Josh Pyke says writing What It Means To Be Alone (Catherine) for his new record was the only way he could attempt to make sense of the incremental loss of his mother, the English teacher who fostered his love of words, to the neurological illness. “I didn’t sit down and intellectually go ‘I want to try and get inside the head of an Alzheimer’s patient’,” Pyke says.“But in terms of trying to process the emotion of grieving for someone that’s still here, sitting beside someone that is physically there but is just, I don’t know where, it’s f—ing horrible. “As I’ve told you many, many, many times, I’ve done counselling, I’ve done therapy in general for years, but the best and most cathartic way for me to come to a point of acceptance is just writing songs.” What It Means To Be Alone may be one of his most ambitious – and affecting – pieces; it’s almost 11 minutes long, with an epic orchestral section which he says seeks to mirror the “deconstruction, the sliding towards the chaos” of dementia. One of Australia’s most respected songwriters and advocates – and children’s author – Pyke hit a creative writing purple patch during the pandemic and not long after the release of his album Rome, in August 2020, he began making his seventh record, To Find Happiness. He enjoys the luxury of a home studio, a man cave in the back yard of the Pyke family home in Sydney’s inner west, which unfortunately was inundated by a few centimetres of water during the recent floods. But as invaluable as the freedom that studio offers him to get on the music-making tools whenever inspiration strikes, the award-winning, multi-platinum album-selling artist has reached that point in his two-decade career where he can do whatever he wants. And if that’s 10-plus minutes songs, huge orchestral parts, or sampling his sons, Archer and Augie, on a track, then no one is telling him no. “I don’t see the point in not exploring anything you want to do musically, and having the studio has been a boon for that,” Pyke says. “And knowing that even getting played on the radio is just not part of my plan, means I never have to write with an agenda.”Another perennial source of inspiration over the years, and on To Find Happiness, is his wife Sarah Tran.Pyke says as the family’s “bastion of all knowledge of everything”, it was Tran who pointed out to him he was releasing the record around International Happy Day. Yep, there’s a United Nations International Day of Happiness. He is unashamedly a musical romantic. Rather than being bashful of performing his intimate songs about his partner – or his mum – the 44-year-old musician says he cherishes the memories refreshed by his sonic postcards. “Some of my songs are basically charting the whole history of my relationship with my wife, so singing songs about when we first met and stuff is beautiful and I feel like it’s renewing our vows or something,” he says. “Singing songs I wrote about my kids when they were babies and now seeing them walk around being nearly as tall as their mum is beautiful as well, these songs are like looking at family photos.” Pyke is even grateful to play the songs that share his wrestles with anxiety, which he has been candid about with fans and friends for many years. “I was having to go over some old tracks like Fill You In for something and I thought ‘Wow, I reckon you were probably depressed when you wrote that’,” Pyke says. “Lines like ‘I lived inside a cave’ … makes me think back about that time and realise I actually wasn’t doing so well then.“But knowing that I’m 44 and I came through it and have lived a rich, full life makes me think one of the greatest gifts of performing live is reliving each of those songs.” While the pandemic gave him the songs for To Find Happiness, it also caused the fall of Rome.It was uncannily prescient for the times when its songs about anxiety, loss and longing for home and, like all his records since the 2007 debut Memories and Dust, debuted in the ARIA top 10. But all the best-laid plans of giving Rome’s songs their due on tour in 2020 were thwarted by lockdowns and border restrictions.Pyke, like every performing musician on the planet right now, is ridiculously excited about crossing Australia in June on his To Find Happiness tour. “Touring is part of feeling creatively productive for me, so I had to replace that whole part of my life with something else or it just wouldn’t have been good for me,” he says. “But yeah, to get back in those rooms with people – and they’re bringing their kids now, which is cool – I just can’t wait for it.” To Find Happiness is out now. For all Josh Pyke tour dates and tickets go here.
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