
Ron Mitchell has been quietly strumming away in the background for 30 years in the New Zealand country scene.
Now with the release of his second album, he is entering into the spotlight, with an album of original music composed and performed by him.
The album’s name, Dead on Country, was very accurate to the themes he sung about, he said.
"It’s about tractor driving, whisky brewing, country, country music, whisky drinking, all things like that," he said.
The three-time MLT NZ Song Writing Award finalist and Tui nominee released an album of covers previous to this, but the new album was a different animal entirely, he said.
"It’s different from doing a covers one. With a covers album, you know people already like the songs and you like them yourself.
"With one you’ve written yourself you don’t really know how it’ll be accepted until they hear it," he said.
Mr Mitchell said the drive to make the album came from the songwriting awards.
"It was all originally because of the New Zealand songwriting awards.
"I wrote for that, and some came out pretty good so I thought they would be worth recording some day.
"Everyone seems to think they’re good enough," he said.
Dead On Country will be launched on Saturday with an event at the Woolshed venue at the Waimumu Field Days site, doors opening at 7.30pm.
Mr Mitchell said he was excited about the launch and invited everyone to a good night of country music.
"We have a good bunch of musos. We’ll get plenty of practise in the night before, there’s food and the bar open, CDs for sale. It should be good," he said.