Beccy Cole Finds Strength Through the Pain on New Album ‘Through The Haze’
Australian country music star Beccy Cole is celebrating the release of her ninth studio album, Through The Haze. Chatting with The Note over Zoom, Cole opens up about the end of her marriage, the influence of therapy on her music and the impact her son, Ricky Albeck, had on the record.
Words Emily Wilson // Image Duncan Toombs
The cowboy - or, more fittingly, the cowgirl - is traditionally a figure of historic strength and perseverance. It is fitting, then, that whilst on a Zoom call, country legend Beccy Cole is sporting a cap that reads “cowboy hat” in bold letters, as her upcoming album, Through The Haze, distinguishes her as the epitome of resilience, as a true fighting spirit.
Through The Haze is Cole’s first solo album in seven years and her ninth studio album. It is her first album to be released since her painful divorce from cabaret singer Libby O’Donovan. (“You could call this a divorce album, but that doesn’t define the record. There’s been two or three other break-ups since the divorce that are on this record too,” she says, snorting good-naturedly.) Diaristic and raw, it explores the near-fatal collapse of her mental health post-divorce, and her ultimate triumph over hardship.
“We all think that our later stuff is our best stuff,” she says. “Every artist always says this is my most personal album. But this one really is. And I do that with as much humour as I do straight-from-the-heart honesty.” She discusses her tendency to “hide” behind humour, comparing herself to Chandler from the TV show Friends. “That’s always been my way, and the Aussie way, too, I guess: a self-deprecating kind of humour.”
And Through The Haze is still a funny record, in spite of the trauma it grapples with. On the opening track, for example, Cole laments her tendency to fall for exactly the wrong kind of person with the amusing wail, “I’m a shit magnet.”
“I was referring to myself as a shit magnet long before I wrote that song. But I think a lot of people see themselves in that song, because if you’ve had a pattern of the wrong kind of partner, it can often be down to your heart, or to your attachment style, if you get into the therapy of it. Somebody with a lot of empathy gets a bit mined by narcissists, and that’s what ‘Shit Magnet’ is all about. But I had to look at the funny side of it.”
The humour, the rollicking guitars - these elements of Through The Haze are deeply Australian. But Cole’s openness about her relationship to therapy arguably isn’t. You would be hard-pressed to find an Australian country album - penned by someone who has been inducted into the Australian Roll of Renown, as Cole has - that is as cuttingly honest about mental health as Through The Haze is.
“Therapy has been a lifesaver,” she states. “And I’ve learned so much from therapy that has weaved its way into my poetry.”
She describes therapy’s influence on her as a true triumph. “A couple of these songs I started writing in a facility. My mental health was at a really dangerous point,” she says. “It’s kind of frowned upon to talk about therapy still - certainly in regional Australia, and I live in a little country town - but essentially what everyone down the bottom pub is doing is going for therapy sessions. But the younger generation is owning their therapy a little bit more and the stigma’s not attached to it, and I really like that.”
She adds, “There’s certainly pearls of wisdom from my now long-term psychologist on Through The Haze. I consider her a bit of a co-writer on this record.”
Through The Haze is also Cole’s first album to be released since being awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2023 and since being inducted into the Roll of Renown at the 50th Golden Guitar Awards. Expectations are high.
“That was insanely special to me,” she says of her induction. “I felt, however, like that moment was a little bit taken from me because I was only just literally out of a facility and highly medicated. The medication for me didn’t work. It might have taken the low-lows, but it also took away my highs. So I had to find my natural alternative therapy methods, which I engage in daily - all of that woo-woo stuff which I never imagined I’d be involved in. But at that particular time when they inducted me, I knew that I was experiencing euphoria, but I couldn’t convey it, I couldn’t access it.”
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Cole’s recovery has been no easy feat; to mend oneself is to engage in rigorous labour.
“I’ve done a heck of a lot of healing,” she says. “And I wrote some of these songs when I was in the quicksand of the trauma. Some of them hit pretty hard. And now getting to sing about it is quite empowering. I’m looking back at that vulnerable time and realising that I’ve come out of it on the other side.”
One of the best things about being a musician is that music can be the ultimate emotional outlet.
“Being a singer-songwriter, it’s our rite of passage. You have your heart broken, or you go through a breakup, the one thing you do get that a lot of other people don’t is you get to write about it. And it is very therapeutic.”
How does she feel about imminently having these gritty, personal songs out in the world, for everybody to hear?
“For some reason I’m calmer than I expected, and I think that’s therapy. It just makes you own everything, it makes you accountable for your own story, and your ups and downs. And there are some moments where you realise I have some really good relationships with my exes. One of the big indicators of that is that my ex-husband, the father of my child, plays fiddle on this record.”
Her music and the audience who clamour for it have been another long-lasting relationship in her life.
On the track ‘Sober’ she sings the line, “I could see you through the haze.” She specifies that, in that moment, she is singing to her audience.
“I remember being quite deep in trauma and being quite scared about the choices I wanted to make at that time. Everything was hazy, my brain was foggy. I couldn’t function properly. And I had a moment of clarity when I imagined the crowd at Gympie Muster,” she says, referring to the music festival held around the Amamoor Creek State Forest near Gympie, Queensland. “The reality is, that audience is probably, collectively, the love of my life, the most consistent form of love I’ve had for over three decades of touring. The loyalty of country audiences, and the capacity of longevity, is why I’m sitting here at fifty-three with a new record. And I feel very blessed by that.”
She reveals that Through The Haze, in terms of its recording process, has definitely been her favourite record to make. “Making it with friends and surrounding myself with the right kind of people just makes for a really good vibe on the record, I think. The way they approached my songs, it was so respectful and fun.”
She attributes the idea to record with friends, in an environment she felt totally safe in, to her son, Ricky Albeck - a talented musician in his own right, who is also credited as a producer on Through The Haze. “I had completely lost my confidence and was slowly getting it back, but I still didn’t think that I would have the confidence to get back into the studio.” Albeck suggested that she make an album at her best friend Kasey Chambers’ house.
The atmosphere at Chamber’s home studio turned out to be phenomenal. “It was such a mutual admiration society in that studio.”
She beams. “It was all my son’s doing. He had this amazing courage to help me. Somehow, he gets me. It’s an extraordinary relationship to have. Sharing music with my boy, it’s just so much fun, it’s a wonderful thing.”
Her joy and pride are palpable through the screen. “I hero-worship him, and every now and then I think to myself, I made him.”
Through The Haze has allowed Beccy Cole to embark on an odyssey through trauma. It has facilitated a rocky but victorious journey to self-discovery and grounded joy.
“There is a bit of fuck-you on the record,” she admits, “but you also get to know me and my heart, and I’m not scared of that. I’m not at all scared, because I think that a lot of people will be able to see themselves in these stories.” And it’s true - she doesn’t seem a bit frightened.
Through the Haze by Beccy Cole is out now via ABC Music. Listen here.
