Byren Sawell first picked up a guitar at 13, and soon after began to nut out his own tunes.
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The 21-year-old Newcastle-based performer – who draws on an array of indie, folk and rock influences – is in the middle of recording his second full-length album.
“My parents were big Jeff Buckley fans. I have probably absorbed that subliminally,” Sawell said.
“I have since gotten to know his music and I am a big fan of it.”
“When I was 17 I was doing work experience at the Civic Theatre and one night there was a band on called City and Colour, which I had never heard of before.
“Listening to them, I was in awe by the end of the show.
“It blew my mind … that led me down a more interesting and diverse musical path than I otherwise would have gone down.”
Sawell began to get serious about music at about 18 and soon after began performing solo.
“Over time I have started working with others,” he said.
“Fortunately for me I have come across a group of people who enjoy what I do enough to want to play music with me.
“It means a lot; I’m surprised.”
He grew up in Port Stephens and felt at odds with his contemporaries.
“You had to be good at sports, otherwise you weren’t really in the social circle of that group of kids,” he said. “I kept it to myself.”
He attended Hunter School of Performing Arts but as a drama major.
“None of my friends really knew I could play, or sing, or anything,” he said.
But all that changed in 2015 when he released his first full-length, 10 track, album: In Solitude, Least Alone. The recording captured Sawell as an acoustic performer.
“That’s when I started trying to work with other people,” he said. “There was some interest there because I had a catalogue of music recorded.
“There has been quite a few iterations of the band.”
The current staple line-up includes Cameron Brownell on drums and Joshua Ingle on viola. Other members come and go and can include as many as 11 instruments.
He is currently working on a new full-length album. It has the working title Pathless Woods. The new recording promises a fuller sound.
“This one is very lush. I’ve got a lot more instrumentation going on,” he said.
“All of the people I have been working with, I am incorporating them into this new recording.
“The instrumentation is quite diverse compared to the last one.”
Download In Solitude, Least Alone here: byren.bandcamp.com/releases
Next gig: The Prince of Wales Hotel, Merewether, on October 13.
