COUNTRY artist and paramedic Doug McIntyre has a new lease of musical life this year.

"I'm doing a bit of everything, but I'll only be doing all my own songs this year," he said.

"I'm steering away from covers people hear enough of them. If you're primarily a singer-songwriter, then you should be doing those songs. It's like a new lease of life and a new chapter for me."

His shows include the Oasis Hotel, the Back to the Bush balladeers show at Toyota Park, Fanzone and the Big Golden Guitar, and he did a guest spot at Graham Rodgers' show yesterday. McIntyre is working on a new album, having already written three or four, which he will road-test in Tamworth.

"I like to give them a good road-test, for the sake of finding different ways to sing the songs and grow in the songs," he said.

"It'll probably be another good 18 months before the album I really want to sing the songs a lot before I produce them and get comfortable with them.

"For the new album, I've written a song about the Martin Place incident, and another song about terrorists in general, saying you want to wreck our life, but we're still here. And there is Sweet Something, about a guy who breaks up with his woman, goes off to Sydney and ends up with the backside out of his pants and he wants to return home."

The singer-songwriter was a finalist in the Gold Medallion Media Awards this year, but did not pick up the award. It's been a big year personally, with Doug and family welcoming their fifth baby, Eva. During the festival, McIntyre said he wanted to catch artists he didn't normally see and hoped to see Paul Kelly at Wests.