Nathan Cavaleri

Nathan Cavaleri

If you were to skim over the significant moments of Nathan Cavaleri’s musical career you could easily mistake his story as that of a cliched child star burnout, but when you delve into the fine details it is a much more compelling tale.

Cavaleri’s musical career was strangely born out of tragedy when he was granted a wish by the Make A Wish Foundation. After being diagnosed with leukaemia at six years old Cavaleri wished to meet and jam with Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits.

“Consequently the media covered that meeting and then from there it all snowballed,” recalled Cavaleri.

From there Cavaleri’s career went from strength to strength, and by 12 years of age he found himself at the centre of a bidding war between the labels of Michael Jackson, Prince and Madonna. By 16 he had toured with B.B. King as his guest, and played at the Kennedy Centre in front of The Clintons with Etta James and Bonnie Raitt.

The next step in the cliche tale would be for Cavaleri to let the success go to his head before the inevitable burnout. Whilst Cavaleri’s career did burnout, it was due to anxiety and mental health issues beyond his control.

“I was one of those people who never really understood what anxiety was until I experienced it myself,” explained Cavaleri. “It felt like somebody had drugged me because I would slip into these trances where I was feeling irrational dread about the most random things. Everybody feels it in different ways, whether it be a rapidly beating heart or sweaty palms. But for me I would feel like I was out of my skin and everything would feel surreal and scary.”

These feelings of dread, when combined with insomnia, would go on to manifest themselves within Cavaleri on stage and eventually led to him collapsing mid-performance. This made Cavaleri begin to dread touring and performing and eventually led to him stepping away from music all together.

“It was self preservation at that point.”

During his time away from music though Cavaleri was able to invest in himself and learn about the intricacies of anxiety, mental health and how to deal with the disease.

“Through that process of self discovery I reconnected with music in a similar way to what I had when I was a kid. I had no intentions of returning to music professionally because it scared the shit out of me, but I couldn’t stop the ideas in my head,” Cavaleri said.

These ideas would go on to become Cavaleri’s upcoming EP and also foster a desire to return to the stage, which he will fulfil tonight with a home town show.

“This whole tour is one big leap for me, it’s time to prove that all of the things that I’ve learned about myself have all been useful and I’’m a different person now.”

Nov 1. Venue 505, 280 Cleveland St, Surry Hills. $20-$25+b.f. Tickets & Info: www.venue505.com

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