Dana follows her dreams

Thanks to local and interstate performances, 23-year-old Dana Hassall’s popularity on the country music scene has been rising over the past few years.

Her recent success at the Tamworth Country Music Festival (TCMF) has also buoyed her spirits, after she was named a 2015 Toyota Star Maker finalist.

“I performed in the top 10 on the first Sunday and from there I got into the top three, so it was a crazy week of performances and appearances,” she said.

“I already had 10 shows booked so it was very busy – I didn’t get much time for sleep. Making it in to the top three was a huge confidence boost and you get a whole lot more opportunities that you wouldn’t normally.”

She has attended the TCMF for the past 13 years and said this year was by far the “craziest”.

This was her first time entering Star Maker.

“This year I was ready to fly out of the starting gates and go for it. Tamworth is a difficult one because there are so many people trying to make it, but it is fun and a really important week for an artist as well.”

As well as her success in Star Maker, she won the Tamworth Songwriters Association Award for Best Contemporary Song with Megan Cooper. The song was 27 Degrees, which appeared on Megan’s album Ghosts, Choirs and Kings. Dana co-writes with other artists, and said it was beneficial and a way of bringing new ideas to the table.

She goes through phases of writing many songs in a short period and then might not write for several months.

“For me it’s a way to tell my story and get my point across because I’m not too good at doing that in conversation.”

It’s been an exciting journey for the child who wrote songs about alpacas and riding horses on the farm. Dana’s parents, Margaret and Brett, run Double-H Alpacas at Kingsthorpe, near Toowoomba. At the age of eight she sang on stage and soon started to write her own music.

She joined a country music club in Dalby but nobody could play the songs she was interested in singing, which motivated her to start learning guitar.

“We always used to listen to a lot of music at home, and I’d be standing on a stool singing along to Lee Kernaghan, Beccy Cole and Savage Garden – quite a mix.

“From the dancing in the living room, mum suggested maybe I should try a real stage.”

In late 2011 she launched her EP See It Now to a room packed with supporters in Toowoomba.

Dana has written at least 50 songs since See It Now and is going through the tricky process of narrowing them down. She heads back to the studio next month to record her new album and will release her single, Spinning Wheels, later in the year. She enjoys alternative country music style, with blues and roots influences from artists such as John Mayer, Harry Hookey and Kasey Chambers. “I fell in love with all the stories and the fact that country music actually means something. And now I don’t know what I’d do without it.”