Under Western Skies Festival: One Proud Monkey to play final gig

It's a full circle for the Dubbo band comprised of Mr Hoy, Dallas Keenes, Tim Hosking and Dave Petty. Their first gig eight years ago was at Flix in the Stix at Lazy River Estate.

"I don't know what I'll do without a band because it's been such a big part of my life," Mr Hoy said.

"It's hard to say what comes after that but I'm satisfied with what we've been able to do. We've out out two albums and two EPs, a couple of singles, some video clips. We've played over on the coast, we've played in Victoria, we've done festivals and we've done small intimate gigs. "

Mr Hoy said it was a hard slog trying to convince people to listen to One Proud Monkey instead of their favourite hit song on the radio.

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"There's a lot of boxes ticked but it's a tough thing to only play songs you've written yourself and try and get people into that. These are songs that are basically about your life and your most intimate thoughts," he said.

"I've grown up with these songs but no one else has. I'm trying to convince them that they should listen to my song that I wrote. That takes a bit of a battle, you've just got to believe in what you're doing."

The hard slog is one of the reasons One Proud Monkey is breaking up. Mr Hoy said it was difficult to get to areas where original music was wanted.

"As a bunch of 40-year-olds with families we can't go to Sydney every weekend, gig, and come back to our full-time jobs," he said.

But there's excitement at having the last gig be in front of home crowd.

"We'd hate to have our last gig in Sydney or something like that and not be able to say 'hey everyone, come and celebrate this thing with us'," Mr Hoy said.

"It's a big positive moment, it's not supposed to be sad. It'll just be a nice way to cap it all off."

Mr Hoy, who is also on the Under Western Skies Festival committee, said the event was the chance for bands to have their moment in front of hundreds of people.

"This is the chance to make new fans and play to your old fans and do your part to show Dubbo has great, original music. Not to say we don't have great cover musos as well, but they've got their platform, we wanted to do something for the songwriters," he said.

"Whether it's a Bluesfest or big day out or our little Under Western Skies, a music festival just has great energy when people come together for music. You can't bottle that stuff."

As well as One Proud Monkey, the line-up includes Little Quirks, Andy Nelson, Red Bee, The Unclaimed Millions, Civil Hands, Shane Riley, Irene Halloran and Decimal Point.

"I've been lucky enough to be able to choose the performers this year and I've been able to choose some of my favourite local bands and bring bands to Dubbo that I love the sound of. It's almost like my Spotify playlist come to life, which is great," Mr Hoy said.

"The out of town acts have been so keen, I've been blown away. I thought I'd have to go through my list of 20 and pretty much the three that we've got were in the top four that I wanted. They've all been so open, so excited to come out and play."

Mr Hoy said he was excited for event, which he hoped would be on Dubbo's music calendar for many years to come.

The Under Western Skies Festival will be held on Saturday, March 21. Tickets are available at uwsfest.com.