Share

cover art for From Oil Rigs to Music Festivals: How One Creative Found His Way Back

Pain In The Arts

From Oil Rigs to Music Festivals: How One Creative Found His Way Back

Ep. 83
•

What does it actually take to walk away from a career that pays well but costs you almost everything?


This week we're joined in the studio by Bill Bate, a long-time listener who has quietly lived one of the more interesting creative detours we've heard in a while. Twenty years in the fly-in, fly-out oil and gas industry. A slow-burning disquiet. And on the other side of all of it: a photography degree, a music festival in regional Victoria, and a brass fountain pen he's carried every day since 2010.


We talk about what it costs to stay too long in the wrong life, how creative people find each other and why Bill thought the only real solution to missing a creative community was to go and build one himself.


You might want to listen if:

• You've spent years doing work that pays but doesn't quite fit and you want to get out, like yesterday

• You've been thinking about starting something - a group, an event, a regular gathering and you feel time is closing in

• You're at the stage of life where you've stopped trying to name what you are and you just want to live creatively


Find Bill at these links:

Clear Air Creative Instagram

Clear Air Creative Website

Bill on Instagram

Pain In The Arts is a weekly podcast about the reality of creative life. Hosted by Breallyn and Lyndon Wesley. One of them never knows the topic until recording begins.


If you enjoyed this episode, the best thing you can do is share it with one person who'd love it.


Support the show on Patreon:

patreon.com/painintheartslife


Subscribe and listen:

Follow on your favourite podcast app or visit paininthearts.life


Socials:

Insta: @painintheartslife

FB: painintheartslife


Theme music by Lyndon Wesley

Produced on Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country.

More episodes

View all episodes

  • Word You Never Heard - Agnosthesia

    29:26|
    Words are being removed from dictionaries to make room for new ones. We think some of them deserve better. Who knows what forgotten little nocturnal marsupial was erased for the word 'floppy disc'?This is our small attempt to restore some balance.Word You Never Heard is a recurring series from Pain In The Arts, drawn from one of our favourite books, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig. Words that fill the gaps. Feelings that exist but have never had a name.In each episode, one of us reads a forgotten or reimagined word from the book. The other has never seen it. With only a handful of clues, they have less than half an hour to work out what it means - or build their own definition from scratch. But before the clock runs out, a guess has to be made.Today's word is Agnosthesia.
  • 84. Rewilding Language: The Words We're Losing

    56:08||Ep. 84
    There's a Chinaberry tree on our nature strip, a Lilac in the back corner and an underlying grief knowing 'acorn' is being dropped from the Oxford Junior Dictionary to make room for 'chatroom.'Words are disappearing and not just the weird ones. Nature words, specifically. Researchers are calling it an 'extinction of experience', a growing cultural distance between us and the world around us.This week we talk about that loss, what it costs us and what it might mean to rewild our imaginations.Plus: we announce a brand new spin-off series: Word You Never Heard, drawn from John Koenig's Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, a collection of invented words for feelings that didn't have a name...until now.You might want to listen if:• You've walked past the same tree for years and realised you have no idea what it's called• You're curious what Breallyn and Lyndon are up to with their new series, Word You Never Heard
  • 82. The Tortured Artist: Does Healing Cost You Your Creative Edge?

    58:01||Ep. 82
    This week I'm bringing a question that reared it's head again. It's the idea that suffering is the source of our best art. And the fear that goes with it - the reluctance to heal, to process and to move on - in case our edge goes with it.Because if it's true that the best work comes from the most painful places, what happens if you stop hurting? What if healing makes you lose the thing that made the work matter?It's a conversation about the tortured artist myth.Why it's persisted for centuries, what neuroscience actually tells us about trauma and creativity and whether it's possible to park the painful material somewhere you can still reach it, without having to live there to access it.Lyndon does his best to be supportive and understanding, but unfortunately gives-in to his usual intrusive thoughts!And we both ponder whether artists can actually afford therapy.You might want to listen if:• You wonder whether healing and creative legitimacy can coexist, or whether you have to choose• You've caught yourself thinking that an artist with an easy life might have nothing real to say
  • [RE-RELEASE] Creative Envy: Turning Comparison Into Creative Fuel

    51:05|
    What do you actually feel when someone in your creative community gets the gig, the grant, or the recognition you wanted? And why do admiration and envy so often arrive in the same breath?In this re-released favourite from the archives, we take a closer look at creative envy. That tricky mix of admiration, aspiration, and longing that can surface when you watch peers succeed. Discover some ideas on how to stop comparison from stalling your progress, reframe jealousy, and transform those complex feelings into fuel for your own art.There's a detour through Greek mythology, a lost song Lyndon found on Dropbox 12 years after writing it, and a frank conversation about gatekeeping in the Australian arts scene - and why healthy competition requires a healthy environment to exist in.You might want to listen if:• You've ever sat in the audience at a book launch, a gig, or a gallery opening and felt equal parts inspired and deflated• You want to understand why aspiration can be a roadmap rather than a reminder of inadequacyNote: We are re-sharing this popular episode while recovering from a family illness. Original air date: September 2, 2025.
  • 81. Creative Inspiration: Who Do You Think About When You Want to Give Up?

