As we watch another crop of Australian Idol hopefuls step up to impress the judges, it’s only natural to think back and wonder what became of some of the winners of the past? Are they still making music, or have they been forced to trade it in for a corporate career. Wes Carr is still living the dream, albeit under a brand-new moniker. Now recording as Wesley Dean, he relocated to Nashville a couple of years ago to hone a more country/Americana influenced sound. His latest single “Gunslinger” shows that he’s still got the goods.

“’Gunslinger’ is an exploration of what it means to be a man struggling with the masculine identity passed down from father to son,” Wesley explained. “The opening lyric, ‘Dead man walkin’ before his life begun, since his daddy taught him how to shoot a gun’, refers to the stoic mindset a man can be born into that’s perfectly portrayed by the outlaw archetype. On one hand, I identify with being an outsider and doing things my own way with all guns blazing, but on the other, the emotional isolation of an outlaw who isn’t allowed to acknowledge their vulnerability and ultimately ends up being ‘hung by the same rope that took his daddy’s life’ is something I wanted to highlight in this song.

“I believe isolating patterns of behavior can be broken when we become conscious of them, but sometimes we have to go through a dark night of the soul to wake up to our personal power. And I don’t mean macho, egoic power, I mean the empowerment that comes from having the ability to make a new choice when faced with old ways of being. Some men repeatedly surrender to what they know, which is where the line, ‘And there ain’t no turning back he was born in these bones’ comes from, but I hope the discussion around ‘Gunslinger’ will inspire men to take a deeper look at the intergenerational trauma impacting their lives, and initiate a self-awareness that gives them freedom to have more connected relationships with themselves and others.”

Wesley has just capped off his Crazy Hearts Across America tour, which saw his driving more than 5,000 miles from Nashville to Los Angeles in an RV. Footage captured on this epic journey will form his upcoming feature film, Crazy Hearts: The Documentary. Along the way he also took time to shoot the epic video for “Gunslinger” in Joshua Tree National Park and Pioneer Town. You might not have heard his music for a while, but releases like this let you know that this former Australian Idol still has plenty of musical tales to tell, no matter what name he’s recording under.

Image used with permission from Varrasso PR