Artist:Somerset Barnard

As a kid, Somerset would thumb through his dad’s weathered vinyl records, choosing his song for the day. Most often it would be Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings. While country was what captured him the most, he started exploring other genres and began collecting blues records with his pocket money. “I loved the country rock of the Eagles and would seek their old records out when we went to the shops,” he says. The gift of a guitar for his eleventh birthday was to prove a prophetic present, providing the youngster with an outlet for the poems he had started writing that talked of his country, his loves and an insight unusual to someone of his age. He spent much of his early years living between Santa Cruz, California and Charleville in Western Queensland, until going to boarding school in Brisbane. “I got to see a lot of the world really early on and experience the rich diversity of different cultures, that’s for sure!” Like all good artists, Somerset has taken his life ...