Rick Price shares songwriting magic

Aspiring songwriters gained an insight into a process that has worked for singer/songwriter Rick Price more than 30 years during a workshop at Clontarf’s Team Musicare on September 12.

Price, who has been performing since childhood, shot to fame on the international music scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s and is best-known for hits Heaven Knows, Not a Day Goes By, Walk Away Renee, Nothing Can Stop Us Now and River of Love.

He is also a respected music producer who now calls Nashville, Tennessee, home but is touring Australia to promote his new album Hometown.

It is his 12^th studio album and a nod to the place he grew up, Beaudesert.

Price, 63, clearly remembers performing at barn dances, clubs and pubs in the Scenic Rim, Brisbane and even Redcliffe in the early days.

Those experiences shaped him as a performer, and his move to the United States in 2009 helped broaden his style with country, rhythm and blues, and folk influences now evident.

Price ran a songwriting workshop at Team Musicare last year and was excited to return this week, saying mentoring aspiring songwriters is something he relishes.

“That’s one of the things I’ve enjoyed doing over the last decade or so, working with other people and just sharing my process for songwriting and helping other people,” he explains.

“I want to try and share some different processes that I use and point them in that direction to see whether they can access that part of themselves and get hold of the idea of what it is to be a songwriter.

“There’s songwriting and an actual way that the brain operates in creativity and it’s probably a little bit different for everybody.”

No limitations

He says many people are held back by their own opinions of themselves, believing they could not possibly write as well as the industry’s superstars.

“When you have those limiting beliefs systems, that’s the level you’ll operate on. I had all those thoughts and beliefs as a young man. I had to change that belief system,” Price says.

“I had to raise my hand to the universe, to God ... whatever you want to call it and say ‘yeah, I’m open. Send me some ideas, I’m ready’.

“It’s remarkable what happens. I talk about the limitations we put on ourselves and how we can lift some of those limitations and get the creative process going.

“Confidence is a choice. It’s not something you’re really born with. I think it’s how we experience life, how we interpret it and how we replay it, but confidence can be a choice. You can act your way into a confident state of mind. Fake it to you make it, baby.”

Price is grateful for the joy music has brought to his life and the opportunities it has given him – to unlock his creativity, express himself, connect with others and make a living.

“There’s a deeper connection with people because I’ve realised that when I write songs and put them out, same for every artist, other people find themselves and their own stories in the song. It’s a service role in many ways as well,” he says.

Scarborough show

He’s looking forward to a show at Scarborough Harbour Brewing on September 28 as part of his Australian tour. Read about the show here

“Every show has a similar appeal for me ... in this case, a solo acoustic show, I’m sitting on a chair, playing the guitar, singing, telling stories and connecting with the audience,” Price explains.

“When the performance starts, and you connect with the audience, it’s total dreamworld. I’m tapping into their imaginations and telling stories, creating pictures and what that does, in another person’s mind, is it activates that dreamworld. If they’re tuned in and listening.

“That’s another deep form of communication. In fact, it’s probably more of a deep connection than just regular everyday conversation.”

Hometown, and the title track, pay homage to growing up in Beaudesert but the rest of the album explores Price’s life as it is now.

The first single Can’t Keep a Good Man Down is about keeping your chin up.

“I’m bigger than the circumstances of my life but sometimes the circumstances of life can really get me down,” he explains.

“I’ve had to really practise not doing that. This song really is about that. There will be plenty of challenges in life to get me down, but do we really have to go down into that hole or do we have a choice?

“My dad used to say to me, ‘don’t get too down in the dumps because you get down in that hole – it’s cold and lonely and there’s nobody else there. Don’t even bother. It’s a wasted excursion.

“You have feel your feelings and feel your grief, of course, but you can’t stay in it.

“I feel better than I did in my 30s and 40s.”

Hometown will be available for pre-order on CD and vinyl on September 6 online and at live shows.

For show details and tickets, head to the website.