Taste Test: Tim Hart

THE FIRST ALBUM I BOUGHT WITH MY OWN MONEY
Pearl Jam – Ten. I'm fairly sure I was 14; no, I was 13 at the time. I was pretty stoked about the whole thing, to be honest, because at that point me and my mates were massively into grunge.

THE ALBUM I'M LOVING RIGHT NOW
I guess the one I'm really loving is Anais Mitchell's record Young Man In America. If you haven't heard of her she's well worth listening to. I'm a massive fan. It's really folky, she's an incredible lyric writer, and I think Bon Iver did a cover of one of her songs for Like A Version on triple j a while ago, that's kind of how I heard of her. She's amazing, she's really incredible.

MY FAVOURITE PARTY ALBUM
It's tough. This is the problem, because I'm quite boring! I think for me if you put on something like the Local Natives or something, I'm pretty happy. Or maybe like the Broken Bells album; do you remember that, with James Mercer from The Shins and Danger Mouse a couple of years ago? That was cool. I reckon it was massively underrated and I loved it.

MY FAVOURITE COMEDOWN ALBUM
It would probably have to be Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel. I'm a bit of a fiend for that kind of stuff unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you see it. It's very nostalgic for me. It reminds me of growing up, and so it reminds me of home wherever I am, and I think that's a great thing. It's a really powerful thing. And I guess the other factor being it's just really beautiful, soulful folk music and that's my favourite thing in the world.

THE MOST SURPRISING RECORD IN MY COLLECTION
I'm a big hip hop fan so I suppose people would be really surprised to know I have a lot of Common and Talib Kweli and Kanye West; I'm really into that. I think I'm definitely influenced by it because the way they can lyrically move from phrase to phrase is admirable.

THE FIRST GIG I EVER ATTENDED
I went to a Ben Harper gig when I was in fairly early high school, maybe I was 14. It must have been all-ages because it was at the Entertainment Centre in Sydney, and me and my best friend went. We got dropped in by our parents and picked up afterwards. It was incredible, I loved it. I also remember that Jack Johnson was supporting him. It was when no one knew who Jack Johnson was and it was really cool for about six months to like Jack Johnson because no one knew who he was, you know? That kind of changed really quickly.

THE WEIRDEST GIG EXPERIENCE
I'VE EVER HAD
I used to play at an RSL club on Friday nights and every second Friday they would bring in these people from the special needs facility that was really close, and they would all get up and dance really, really close to me. It was just me solo on acoustic and it used to get pretty weird. It used to get really gnarly, actually. One day I had this 50-year-old lady come in and she was dressed as a ballerina and she danced up on me, so that would be the weirdest thing that's ever happened.

MY BIGGEST NON-MUSICAL INFLUENCES
I'm a big reader. I read anything from the Bible to Graham Greene and I read a lot of literature, like Dostoyevsky. I'm reading a lot of Kazuo Ishiguro at the moment, who's a Booker prize winner who's incredible. Actually probably for the last year, Graham Greene would be my greatest influence. I'm a bit of a nerd.

THE COOLEST PERSON I'VE EVER MET
My grandma, by far. She's 84 and she still knows what's going on. She knows what's happening with live music, she knows that me and my brother go out and get loose but she's cool with that. She's also really realistic, like she's really up with current affairs, but she'll talk the lingo of me and my brother. She'll be asking us questions using the same words my mates use. She's really in touch with what happens with our music career, she's like, “Oh, isn't Mumford & Sons touring later this year?” It's fricking awesome! I suppose it comes down to the fact that she becomes interested in what the family's interested in, and I find that cool. She hasn't gotten old and selfish and I really respect that. We can perceive people to be cool at whatever point in life because they're well liked and whatever, but to get to 84 and be still a rock'n'roll grandma is pretty awesome.

THE BIGGEST CELEBRITY CRUSH
I'VE EVER HAD
Maggie Beer, by far! My mum and dad gave me a cookbook for my birthday and it was a Maggie Beer cookbook. I've got a massive crush on her. She's incredible, she's really passionate and she's great at what she does. And she's a pretty slammin' older woman, I've just gotta say!

IF I COULD HANG OUT IN ANY TIME AND PLACE IN HISTORY
This is going to sound like a nerdy thing – actually I don't care – I would go back to Bible times. I reckon it'd be interesting. I wanna know what it tasted like when Jesus turned the water into wine. Was it a shiraz or was it a cab sav, I mean, who knows? I definitely wouldn't go to the Middle Ages; I'd just get lynched because I was a redhead or something.

IF I WASN'T MAKING MUSIC
I'd be a chef. I love to cook. I wouldn't say I'm great at it, but I would definitely love to do that. Between that and writing folk music and playing golf, I'm a really happy man.