Interview - Lee Kernaghan: Beyond the Blacktop and Back to His Roots

With a new single, ‘4X4 IS KING’, and a studio album on the way for 2027, Lee Kernaghan is returning to the sounds that helped define his career.

Lee talks to Denim Is Good about the freedom of the Australian bush, the country music he grew up with, an unforgettable LandCruiser, the legendary Great Western Hotel and why, after more than three decades, the road remains at the heart of his music.

For Lee Kernaghan, the freedom of the Australian bush has always been more than just inspiration for a song. It's a way of life that's shaped his music, his stories and a lifetime spent travelling the roads less travelled. The further he travels from the cities, the better he feels, and after more than three decades of writing songs about Australian life, the country beyond the blacktop continues to provide much of his inspiration. It's a connection that runs through his music, from the early days of The Outback Club to his latest single, ‘4X4 IS KING’, a song that celebrates the simple pleasure of leaving the highway behind and heading somewhere a little less predictable.

When we catch up, Lee is back in the recording studio, working on material for a new album due in mid-2027. It's a project he's particularly excited about, one that will reconnect him with some familiar musical territory while continuing his lifelong fascination with the people and places of regional Australia.

‘What I love most about it is the feeling that the weight comes off your shoulders’, Lee says when I ask about his passion for four-wheel driving. ‘The further west I go, the more off the grid I go, the better it feels’.

It's a sentiment that will be familiar to anyone who's spent time travelling through the Australian bush. There's something about the open country, the absence of traffic and the knowledge that the next town might be a couple of hundred kilometres away that changes your perspective. For Lee, it's also where some of his best songwriting ideas begin.

The inspiration for ‘4X4 IS KING’ first came while camping near Cooper Creek, outside Innamincka in South Australia. The song eventually took shape much further east, during a writing session with longtime collaborator Colin Buchanan and Nick Wolfe of The Wolfe Brothers at a cabin in the Blue Mountains.

‘We were camped out there, and that's where I think the initial inspiration hit’, Lee recalls. ‘Then I got together with Nick Wolfe and Colin Buchanan in a cabin up in the Blue Mountains. It's like a bit of a songwriting shack, just sitting around a wooden kitchen table with the guitars in hand. You start digging and looking for the music, and when it finds you, it's a bloody good feeling’.

That combination of experience and imagination has always been central to Lee's songwriting. His music has drawn heavily on the Australian landscape, but it's the people, the characters and the lives lived beyond the major cities that give those songs their identity.

The new single also signals something of a return to his musical beginnings. Produced by Rod McCormack, whose association with Lee stretches back to The Outback Club in 1992, ‘4X4 IS KING’ opens with an a cappella vocal that deliberately recalls the sound of those early recordings.

When I ask whether that connection was intentional, Lee doesn't hesitate.

‘Yeah, definitely. I think this next record is probably going to be a little bit like Hat Town rebooted. A bit of a back-to-my-roots kind of record’.

It's an intriguing prospect, particularly for anyone who remembers the impact Lee made when he first arrived on the Australian country music scene. The Outback Club and Three Chain Road helped establish a sound that was unmistakably country but equally unmistakably Australian, drawing on the musical traditions of America while telling stories rooted in our own landscape.

More than thirty years later, Lee sees no reason to abandon those foundations.

‘Your musical DNA is your musical DNA’, he explains. ‘There's always going to be influences coming out of my heritage, and that's steeped in people like Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams Jr., George Jones and Merle Haggard. But that's the musical side of it. The songwriting part, the lyrical writing, is all about us, Australia, our way of life’.

It's a distinction that goes a long way towards explaining his enduring connection with Australian audiences. While the musical influences might have come from Nashville and the great American country singers, the stories have always belonged much closer to home.

‘That's what I'm so passionate about, writing about my experiences and the people that I meet in what I reckon is the greatest country on Earth’.

And he's certainly met plenty of people along the way. A lifetime of touring has taken Lee through countless regional communities, remote settlements and major cities, with the experiences of travelling Australia becoming inseparable from the music he's made.

‘A huge part of my music is just the experience of travelling the country’, he says. ‘It's been many, many miles through little towns and outback communities and major cities and places off the beaten track’.

Those journeys have also given him a pretty good understanding of what makes a great four-wheel-drive. His current favourite is a Toyota LandCruiser 79 Series ute, although there's an older vehicle he still wishes he'd kept.

‘I’ve got a real soft spot for an old 80 Series LandCruiser that I got back in about 1995, and I wish I'd never sold it’.

That particular Cruiser earned its place in Lee's memory during a trip through the McPherson Ranges, when he was heading back towards the coast and encountered a flooded creek near Canungra.

He decided to cross, but halfway through, the engine stopped.

‘I didn't realise, but the water was coming up around the windows, and I thought, “Oh, I'm in big trouble”’.

With the vehicle stranded in rising water, he gave the ignition one more try.

‘I cranked the old Cruiser one more time, and she fired into life and drove me out of there’.

It was a lucky escape, and one that left him with a lasting lesson.

