Mark Seymour and The Undertow at Kingscliff

MARK Seymour is returning to the region with his band The Undertow and a new album.

The former Hunters and Collectors frontman has built a consistent career with 15 solo album releases and a robust fan base that keeps pace with his songwriting journey.

The Boxer is an unapologetically personal and transformative album. His 11th solo studio recording is an allegory for being clipped with a left hook in life and is the most intimate of his catalogue.

“I went through quite a big change in my personal life a while ago,” he said.

“I separated from my wife after being married for a long time. That triggered the album, which is essentially a love story.

“The Boxer is metaphorical. It’s not about boxing. One song is a story, but the rest, on this occasion, has personal stuff, which I don’t do a lot.”

At 67, Seymour is, in fact, a keen boxer, training regularly to stay fit and to stay on his toes.

“Boxing was trying to work out a way of getting a high-intensity workout during the pandemic. I couldn’t go out anywhere, just going for five-kilometre walks, I was bored out of my mind,” he said.

“I stumbled on the idea and ordered a punching bag. I’d go over occasionally to the bag in the gym and just hit it, but I didn’t know what I was doing. Then, I started watching YouTube, and it went on from there.

“It’s a very high-intensity effort. It’s over in half an hour, and you’re out the door. It works for me.”

Seymour has said that ‘songwriting is a marriage of feeling and hard truth and a way of looking at the world and looking ahead’.

“You’re drawn to the events that trigger you emotionally,” he said.

“When you put the song together, you’re drawing a line between how you understand the world, how it makes you feel, how it’s relevant to the listener, and the best way to convey that feeling.

“There’s a line there. You can be too personal, but sometimes it works. How people can be interested is my starting point.”

With an enormous back catalogue and a continuous stream of fresh writing, songwriting remains his purpose.

“I’ve kept writing and still singing songs I wrote decades ago,” he said.

“I can see what state of mind I was in. It’s a huge advantage, really. I could have stopped writing, but that’s not me. My life is about writing.

“Those references are interesting, the frame of mind I was in at that time. I can hear that guy, and I am still him, but my attitude has definitely shifted a lot.”

Audiences are glad of that, and the music. For tickets, head to kingscliffbeachhotel.oztix.com.au