William Crighton's third child, Jack, is about to turn two.
He and wife Jules - who often collaborates with the artist on his music - haven't been sleeping much, but he says it's the most invigorating kind of exhaustion.
"I love having kids," he says, carving out 15 minutes in a day packed with work ahead of his appearance at Glastonbury in the UK in the next few days, before jetting back home to play Splendour next month.
Even amid the sound of car keys in the background of the call as Crighton prepares for another of his projects - teaching inmates music at the Cessnock Correctional Centre - stacked on a mounting pile of successes over the past few years, his family is the most important thing in his life.
"You don't get a lot of sleep, that's for sure," he says. "But I wouldn't trade that for the world. Family is the most important thing in any community."
The Hunter-based troubadour has enjoyed a meteoric rise since his first self-titled album was released in 2016. Late last year, he toured Europe opening for Midnight Oil and returned home to have his latest album Water and Dust named the ARIA Best Blues & Roots Album for 2022.
He's now gearing up to return to the UK to appear on the Glastonbury bill, looping in a short European solo tour through France and Germany, before returning home for Splendour in the Grass in July.
Since first release, Crighton's music has met critical acclaim as he melded psychedelic soundscape experiments, pop and rock notes, with his Dylan-esque folk sensibilities.
A Newcastle Herald review of the artist's most recent album late last year wrote that he channels his imagination through vivid descriptions of the natural landscape; "rather than being the scene for his musings, Crighton is telling the bush's own story. Its rage. Its memories. Its myths. Its beauty."
The bearded bushranger-poet describes himself as a storyteller first - drawing on history and thoughtful nostalgia to weave his yarns - but his art hints at a deeper undercurrent; a mythic struggle to understand himself and the world around him.
William Crighton is figuring things out.
"It's all just figuring it out," he says, "I'm just trying to figure out how I feel, or whether fans like this or that, or just on a quest to understand yourself."
Crighton was forced to cancel recent plans to tour when he suffered an injury to his left hand that made playing guitar painful in long stretches. His stripped back European tour of a handful of appearances over the next few weeks was to compensate the pain of playing too much, but he doesn't like to dwell on it.
Whether he is playing the stages of Glastonbury, or to a few mates at the pub, everything is a learning experience and when playing became difficult he had to learn again.
"I just have to get a bit creative with different effects and things," he says, "One door closes and another one opens. It's definitely inspired a bit of new creativity to make the songs come across when I don't have all of my left hand functioning.
"But, you know, there's lots of people out there who could play the pants off me with only a few fingers when I had the hand injury, so it's not too much of a loss."
Even as he prepares to play back-to-back appearances abroad, there is the sense the Cessnock songwriter is taking everything in a humble stride; there's the sense that whether it's Glastonbury or the music room of Cessnock Correctional, it's the chance to reach people with his art that is most important.
"It's very interesting and very rewarding," he says of the mentoring work he has been undertaking with the inmates, "Very interesting and very rewarding to see the good energy that music can bring. You know, you don't get a lot of room to grow as a person in prison and I guess music is one of those things that you can use to grow and reflect on your own story."
Of his upcoming shows, he added: "I guess I don't think too much about it. I'm very happy to be playing and very fortunate and grateful, but it's still playing to people.
"I try to take every gig as seriously as the next because it's still people you're playing to. There's a lot of history to Glastonbury and to be able to walk through the gates and strum a guitar in front of people - that means something special. But whether it means more than playing down at the Junkyard for a bunch of people when we started doing these songs, I don't think so.
"If anything, all these gigs around here that we're doing - it all goes into everything. I've learnt things here that I will play in Glastonbury and then I'll learn stuff in Glastonbury and play it here.
"Whatever it is we're doing, it's figuring it out; I'm a master of nothing."
Crighton's first appearance at Glastonbury is on June 24, with a string of shows before returning to a brief appearance at the Hamilton Station on July 19, ahead of Splendour on July 21. Tickets are available via the artist's website.
A promotion on Macquarie Street
NSW Industrial Relations and WHS minister Sophie Cotsis was appeared to score a quiet promotion last week after a media handler mistakenly referred to her in a press call as "Sophie Cotsis, Premier of New South Wales".
Far be it for this humble writer to ever criticise another in the profession for a typo (let he who is without sin chuck the first rock in the glass house etc etc.) but none of mine have ever (as far as I know) caused a minor coup d'etat.
Whether an innocent typo or bloodless coup within the Labor ranks, one thing is for certain - in the words of veteran TV newsman Kent Brockman, I for one welcome our new overlord!
Food for thought ...
Here's a brains-teaser: Are there more ants in the world or flies?
Researchers recently estimated there are about 20 quadrillion ants on the planet (that's 20,000 trillions), writing that understanding the population helped to understand ants' role in their ecosystems.
But are there more ants than flies? topics@newcastleherald.com.au for your thoughts.
