Bruce Mathiske's musical memoir

And while it has taken almost three decades and 17 albums, that confidence has now translated to his life off the stage too.

His latest album, My Life, has garnered rave reviews.

The guitar maestro attributes its success and its resonance with audiences to one key factor: honesty.

The album, which was three years in the making, is a musical memoir for Mathiske.

"I was doing another album, and on a trip back from Victoria I told my wife that I'd always dreamed of doing an album called 'Somebody's Life', because everyone has a story that starts with a heartbeat, and she said 'Why not now?'," he says.

"Then my publicist suggested I focus it on, and call it, My Life instead. Up until then I was still holding back - I didn't want to get too personal.

"But opening up completely has really made the album what it is.

"It was about going inside a bit. Asking myself what I wanted from the album.

"This is my 17th album, but it only now feels like I'm actually on it.

"I've arrived at a point where I see how it all goes together, and I love making music that means something."

The album references Mathiske's formative rock years with covers of Pink Floyd's The Wall and Is There Anybody Out There, as well as the Rolling Stones' Paint It Black.

"I wanted to represent them because that's what I used to play when I was first playing in bands as a kid," he says.

"I've studied classical and jazz, but to me the early rock days are just as valid - playing with your mates, a band of brothers.

"As for Pink Floyd, The Wall for me is the greatest album of all time, so I wanted to represent them."

My Life also references the shooting accident which left the then 18-year-old musician with left arm paralysis for close to a year.

"I was a teenager out spotlighting and I popped my head up when my mate decided to shoot, and it went through my head and paralysed my left arm," he says.

"It was the scariest thing, having this arm that doesn't really belong to you. It's not like an arm falling asleep - it's a totally different sensation, or lack of sensation, I can't explain it. But it was freakish and frightening."

But the accident didn't lead to any grand re-assessments of life."

That came later.

"It's funny how the universe works. I was still a teenager, and to use the word bulletproof is the wrong term, but I was messing about," he says.

"About a year-and-a-half later I got hepatitis, which is a liver damage thing - and that sorted me out. The universe kept tapping me on the shoulder and telling me to settle down. You'd think getting shot in the head would be enough, but no, I got another reminder."

The positive response and encouraging feedback Mathiske has received for My Life has given him the confidence to trust his judgment and musical intuition.

"On this, I didn't ask anyone's advice, anyone's opinion - I just went into my little cave for the three years and came out with this," he says.

"I knew it was good, because I kept asking myself.

"I was honest. If something wasn't good, if something didn't dance, I'd drop it, I'd change it.

"I think it is generally hard to get other people's voices out of your head, because you're raised to look after what other people want.

"With the creative process though you should paint, or sing, or play or dance, as if no one is watching.

"Don't make it for critics or the next-door neighbour or your parents or whoever, make what's right for you.

"Get rid of those voices, get rid of any fear.

"For the first time I feel like I'm at the level I want to be."

Mathiske will perform songs from My Life at the Newcastle Conservatorium on May 11.

"It's one of those rooms that's pretty honest too," he says.

"The stage and the people are all as one. And it's such a great sounding room too."

While performing at the conservatorium is worlds away from his early days playing the Lass O'Gowrie, in many ways it wasn't all that different.

"In a way, nothing changes," he says.

"You go and do these gigs and they might be overseas or in big rooms, but it's still me and the guitar, a stage and an audience.

"The size of the audience changes, of course, but in a way it's the same thing.

"I just get up there and play guitar, have a chat and do my thing."