    54:26||Ep. 81
    Who do you actually think of when you feel like giving up on your creative work?Not some aspirational figure pulled from a shelf, but the person who shows up in your mind, unbidden, when things feel too hard or too quiet or not enough.This week, I brought the topic and Breallyn only found out after the recording had begun. The question I asked sent each of us somewhere quite different: I thought of musicians whose lives and music became inseparable, precisely because of past trauma and adversity. Sam Baker, who rebuilt his career after a terrorist bombing left him with hearing loss and a mangled hand; Nathan Cavalieri, the guitar prodigy who found himself unable to get on stage due to crippling anxiety. Breallyn went somewhere quieter, to Melbourne writers with full lives and extraordinary creative output, and ultimately, to someone closer to home.Oh, and we also introduce you to our newest character, The Petty Postie! You might want to listen if:• You've ever found yourself thinking about another artist when you needed to get back to your own work• You've had to renegotiate what success looks like: or you're in the middle of doing that right now• You've wondered whether the hardest parts of your life are getting in the way of your art, or quietly shaping itSam Baker WebsiteNathan Cavaleri WebsiteRyan Adams Official
  • 80. Dormant, Not Dead: How to Survive a Creative Slump

    52:40||Ep. 80
    What does it mean when your creative life goes quiet, when nothing's moving, nothing's landing, and the work that used to flow just... doesn't?Brea brought this concept to the table and it turned out to be quite fitting for the moment. Sitting in the studio late on a cold, winter's night with a couple of gin and tonics, I warmed up to this idea of 'creative winter'.In this episode, Brea talks about the season of dormancy. The stillness that feels like stagnation, the brutal pruning of projects or habits that can feel like loss, and the subterranean root growth you can’t see, but makes the next season possible.Put your headphones on if:Your work has stalled - and you're agonising over whether it's just a temporary season or a sign to pack it all in.You're suffering from 'season envy' - watching someone else hit their glorious creative summer while you're sitting in the dark, freezing.You know something needs to be pruned - a project, an old commitment, a bad habit. But you’ve been hanging onto it out of sentiment or guilt.You need permission to go dark for a bit
  • 79. Passive Aggressive Co-Writing, D&D Fine Dining, and Podcast Marketing

    01:11:00||Ep. 79
    What does it actually take to write a book with your best friend, across two continents, for years?This week we're joined by Dom Shorthouse and Shannon Davis from the podcast An Appropriate Amount of Soup, and things get wonderfully chaotic. Dom and Shannon co-authored a novel by sending chapters back and forth, each trying to outsmart, and occasionally sabotage, the other. Now they're both writing their own trilogies, Shannon has two self-published novels available on Amazon, and Dom is building a Dungeons & Dragons fine dining experience that has yet to receive a single booking.Warning: this episode contains a detailed analysis of wassail, a child calling a substitute teacher 'Whorehouse,' and a serious discussion about whether an appropriate amount of soup is actually achievable.You might want to listen if:• You've ever started a creative project with a friend and wondered who was actually doing the work• You're a writer trying to figure out how to grow an audience without surrendering your soul to the algorithm• You've been putting off the scary second half of a creative project (the part where you have to show it to people)Shannon has written a couple of great books.Humbuckle/Ramshackle - Read a sample hereThe Town In The North - Buy it hereCheck out Shannon and Dom's podcast - An Appropriate Amount of Soup Instagram @soup_pod
  • 78. Saying No, Main Character Energy and The Untrustworthy Narrator Within

    56:54||Ep. 78
    What if the biggest thing standing in the way of your art is the story you keep telling yourself? This week on Pain In The Arts, we dive into the 'untrustworthy narrator' in our own heads and explore how outdated assumptions hold back our art practices and careers. We talk about separating your identity from your work, learning to say no, and fighting for your creative time. (Featuring a one-armed neighbour, a near-disastrous winery set, and a lesson on Main Character Energy).Listen if you:Suspect the voice in your head has been answering your creative questions using old, outdated data. Need a gentle push to stop talking yourself out of your next creative move and start protecting your time. Feel like you're navigating the gap between knowing what to do in your creative life and actually doing it.