INTERVIEW: GOOD NEWS EVERYONE - I’M NOT EMO (BUT THE SONG IS)
1. You’ve just released a new single, I’m Not Emo (I’m Just Sad), can you describe the song for me?
I’d say that Emo was our version of a sad boy pop punk song that would’ve come out back in 2015 from a band off of warped tour.
As a whole, I would say the song is definitely a good mix of an emo and pop punk song, although instrumentally there are a couple of times, such as the second verse and the bridge, where that changes up. Lyrically, the chorus is basically a description of the point I was at when I wrote this, talking about how I’m not the person I want to be and more and more frequently I would just reminisce on the past. But then there’s also that duality throughout the chorus saying I’m not going to let the past define who I am and that I’ve already come so far from where I was and I can’t let that go to waste.
If I look at the song broadly, I would say that it’s not a song about being sad but more about being hopeful for what’s to come
2. What was the inspiration behind the track?
At the time we started piecing Emo together we were listening to a lot bands like Real Friends, Moose Blood and Pierce the Veil so just naturally we began writing things that were more in that vein.
As whole though, we all really enjoy the vibe that you get from seeing bands up on warped tour so I think that played a big factor in influencing the song, being that we listened back to it and could see it being something a band on warped would play
I think coming into Emo, we wanted something that was a bit more upbeat that we could have some fun with and I think we achieved that pretty well.
Right as this was coming together though, Victoria went into its second lockdown which was rough because we weren’t able to catch up with our friends which put me in a really negative place. That’s why there isn’t anything especially complicated about the lyrics, it was straight from my mind to my paper on exactly how I was feeling listening back to the demo
3. As you’re in Victoria, I imagine it must have been challenging to work on new music. How did this single come about with the restrictions in place?
The way that we normally work as a band wasn’t really affected that much by the restrictions. Typically what would happen is I would demo a few songs, have the boys come over and listen to it, pick out parts we wanted to change or fix up and then decide what to do with it.
With these restrictions all that changed was instead of having the boys come around, I’d just send them a google drive link to the song and we’d go from there.
Once we knew we wanted to put this out, we recorded our parts and sent them off to Jaime Preciado from Pierce the Veil to mix and master and we couldn’t be happier with the result!
4. The music industry has definitely been hit hard with the pandemic. How has this affected you, both mentally and with your music?
For us, we were just starting to get organised to do some gigs and all that so it definitely set us back a long way when it came to what we’d want to be doing right now. Right now though we are going to be getting into a rehearsal studio in the next couple of weeks so at least now we can start making some progress and hopefully get out there and start playing some shows soon!
Mentally, the first month or so of the lockdown left me reflecting a lot on better times and had me thinking about a lot of people and memories that I hadn’t for a long time. It put me in a bad head space and I realised that there was a lot of thing I hadn’t properly worked through and I think that’s probably going to reflect a lot lyrically in our songs that we’ll be putting out later
5. I have to ask...is the band name a ‘Futurama’ reference or just purely coincidental?
Yes it is! One day it got thrown around and we thought it was funny but eventually we couldn’t agree on a name so we stuck with that one
6. What are some of your current favourite Aussie artists to listen to?
Right now I know that Alex is listening to DMA’s, sticky fingers and dune rats. Adam is listening to a lot of Thornhill, Windwaker and Stand Atlantic. I’ve been listening to a lot of The Beautiful Monument, Eat Your Heart Out and Columbus
7. What can fans expect to see from you next?
We’re currently working on our next EP that’ll be coming out between February and March of next year so that’s always exciting. We’re also now going to be able getting into a rehearsal studio to get ready for some gigs whenever we can so that’s gonna be fun once we can!