‘I would never, ever cross a flooded road again’.

Fortunately, most of his memories of travelling the bush are considerably more enjoyable. Ask Lee where he'd recommend taking a four-wheel-drive, and his thoughts quickly turn to the little towns scattered across western Queensland.

Yaraka, Thargomindah, Quilpie and Jundah are among his favourites, not simply because of the country surrounding them, but because of the people.

‘Those little places out there, the people are just so great’, he says. ‘You find a claypan out that way and do a bit of circle work, or set up a camp. It's good times’.

That connection with regional Australia has been a constant throughout his career, even as the country music industry around him has changed enormously.

And few changes have been more noticeable than the remarkable growth in country music's popularity over recent years. Once regarded by parts of the mainstream music industry as something of an outsider, country has found a new generation of listeners, with cowboy hats, boots and country festivals becoming increasingly visible in popular culture.

Lee has watched the transformation with considerable interest.

‘Country, for many, many years, was considered to be the poor cousin to rock and pop music’, he says. ‘Throughout my career, there's been plenty of ridicule. Sometimes it's veiled, but it's about being country. Now that's been flipped on its head and everyone's wearing hats, and country music is the cool kid on the block’.

For someone who has loved the genre since his school days, it's a welcome change, although there's a sense that Lee is more interested in the music itself than whatever happens to be fashionable.

‘I’ve loved country since I was back in high school, and it's great to see the entire industry now. It's probably the number one genre in the world’.

While the wider popularity of country music is something to celebrate, Lee's own approach remains firmly grounded in the experiences and musical influences that have shaped him. The new album might introduce some fresh ideas, but at its heart will be the same commitment to Australian storytelling that has carried him through his career.

And when it comes to Australian stories, few places have provided Lee with more memories than the Great Western Hotel in Rockhampton.

The legendary Queensland pub, famous for its rodeo arena and live entertainment, holds a particularly special place in his history. During the early 2000s, Lee and a business partner took the opportunity to purchase the venue when its future was looking uncertain.

‘It was about to be closed down, and I was on tour, I think it was my Electric Rodeo tour’, he recalls. ‘There was an opportunity to buy the pub, and a mate of mine and I had a crack at it, and we were successful’.

The Great Western was already well known for its bull riding and rodeo events, but Lee saw an opportunity to build on that reputation by developing it into a major live music destination.

‘It was always renowned for being one of the great rodeo and bull-riding arenas in the country. But what we wanted to do was keep that and also turn it into a music events venue’.

And that's exactly what happened. Artists including Glen Campbell, Kris Kristofferson and Keith Urban performed at the venue, helping establish the Great Western as one of regional Australia's most distinctive entertainment destinations.

The pub went on to receive major hospitality industry recognition, including awards for its live entertainment.

‘It went on to win the Australian Hotels Association's best entertainment venue in Queensland, and then it was recognised nationally as the best entertainment venue in Australia’, Lee recalls proudly. ‘It's a great, great pub. Absolutely steeped in legend. Love it’.

Having spent plenty of time at the Great Western myself, it's easy to understand his affection for the place. There's something special about a venue where country music, rodeo and the local community come together, and where a night out can occasionally stretch well beyond its intended finishing time.

Lee laughs when the subject comes up, remembering the Great Western as the setting for more than a few legendary nights.

‘It's been the site of a lot of legendary nights that have turned into the next day’.

He's also keen to return, with touring plans for 2027 already on his mind and the prospect of another show at the Great Western something he'd clearly welcome.

But for all the travelling, performing and recording, Lee's idea of a perfect day away from music is refreshingly uncomplicated.

When I ask what an ideal Sunday looks like when he's not working, he doesn't need much time to think about it.

‘Definitely a campfire out in the bush. Maybe chilling out by a mountain stream with a cold can in my hand, maybe listening to a little bit of country’.

It's a simple picture, but one that brings the conversation neatly back to where it began. The open country, a good song and the freedom to get away from everything for a while. After all these years, those are still the things that matter most to him.

Before we finish, there's one final question, something we're making a bit of a tradition at Denim Is Good.

Lee, denim is good because…

‘It's all I wear’.

It's a wonderfully straightforward answer from a bloke who has never been particularly interested in pretending to be anything other than himself.

As we wrap up, Lee is already looking ahead to the next stage of his musical journey. ‘4X4 IS KING’ is only the beginning of a larger project, with more recording underway and a new album scheduled for 2027.

‘This is only just the first stop on the road on a big album project for 2027’, he says. ‘I'm keen to get out on tour’.

For an artist whose career has been built on the roads, towns and people of Australia, it's fitting that his next chapter begins with a song about leaving the highway behind.

The country music landscape might have changed considerably since The Outback Club first arrived in 1992, but Lee Kernaghan's connection to the Australian bush remains as strong as ever. There's still another road to travel, another town to visit and another story waiting somewhere beyond the blacktop.

And you get the feeling that's exactly where he'd rather be.

‘4X4 IS KING’ is out now through ABC Music, with Lee Kernaghan's next studio album due in mid-2027.