In a home filled with the tools and outputs of their creative pursuits, musician and librarian Jacob Cole and photographer Lilli Waters have created an ode to art.

Librarian by day, musician by night—it might sound like Jacob Cole leads a double life, but step into the home he shares with wife Lilli Waters and you’ll quickly see the interconnection of Jacob’s life and work.

Describing his guitar practice as a lifelong obsession, Jake’s musical career has seen him play in bands and bars, solo and even to the Sydney Opera House. Throughout it all, his connection to playing guitar has continued to drive his experience of listening to and playing music.

Who are you? Tell me a little about yourself.

Jacob Cole: I’m a Melbourne musician—I’m originally from NSW but moved to Melbourne about fourteen years ago. Since then I’ve been playing music fairly regularly in all sorts of bands, done a bit of touring, but mostly I play in bars and pubs around town pretty regularly.

I’m also a librarian, so I have two jobs—one that’s relatively quiet and peaceful, and one that’s more defined by loud music and noisy bars. It suits me—I’m a pretty quiet person, so the two jobs help me get my fill of both things.

I live here with my wife Lilli, who is a photographer—she makes amazing art that’s all over our walls—and our two Tonkinese cats, Charlie and Minnie. They’re kind of like our children; they’re very demanding and we spend a lot of time hanging out, the four of us.

What does a typical day look like for you?

JC: I work in the library during the week so that takes up a big chunk of my time, but it’s one of those jobs that I can switch off as soon as I leave so I do have the energy for other things. At night I’ll come home and hang out with Lilli and the cats or do music stuff; whether it’s playing gigs or writing music or working on guitar stuff, it’s very much a guitar-related obsession that’s been going on for many years.

What do you love about your home?

JC: I really like the beautiful glass windows and doors and the wooden edging around the house, and I particularly like all the art in our home, much of it done by Lilli. I can’t say that I’ve had much input into the design of the house and the way that it looks—that’s mostly Lilli—but I love all the plants and the art, and she’s recently been doing pottery so there’s lots of pieces she’s created around our home now too.

Do you have any daily or weekly habits or rituals around music in your home?

JC: My habits are more around playing and practising—I don’t find that much time purely to listen to music. I like to listen to it when I’m cooking as I tend to do most of our cooking and I like to have some playing on the speaker or with headphones—Lilli and I will often be walking around the house with our individual headphones on, both listening to our own music although we do love the same kind of music. We’re both obsessed in different ways.

I also love playing and working out new things on the guitar—I can spend hours and hours on Youtube watching guitarists I like, stealing licks I like and trying to incorporate them into my own stuff.

What spaces of your home do you play in?

JC: I like the lounge room—it’s the warmest room in the house so that’s my main place to play in winter, but there’s different sounds to the different spaces in the house and I find the kitchen sounds better acoustically, so if I can be bothered I’ll set up in the kitchen.

If I’m writing music I’ll try to have a space that’s not just slouching out the couch—I’ll try to be at a table and be more proactive about making notes and writing things down.

Tell us about a time when playing guitar has positively impacted your life, or a highlight of your guitar ‘career’?

JC: Years ago, not long after I moved to Melbourne, I got to play at the Sydney Opera House and at Hamer Hall with a local musician called George Byrne who was supporting Tori Amos. When I look back, that was surreal and slightly terrifying but I’d like to do something like that again at some point.

I feel very lucky that so many parts of my life have been linked to music; it’s how I’ve met a lot of my friends and it’s how I met my wife, in a roundabout way—we’d met at a bar and would see each other at gigs and we started chatting about music and that’s really how it all started. She was really into music, which I think is what I was drawn to—those people that are into music, they’re often really into it and I liked that about her, that she was really passionate about music.

Do you feel like your taste in music has changed over the years?

JC: It’s definitely changed. My parents actually had a great music collection, so in a sense the music I enjoy now is still the music I grew up listening to, but my taste in guitar stuff has changed—when I was about 12 I got into blues music and I was obsessed with blues for several years, then that morphed into jazz.

I studied music at university and was heavily into all this jazz stuff and then I went the other way, getting more into the stuff my parents listened to—Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Randy Newman—all these singer/songwriters that I love. That’s still my favourite type of music, so while my taste is definitely always changing, there’s music I’ll always love.

You’re at a party and get corralled into playing your guitar for the crowd—what do you play? Do you have a go to song?

JC: I don’t love being the centre of attention, so because I’m always surrounded by other musicians I’d probably grab some of them to come up with me, and get them to play something together. I like playing with others.

