• The Spend a Little Time album cover (above) features South Fremantle power station, and Tom Fisher on stage (below). Photo of Fisher by Tashi Hall.

FREMANTLE’S Tom Fisher and the Layabouts are set to release their long awaited EP Spend a Little Time.

The alt-country rocker’s first single from the EP, Old Man of the Blues, won song of the year in the Blues and Roots category at last year’s WA Music Awards.

“It’s a nice start – an angry, strong blues song,” Fisher says.

“The rest of the EP is country rock.”

He’s been playing live music since the age of nine, when he got on stage and performed a rockabilly song with his dad Jim.

Spend a Little Time sees a grown-up Fisher reflecting on his role as a family man.

“There’s lots of songs about parenting,” he laughs.

Fisher says he used to write songs that he thought other people wanted to hear.

“Now I write what I want to hear. It’s classic rocking good music, but with a message.”

Heavy on alt-country rock, there’s nods to Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty in Fisher’s music.

The album cover is a photo of the old South Fremantle power station taken in the 1950s by train enthusiast Weston Langford.

It shows the working power station, a car and van waiting for an old locomotive to pass, and workers breaking rocks.

“It’s a vintage look for a vintage sound,” Fisher says.

The cover of his first record was a photograph of the graffitied walls inside the derelict power station.

The launch gigs for Spend a Little Time are at the Bassendean Hotel on February 16 and Mojos Bar in North Fremantle on February 15.

Support acts are Perth songstress Billie Rogers, Lighting Jack, and the Little Lord Street Band. Tickets at oztix.com.au

By JENNY D’ANGER