I travelled the world playing music, learning that the 9-5 was never for me!

I ran to the NT in the pandemic and finally got to teach myself how to play didgeridoo, an instrument Mum had stashed away in a cupboard all my childhood, but never put me in front of!

I wrote songs about my travels! And I found that, though I’d been ripped away from the country at 16 when my family sold 3 generations of farming, the country would stay in me forever.

Not as my physical home, but through music! That I would return to where it all began.

I’ve felt like giving up music so many times I can’t even bare to think. Because I let my negative self talk come in and take hold. Mainly due to something out of my control. Or someone who’d rather I be like them, telling me I shouldn’t be doing it.

However, “being an artist is a calling, not a choice” a friend said to me recently. So I keep going, refusing to give it away.

Someday I’ll live back on the land, when the time is right. For now I’ll just keep letting the land, and being on country live through my music!

Never give up on your dream and what burns inside of you

Love
Tom x