If I was totally forced to play on my own and was feeling brave I might try to sing a song, but I’d have to be feeling pretty brave. I like ‘Solitary Man’, by Neil Diamond.

Tell us about your guitar—where did you get it and what do you love about it? What makes it special to you?

JC: I’ve got a few guitars. I recently turned 40 and Lilli organised for her and a bunch of friends to buy me a Fender Jazzmaster which I love. She also bought me one after we’d been together about two years, a custom Maton Mastersound that they don’t make at the factory, which was really special. I’ve played it at pretty much every gig for the past few years.

I’m also a fan of cheap guitars I can also do up and change everything on them so they become more customised. I’ve still got the guitar I had at 14, which is very different now—all the parts have changed—but I still have a soft spot for that one.

What's an album you never get sick of?

JC: I’m obsessed by albums in the 70s; there’s something about the sound of so many albums, like Bob Dylan or The Band or albums like that, the sound just never gets old to me. There’s a couple of Bob Dylan albums called John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline, and a Randy Newman album called Sail Away that I’ve never gotten sick of. I think it’s because I grew up listening to these albums, so I’ve been listening to them before I can even remember, that connection with childhood.

And your favourite album cover?

JC: The Band’s The Band, their second album. It’s a self-titled album but it’s got this amazing photo of the five guys and it looks like it could be from 200 years ago—it’s a black a white photo and I remember seeing it as a kid and thinking they looked like wild but interesting men, living these incredible mysterious lives.

What inspires your writing or influences your music composition?

JC: It’s a mix; I’m obsessed with guitar so my influences vary from the very guitar nerdy people that you really only hear about if you’re a guitarist to people like Bill Frisell and John Scofield, jazz guys I was into for a really long time. My more recent guitar hero’s are guys like Blake Mills, Junior Watson and Jim Oblon.

The album itself was more influenced by those 70s sounds and more songwriters rather than guitarists, even though it’s instrumental music, I’m trying to get some of the feeling of those albums that I’ve always loved. With music, often the more technical you get, the worse the music gets, so if you have limitations that’s where some of the best music can come.

Can you tell us a little bit about your upcoming album, the process and inspiration?

JC: I’ve been playing in bands for a long time and had been wanting to make my own music, but every time I’d go to write music I’d often give up before I got started. I wanted to make music that was simple, and accessible—it’d be easy to go down the road of making it sound jazzy and unusual but I wanted to make music that was Lucinda Williams-ish or Bob Dylan-ish, three or four chords that were atmospheric.

I recorded most of the album in Tasmania in a house on the Huon river with good friend Jed Pickett, and the amazing place definitely informs the vibe of the record. There are eight songs on the album and a lot of improvising and also some of my good friends, mostly from the band Moreland City Soul Revue play on the album too. At times it has a sort of cinematic sound and in my head I always imagined it as almost a soundtrack to a movie not yet made. The album is called Nightsville and should be out by early November.

Any great resources, lessons, books or tips and tricks for learning guitar?

JC: Studying music at uni was a pretty amazing experience—it gave me the opportunity to practice so much and really remain motivated in my practice. But ultimately I think listening to music is how to teach yourself guitar stuff. That, and playing with others as much as possible.

I used to order videos of guitarists from Europe and listen to cassettes of people playing music as a teenager, and while platforms like Youtube are amazing for finding lots of tutorials and there’s so many ways for younger guitarists to access resources, I’m glad I had to learn through those cassette tapes and then CD’s. Having someone show you note for note how to play something isn’t the same as training your ears to listen for things in a certain way, it’s quite valuable because that’s a skill you can keep on developing. To me, playing guitar is as much more about nuance—getting the subtleties of it, not just hitting the notes.

How do you maintain a connection with music?

JC: I’ve been lucky that my obsession with guitar started when I was about 12 and hasn’t really waned since—I don’t have to do much except for not play guitar for a few days soon I’ll be yearning to pick it up and play it, it’s something I never get bored of.

I’ve also been obsessed with constantly learning. Sometimes I feel the more I learn, the more I feel like a beginner as certain doors open to reveal another huge world of things to learn and engage with.

Jacob has just released a beautiful, atmospheric, guitar driven instrumental single called "The Driver" with which he has collaborated with his wife Lilli, who shot an amazing film clip to go with it in Death Valley, California. You can check out the video here. This track will be released as part of Jacob’s upcoming album which will be released this summer (2019). More on Jacob Cole can be found at https://www.jacobcole.com.au/.