Gee, I’m sorry, Josh; that’s a huge loss. She died from heart failure, but had dementia for 14 years. It’s hard to see a loved one go through that and go, “There is a God.” But we memorialised her through music. I was fortunate to have played with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra a couple of months ago. The last song we played was What It Means to Be Alone (Catherine). It has a long, seven-minute meandering at the end, a musical representation of a slide into dementia. That was a great emotional catharsis for me.

DEATH

We’ve landed on “Death” and we’re already talking about your mother … It’s interesting: I didn’t get a big sense of catharsis when she passed away and I was really worried about that. I actually went to see a counsellor and was like, “I feel like there’s something wrong with me.” But, actually, I’d just incrementally been grieving for a really long time.

That makes sense. It was such a mixed bag of emotions. There was relief there as well. Whereas, recently, a friend who was much younger passed away and that just felt so … I don’t even know what the word is.

It feels unfair, right? [Nods] It’s not the natural order of the world. Old people die; that’s to be expected. But yeah, this was shit.

How have these losses affected how you live your life? Even when I was in my mid-20s, two friends of mine passed away: one from cancer and one from … well, nobody ever knew. Those losses informed the song Memories and Dust. It really made me think about how I wanted to live my life. And it made me throw my hat in the ring with music.

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Does it make you reflect on death? Especially since having kids? It absolutely scares the shit out of me. It’s FOMO, basically. I don’t want to miss out on these amazing things that my kids will do. I’m a curious person, so I want to see what’s going to happen.

Do you have any funeral requests? [Laughs] I totally do. When I was 10, I was in England with my family and Enya’s Orinoco Flow was really big.

Oh, that’s a banger. Absolutely! I remember we were walking across this Tesco’s car park and I was singing the song and I said to my mum, “I want to have this song played at my funeral!” Apparently, I skipped across the car park like, “I can’t wait ’til my funeral!” And because I want to be a man of my word, I want it to be played.