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Sometimes very good things come to those who wait. Meet Australia’s most patient musician – Wayne Hammonds – who has just released his debut album, These Days, aged 60. However, music is no recent discovery for Wayne. It’s been a lifelong passion, with a few twists along the way. He began his musical career in the late 70s, joining Sydney pop/rock band the Affections as singer and guitarist while still in high school. “I hadn’t even turned 16, I’m in a band, everything was going great,” Wayne recalls. “We were inspired by groups like LRB who had those fantastic harmonies and big vocals.” The Affections signed to Deluxe, the label that first spotted INXS, and released a single called This is Love in 1982 – recorded at the iconic Albert Studios. They became stalwarts of the burgeoning local pub rock scene of the era – playing alongside Cold Chisel, the Angels, the Church and Mental as Anything. This was also the period where an appearance on hit music TV show Countdown could quite literally make or break a band. When a scheduled performance on Countdown for their second single fell through at the last minute, momentum around the band dried up. “There was this feeling of sheer disappointment, that we’d missed a major opportunity with Countdown. It just fizzled out after that. I was floating around as a bit of a lost soul for a while.” Wayne joined a few bands before starting a new group called YoungHearts. “We toured a lot, playing with Mondo Rock, Moving Pictures, Divinyls, Real Life and Eurogliders,” Wayne says. “But we never managed to get a record deal. We came close a few times. You’d keep building up your following, record companies would come and watch you, but the music industry was flooded with great bands back then. You had to be in the right place at the right time. “And this was long before you could record at home. I used to spend every cent I had recording. Touring and making music was my life for five years or so, they were great times but we just weren’t making any money. But by the start of the 90s, I’d got married and we were thinking about kids so I had to get a real job, so to speak. But I never stopped writing songs.” Even though he’d left school to pursue his love of music, Wayne’s parents insisted he learn a trade to fall back on. It was excellent advice. “All I wanted was money to buy guitar strings but I did my apprenticeship as a metal fabricator. It was still a form of creation, we were building big mining equipment. I was working for someone else, then I left to start my own business. That was 30 years ago.” While his day job was wildly successful, music took a back seat to work and family. “For the first few years of the business I was up at 6am, getting home at 11pm, music went on the back burner. In the late 90s I had set up a little studio at home, I was writing songs for other people, there was a bit of interest, but a lot of songs just got thrown in the drawer. “But I can never switch off that spark, if I get an idea for a song in the middle of the night it’ll wake me up. My whole life’s been like that.” Just before the pandemic, Wayne started to release a handful of singles on digital platforms – taking advantage of the fact you no longer need a record label to get your music out there. But his attempts at upgrading his recordings in a major studio didn’t go to plan, leading to more frustration. “I was just being let down so much. People might see this as a part-time thing, but it’s not, it never has been. To say music is just a hobby to a musician is the biggest insult. It’s something you just have to do, it’s so important to get these songs out. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.” After the tragic passing of his mother in 2018, Wayne took stock of what was important in his life. “Work had been so stressful, I’d be so anxious I thought I was having a heart attack. That was my turning point. I scaled the business back a bit, then COVID happened and I thought I need to focus more on my music. I started writing more songs – you need to be doing it constantly to create something. The next song will be better, you keep learning things. So I made a conscious effort to put that time and effort in. And I got to the point where I thought I need to record these songs.” Wayne had the bulk of songs that make up These Days, a classic singer/songwriter album by a singer/songwriter raised on classic artists like Tears For Fears, Sade, Hall and Oates, the Style Council and Joe Jackson. “I’m still very much stuck in the 80s,” Wayne admits. “There was such brilliant songwriting and production.” As a music fan, Wayne knew of the work Scott Horsburgh had done, producing records for Empire of the Sun, Paul Kelly, Silverchair, DMAs and Birds of Tokyo with his team including Andy Mac, who are based on the New South Wales Central Coast. Wayne sent Scott some of the songs he’d been working on. “It took a lot of courage to contact them, I just thought ‘They’re not going to want to talk to me, a guy who’s nearly 60 years old, they want to find the next big young star’. But it was quite humbling. I got this phone call immediately – you need to come in and see us. “I took them all the songs I had and they put a confidence in me that I’ve never really had before. Their reactions they had, you can’t fake that. So we got in the studio and made the album.” Scott Horscroft was seriously impressed with Wayne’s world of music. “Wayne has a real understanding of music history and of songwriting as well as his level of skill as a home producer,” Scott notes. “He is also one of the best bridge writers I’ve ever worked with. They don’t make songs like Wayne writes anymore. He comes from an incredibly great era of Australian music, that’s where he learned his craft.” For Scott, age was never an issue. If anything, the life experience elevates the story telling in the songs. “Wayne is so passionate about what he does. The majority of artists we work with are young and energetic, Wayne easily matched their energy and optimism. He was so excited, getting him in the studio, which was something he’d been waiting to do for so long, it was like this balloon that finally got to be popped. He’s finally found an avenue to get these songs out there. “And not since working with Luke Steele have I had an artist who is constantly writing. He’ll be driving home from the studio and come up with a whole new song. There’s a real attention to detail. In an age when people are pumping out songs on their laptop, we got to take the time to bring his songs to life in a studio with other musicians adding things like violin, cello and saxophone. And Wayne has such a great voice, we would say it’s like George Michael fronting Tears For Fears.” For Wayne, releasing These Days is literally a dream come true. “Turning 60 is quite liberating. You kind of stop caring what people think. I’ve always been a bit negative about my music. I’d think maybe my songs aren’t good enough. But I have started to believe in myself. But there was definitely a feeling of ‘I’ve got to do this now’. I’m becoming more proud of myself. “For me, putting this record out is job done. That’s all I want. If someone loves a song or puts one on their playlist or might use on their wedding day, that’s enough for me. “This is just something I had to do. This isn’t about being the next big pop star, forget that, I’m past that. I just want to keep writing songs. I’ve already got the next album planned. I want to help other artists who might never get the break I’ve been given. When you write a new song you’re on such a high, that’s what music does to you. The universe works in funny ways and it feels like this was all meant to be, even if took this long.” These Days is out now