INTERVIEW: CHARLIE HANRHAN IS GOING IN ‘CIRCLES’

We caught up with Melbourne based artist ‘Charlie Hanrhan’ about his new single ‘CIRCLES’, Blending Genres and Emotions

At just 23 years old, Charlie Hanrhan from the Mornington Peninsula in Melbourne is making waves in the music industry with his unique sound and introspective lyrics. The self-produced multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter is gearing up for the release of his latest single, 'Circles,' debuted on Feb 10. With influences ranging from Little Simz to David Bowie, Hanrhan's music combines modern trap electronic production with elements of hip-hop, soul, and rock n' roll, creating a captivating sonic experience for listeners.

Hanrhan's musical journey is deeply rooted in his love for various genres, including soul, funk, hip-hop, and rock n' roll. His upcoming album, slated for release in 2024, promises to showcase his versatility and creative vision. Despite drawing comparisons to established artists like Rahgd and Kendrick Lamar, Hanrhan maintains a distinctive style that sets him apart in the industry.

In a recent statement, Hanrhan expressed his passion for music, describing it as his escape and the love of his life. He spends countless hours in his home studio crafting intricate beats, meaningful lyrics, and immersive melodies that resonate with listeners on an emotional level. His dedication to his craft is evident in the depth and sincerity of his musical compositions.

One of Hanrhan's previous successes, 'I'm Good, I'm Rich,' garnered attention from various platforms, solidifying his presence in the music scene. He has been featured on radio shows like RppFM's Sunday Sessions and gained recognition from publications such as Happy Mag and Aus Music Scene. Hanrhan's upcoming album is highly anticipated, with fans eagerly awaiting his next musical chapter.

Despite his busy schedule as a full-time Support Worker, Hanrhan devotes over 30 hours a week to creating music, showcasing his relentless work ethic and commitment to his artistry. He describes his sound as challenging to categorize but believes that the right audience will connect with his expressive techniques over time.

'Circles,' Hanrhan's latest single, delves into themes of self-awareness, personal growth, and mental health. The track reflects on mundane yet profound moments in life, urging listeners to stay positive and true to themselves. Accompanied by meticulously crafted music videos, the single promises an immersive experience that captures the essence of Hanrhan's artistic evolution.

As Charlie Hanrhan continues to evolve and push boundaries in the music industry, 'Circles' serves as a testament to his talent and dedication. With a message that resonates with audiences worldwide, Hanrhan invites listeners to join him on a sonic exploration of life's highs and lows, promising an unforgettable musical journey.

For more information and to connect with Charlie Hanrhan, visit his social media links here.

For More Info, and social media links:
https://msha.ke/charliehanrahan 

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INTERVIEW 

Can you tell our readers about your new single 'Circles', and a little bit about who you are?

Hello readers, my name is Charlie. Hop you’re doing well and cheers for reading this. You know what would be cool. If we broke the fourth wall right now ahah. Hit me up on insta or wherever tf and tell me how you are lol (@charliehanrahan__)…. Shameless promo x. I’m a 23 yo dude from the Mornington Peninsula, Vic. This song is basically about breaking free and reflection of being trapped in somewhat toxic lifestyles surrounding drugs, alcohol, and partying etc. I find myself easily manipulated into environments that I really don’t feel apart of. 

Who did you work with for this single, and what does the name of the track mean?

So basically everything bar those angelic backing vocals you hear towards the end was produced by myself. The title of the track represents the patterns of them unhealthy lifestyle habits I speak about. You know, work for the weekend, party for days straight. Allll of that shit.  

How do you put music together, or do you work with a Producer, if so who?

No producer. I’ve tried working with various producers in the past but I just have such a specific sound in mind when creating and I know that if it’s not exactly how I like it, it just won’t work out. So generally I work alone. I get that that might be seen as boxing myself in but it works for me, that’s how I like to do things. So it’s just hours and hours in my home studio. A. Song will come together over time though. Often I will completely finish a song and if it doesn’t quite hit, I’ll strip down that entire song and start from square one. 

What are some of your go-to records to listen to, when you're either chilling or working on new music?

It really does vary so much, I created this particular record so long ago I’d have no idea what I was listening to at that time. At the moment I’ve been enjoying Sampha’s new album a lot. I’ve also been going through a Yatchy phase and Scaring The Hoes is on repeat. 
Anything exciting coming up over the next few months?

You know I’ve always got projects on the go behind the scenes without a plan on when to release them. So, I might have an album out next week or in 6 months time. I act irrationally with these things. People say that’s a bad way to do it but my audience will find it eventually lol. I’m sort of beyond the point of really giving a f*ck about what people say because at the end of the day I do this for myself. Also I’m moving to London to try make something out of myself. It doesn’t seem to be working for me in Aus. So imma hit the road. Right in the deep end you know.

What other artists and or creatives are from your community, and who should our readers get across?

