Brad Cox spent years living out of the back of his ute, travelling around rural Australia playing country music and working on farms to make ends meet.
Occasionally, he'd stop at a gate and offer a farmer a day's work for a tank of diesel, a meal and cold beer.
"I spent a few years up in the Territory chasing cows, I did fencing, lamb marking, sitting on machines harvesting and sowing and driving trucks - everything they'd let me at," Cox recalls to AAP.
The people he met taught him about life on the land and the art of having a yarn.
"I loved hearing their stories and ... it just became what my music was," Cox said.
"I enjoyed meeting these random people, just out of having no one else to talk to."
A world away from those hand-to-mouth days and with three albums under his belt, Cox is preparing to tour across regional Australia for his Yarns and Yodels solo shows from April.
Known for loud, rollicking live performances with his band, audiences will see another side to Cox as he plays stripped-back songs and shares stories.
Cox embraced the chance to get closer to his fans during a trial run of the new shows in regional Victoria last year.
"I ended up with one bloke sitting on stage with me for an hour - he just decided that was his spot.
"It feels a bit like you're sitting in my lounge room and that's what I like."
The comforts of home are never far from the 29-year-old musician's mind as his success grows.
After the May release of the album Acres, which earned him three Golden Guitar awards and three ARIA Award nominations, he performed across the country on a tour that sold 30,000 tickets.
This weekend he will play his first UK show at the Country to Country music festival in London, followed by CMC Rocks in Ipswich, Queensland, and BluesFest later this month.
When he can, Cox returns to his "little bit of dirt", a property in central Queensland he shares with his musician partner Sammy White.
The mango tree-lined farm on the doorstep of the Great Barrier Reef inspired his hit single, the album's title track.
Homely comforts - cold beer, a stiff whiskey, a decent sleep, a loyal dog and conversations with friends - feature throughout the record's 17 tracks.
"I'm trying to buck the trend of just hammering and hammering and hammering because I want to be playing music when I'm 80 years old," Cox said.
"I spend as much time as I can on the water, just poking around here talking to my cows and doing a bit of gardening."
When he hits the road for the regional tour next month, Cox will be as close to home as possible.
"I love being in those parts of the world.
"I belong more at the Wagga Wagga Motor Inn than I do at the Crown Casino in Sydney."
