Actually, his work as a producer recording the music of other artists would take up twice as much time than his own music.

But at the beginning of last year, which was a busy one for Nicholson who produced no fewer than a dozen albums, the singer-songwriter found a window of opportunity to make his own album.

The result was Love and Blood, which is up for four Golden Guitars this year.

As well as being nominated for Alt Country Album of the Year and Male Artist of the Year, Nicholson’s song Safe is a finalist for Single of the Year and APRA AMCOS Song of the Year.

“It makes putting on a suit a lot more enjoyable or justified,” Nicholson laughed.

Safe, which was the first single off the album, was never intended for an album when it was written in late 2016.

“My girlfriend had never dated a musician so she’d never had a song written about her, and I thought it would be cool to write a song for her for Christmas,” Shane explained.

“I wrote it as a present, but then I really enjoyed it and didn’t want to let her keep it, so I recorded it.”

The album was recorded early last year, when Nicholson got the chance in between his work as a producer.

“I was working on three other albums, and I just found a window of opportunity - a week or two - to do my own in the middle,” he said.

In late July the album was released, and he will be playing songs from the album, as well as his earlier releases at The Pub on Thursday, January 25.

His Tamworth concert always includes a games of song bingo, where the audience requests songs, to see if they can trip him up, and that audience includes plenty of the same people who return each year, and it has built up over the years.

Tamworth is one of the few places that Nicholson gets what he calls his A-team band on stage to back him.

Comprising other producers, who are usually busy working in studios throughout the year, his band called The General Waste includes Steve Fernley on drums, Jeff McCormack on bass,

Glen Hannah and Brendon Radford on guitars, Matt Fell on keyboards and Luke Moller on fiddle.

“They’re pretty hard to get on the road, they’re all pretty busy, so anytime when I get them all on the stage together it’s a pretty special gig for me,” he said.

“Having a really good band and a good venue, it’s all the things you want.”