FROM the age of 10 to 16 nothing mattered more to Ray Beadle than playing guitar.
In his own words he was " ridiculously obsessed".
The Sydney-bred musician was also ridiculously talented, too.
Over the course of his 25-year musical career the 44-year-old Beadle has built a reputation as one of, if not the, premier blues guitarist in Australia.
He's won multiple Australian Blues Music Awards, played residencies with the house bands in B.B. King's club in Memphis and Buddy Guy's Blues Club in Chicago and has become an almost permanent fixture at Bluesfest in Byron Bay.
Beadle also spent years learning his craft playing with The Foreday Riders, a band whose roots hark back to 1967 and who are often referred to as "the university of blues".
Founding members Ron and Jeff King brought Beadle into the band as a teenager.
But, Beadle admits, along the way some of that initial passion for playing guitar and performing live had waned.
"When I started gigging I got distracted by other things," Beadle says.
"That pureness and joy and hunger to play went by the wayside a bit when you're just doing your thing.
"In the last three years I've felt like I'm 16 again. All I wanna do is play. All I think about is playing."
Beadle credits this rediscovered passion for playing and self belief with becoming sober. It's been three years since the switch.
"As soon as I stopped drinking everything got better," he says.
"It's sounds cliche, I know, but it's like I had more time to play because I wasn't wasting my time doing other stuff.
"It was like, 'this is awesome'. The first few gigs I did, I thought, 'this feels great'. I think all my senses were more sensitive.
"I was hearing and feeling everything more and then I got motivated to get better."
It's not the first time the blues has saved Beadle.
As a teenager he lost his mother to cancer and the angry young man was soon suspended from school, only to find his feet in the therapeutic embrace of playing music.
Beadle's path to sobriety is central to his forthcoming single, Guitar and A Reason, set for release on October 28.
The track is the second single, following on from The Black Keys-esque blues-rock track Haunted Heart, from Beadle's next album, scheduled for release in early 2023.
"There's so much more focus on it and I'm really enjoying it," he says. "I feel like I have a reason to play now.
"Over the last 30 years I've been up and down with it. At the moment it's full steam ahead and there's so much going on."
Indeed that's true. Beadle only released his last album, STAX Of Blues, in August.
Due to the pandemic shutting down the live music industry, Beadle hit the studio with his life-long friends - Declan Kelly (drums), Rowan Lane (bass), Lachy Doley (keys) and Adam Pringle (guitar) - and a three-piece horns section at Sydney's famed 301 studios to belt out STAX Of Blues live.
"I shouldn't say this because I've got nine to 10 albums now, but the STAX of Blues album is my favourite one to date," he says.
"Because of a couple of things, like the guys that played on it.
"I hadn't recorded with those guys in the past. It was a long time coming. I'd known them all for more than 20 years.
"Finally I got in the studio and it felt so nostalgic. It was like, finally."
Actually, Beadle says there's enough new material recorded in 2020 that will "keep me going for a few albums yet."
The pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns might have kept Beadle off stage, but the veteran truck driver describes himself as "one of the lucky ones".
"I have always worked Monday to Friday in the trucks so I didn't really miss a day with COVID because it's a solitary job," he says.
"I wasn't coming in contact with any people, so I was lucky to work all the way through.
"I know a lot of my friends who play music full-time were struggling big time."
The long stints behind the wheel of semi-trailers has proven ideal for songwriting too.
Beadle says "95 per cent" of the time he's driving is spent thinking of new song ideas.
"I'm always trying to think of new ideas for songs and I'm writing stuff down in my notes in my phone and recording stuff in my voice memos," he says.
"I've actually got a guitar in the truck with me all the time. If I ever have to wait anywhere I've got something to do."
What you won't find Beadle doing is practising.
Despite being one of Australia's most proficient and inventive blues and jazz guitarists, his focus has always been songs, not technique.
"Unfortunately I haven't practised since I was a teenager," he says. "I basically just focus on material, not practising my chops.
"I don't really have time. Some guitarists focus on their playing, their skills and their soloing.
"For me, I try to focus on the kind of songs I want to play and the grooves we wanna play and the music I wanna get across to people.
"The soloing and guitar playing takes care of itself. I'm not doing anything that crazy.
"I'm not recreating the wheel or anything. I just want it to feel good."
Ray Beadle headlines Dashville Nights at Lower Belford on November 11, along with Hayley Jensen and The Soul Movers.
