It took a while for Troy to get back to writing songs, but when the river started to flow, he said “nothing was going to hold it back.”

It was an intense period, while trying to write songs to work through his heartbreak, Troy would also have to face a reality no child ever wants to – burning some of his mother’s more personal items as she’d requested.  “That was confronting, but I had to try to keep moving forward.

“This was around the time we’d also lost Joy McKean, Slim Dusty’s wife. I eventually had Joy’s funeral book along with Mum’s sitting in a music stand with my charts and lyrics. I leaned on Joy a little bit at times, saying ‘Do you reckon is this good enough Joy?’ I know it’s a spiritual thing, but I think Joy was definitely in my corner as well, obviously as well as mum. I really did count on her while I was writing the songs.”

For the resulting album, Between the Fires, Troy did things differently.

The original plan was to record in the US. “I feel like where I belong at age 54 is more the Americana world now,” he says. “Because it’s accepted as a place you can have steel guitar all over your record and allow stories to unfold regardless of the songs length, You have to find your musical home.”

Troy was set to trek to Nashville to record when he realized his musical home was way more literal – and way more local.

Sitting by the fire at his late mother’s house his lightbulb moment came.

“I just thought ‘I love the sound of the room where I used to jam here as a kid’ why couldn’t I record it here?”

The house that inspired much of the record’s themes became the very place it would be recorded, adding to the intimacy and authenticity of the stories being told. But first he had to get the technical aspects of recording outside a regular studio right.

Troy explains: “My first call was to Jeff McCormack because of our musical history and my trust for everything he does as a bass player and engineer. Then Kasey and Nash Chambers suggested if I needed an amazing young engineer to work with try Jordan Power.

“So he was the next call to see if this pie in the sky project was possible at Mum’s old place? He said yes, and he also added another set of ears. He was astounding, that’s why Jordan and Jeff are listed as co producers with me.

“The next calls went out to Scott Hills (drums), Michael Moko (guitars, mandolin) and Ollie Thorpe (steel guitar) who were all bringing something special as they huddled together in my old lounge room to make the sounds that would become my new album.

“It’s the sound of the place where I grew up, birds and all! And it felt like such a privilege for me because that lounge room was the scene of many jams with my cousins sitting around with guitars right next to Mum’s old record collection. It became the heart and soul of this record.

“Each day my job was to find enough firewood to smoke the house and all the crew passed through the smoke every morning before we made new music together.”

Grief is naturally a recurring theme on the record, tracking Troy progressing through mourning into healing.

It starts with the title track – a broken man missing his mother, worried about his marriage; soon dodging self-help books and help from friends while fighting darkness off in Every Other Day.

Long time collaborator and true friend Kasey Chambers guests on single Let’s Ride, one of many flashbacks to his youth, inspired by the memories from old photos of car parts and dreams laid out in such a manner you can almost smell the grease and fuel.

We Still Have a Chance is an autobiographical take on his cultural history, celebrating our differences rather than being divided by them.

“I remember feeling the pain of being called things or seeing other kids being called things. Racism and misogyny are not things you’re born with, they’re things you’re taught and we can teach ourselves to be better. It doesn’t take much effort to be nice.”

Windradyne tells the tale of the Indigenous warrior and resistance leader of the Wiradjuri nation from the 1800s.

Troy belatedly discovered Windradyne through a cousin’s tattoo, leading him down a research rabbit hole starting with The First Australians documentary by Rachel Perkins.

“I smoked the house heavily the day we recorded this next song, it was a powerful story and I invited this great man’s spirit to our house to help us tell it properly.

“Windradyne was a master of guerrilla warfare, but he had a heart and he knew respect when he saw it. I want to visit his grave and say thank you for the song.”

Troy recorded the birds singing outside his childhood home to bookend Dreams, another highly personal song with an atmosphere that sums up the spiritual journey from heavy loss to a familiar road home with a golden light that heals and gives direction to those who lose their way.

“I wanted the birds to paint a soundscape to bring the listener closer, to feel the fire’s warmth, smell the smoke in your clothes.”

Good and Bad is a stunning portrait of life. “It’s definitely a look-in-the-mirror song,” Troy says. “It takes the listener from past to present in four minutes, 39 seconds while I’m still finding it hard to believe this project was created at an old house at Halfway Creek.”

Troy wrote the “angry little song” ‘Til I Get Over You with Don Walker about a cousin who was cheated on while he was in jail. “It’s a story from my family, but I was actually writing it for Cold Chisel, I would one day love to hear Jimmy Barnes up front giving this song a good belt out.

I love the venom in some of the lines.”

Don Walker also worked with Troy on This World Alone. “It was about mum going out on her own terms, at home, I had to be at peace with that but it was exactly the way she wanted it.

“Musically, I’d been listening to a lot of Muddy Waters and B.B. King and I tried to let a little bit more of my electric guitar-playing out on this tune to show my love and respect for this style that I absolutely love.”

The third and final co-write on the record was Some Days, with Kevin Bennett – singer and songwriter of the Flood. “This song is also intensely personal but Kev added things that I hadn’t even thought of – some grown man attributes that I’d also lived. Kev’s a hero to me like Don is and to share this tune with him still moves me every time I hear it.”

To say this is a personal record for Troy is a huge understatement. Having penned 12 out of the 15 tracks on his own, it was destined to be a diary of his last two years of trials and tribulations.

And the home stretch of Between the Fires contains some of the hardest lyrics Troy has ever put to paper.

Congratulations was the one track his wife – radio and TV presenter Laurel Edwards – struggled to listen to once they’d reunited.

“Buddy Guy had an old saying that if something’s too risky to say, then sing it. It was a really traumatic time. I’d lost my mum and I thought I was going to lose Laurel too. When Laurel heard the lyrics in Congratulations she said ‘Is that what I did to you?’ and I said, no, that’s what we did to us.

“It’s not a blame song and was the hardest six months we’ve ever encountered in the last thirty years of being together. Lucky for us like an old house, our relationship always had good bones. we had plenty to fight for, so we did.”

Thankful is the emotional soul-fueled bookend to Congratulations on this run home, Troy delivers a true love letter to Laurel expressing gratitude for making it through with him.

The final track, Moving On, is particularly gut-wrenching – Troy surveying his new life, and searching for the positives as he navigates the way ahead.

“I sang this song on the album live, in one take in my mum’s kitchen, the exact same spot where I used to try new material on her that I’d just written most of my career. You can hear the imperfections of the room on the recording, but I’m full of imperfections, so I left it just the way it sounded on the day.”

Filled with healing and feeling, Troy hopes Between the Fires will serve as a way for people to celebrate those who come through our lives and the things they impart we carry to eventually pass onto the next generation.

“After the last vocal was sung for this album, I put the fire out. I walked up to the old scar tree and thanked the old people for having us all here on this special part of our country, I collected some ashes to keep as a memento of an experience I’ll never forget, living and making music between the fires.”

Troy will tour Between the Fires all across the country, in a tour with a difference.

“We’re going to pick up young musicians in each of the towns we visit to be part of the show. I think as an elder statesmen now it’s up to me to put these young kids in front of audiences, get them to play with us on a few songs too.”