A couple names come to mind straight away. I’ve been gracious enough to play along side Squid the Kid and his crew over the past few months. Squid had me play some bass with his band at some shows that was just so much fun ! I’ve also been gracious enough to play bass with Seaweed on Sticks. Som e more legends who’ve had me on board. Getting to know both of these artists and work along side them has been such a great joy. They’re both insanely talented crews and even better people. 

What do you like to do, outside of writing, recording and playing music?

Ahahah not much lol. Music consumes me. I like to swim. Always get some laps in at my local pool. Shoutout to YAWA down in Rosebud. They’ve also got a dope ass sauna in there. I also love food and with that, a healthy lifestyle. 

Do you have any shows coming up? Any last words?

No shows. I’m leaving for London as I said.  Booking a show would just be too stressful for me at this point. Uhhhhhh I’ll sign off by saying thank you and I love you. 

COME OUR WAY FOR THIS WAY NORTH

We caught up with Renowned Duo ‘This Way North’ who released Debut Album 'Punching Underwater' 

Indie pop-rock duo This Way North, comprising Cat Jungalwalla and Leisha Leahy, is gearing up for the highly anticipated release of their debut album, 'Punching Underwater,' set to hit the shelves on February 8th, 2024. This musical endeavor is a collaborative masterpiece between the award-winning artist Ainslie Wills and accomplished engineer-producer Jono Steer, promising a blend of creativity and expertise that fans have eagerly awaited.

The journey leading to 'Punching Underwater' has been a fascinating one for This Way North. Having traversed various landscapes across Australia and beyond, the duo found themselves amid the serene Dhudhuroa country in north-east Victoria during the pandemic. Here, amidst ancient trees and high-country valleys, they exchanged the nomadic lifestyle for a temporary home, allowing a pause that became a haven for creative expression, shaping the essence of their forthcoming album.

This Way North has steadily climbed the ladder of recognition, previously honored as Music Victoria's Best Regional Act. Their repertoire includes three EPs, and they've gained prominence not just in Australia but also in New Zealand and Canada, sharing stages with notable artists like Vika and Linda Bull, Ash Grunwald, and Kate Ceberano.

The debut single from 'Punching Underwater,' titled 'My Love,' made its debut in October 2023. Featuring the mesmerizing sounds of Christine Tootoo's Inuit throat singing from Iqaluit, Arctic Canada, the single quickly gained national rotation on Double J and secured a top-5 position on the AMRAP charts, resonating deeply with their dedicated fan base and setting high expectations for the album's release.

In 'Punching Underwater,' This Way North showcases their peak songwriting and performance abilities, weaving together musical and lyrical elements that highlight their creative prowess. With Ainslie Wills stepping into the role of producer for the first time and collaborating with long-time creative partner Jono Steer, the album reflects a synergy that allowed Cat and Leisha to delve deeper into each song, refining them to showcase their exceptional talents.

Recorded across studios in Melbourne and Romsey, central Victoria, each track on the album radiates lush, dynamic sounds, standing out both individually and collectively. Cat Leahy's vibrant, powerful drumming and Leisha Jungalwalla's intricate guitar tones and slide guitar chops are meticulously crafted, forming the backbone of the album's sonic landscape. Additionally, guest vocals from Xani, Little Wise, Tuckshop Ladies, and Ainslie Wills, along with contributions from Jono Steer and guest bassist Brett Langsford, add layers of depth and richness to the musical tapestry.

'Punching Underwater' delves into introspective themes, addressing insecurities, imposter syndrome, and self-doubt while also celebrating the journey of self-discovery and personal growth. From the struggle to avoid falling in love to the highs of building confidence and contentment, the album encapsulates the myriad emotions of a woman's evolution. Ultimately, it leaves listeners on a positive note, embracing the highs and lows of life's journey with resilience and grace.

With compelling harmonies, robust melodies, and a profound exploration of the human experience, 'Punching Underwater' is poised to be a standout debut album for This Way North, solidifying their place in the indie music scene and captivating audiences worldwide. Fans can look forward to a musical journey that is introspective, uplifting, and undeniably authentic.

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INTERVIEW:

Can you tell our readers about your new Album 'Punching Underwater', and a little bit about who you are?

Hello! We are a band called This Way North, I'm Leisha, I play guitar and sing and there's Cat on drums and vocals. We are based in Yackandandah (yes, it's a real place!), in the high country in North East Victoria. We are a drums and guitar duo who often get mistaken for a full 5-piece band, we love blending indie rock, pop, blues, roots and folk with a little bit of psychedelica thrown in! 

We've just released our debut album 'Punching Underwater'! 

Who did you work with for this single, and what does the name of the album mean?

We worked with Ainslie Wills and Jono Steer as co-producers on the whole album and the lead single 'Punching Underwater'. The name is about how when you try to punch under the water everything is slow moving there is a lot of resistance. There were a lot of challenges for us to get this album and the songs together and out into the world, the song is about how you can be too hard on yourself and make yourself so slow by not believing in what you're capable of. We co-wrote this song with Bobby Alu.

How do you put music together, or do you work with a Producer, if so who?

We write all of our own songs by either writing them separately and bringing them to each other to finish or writing them completely together. We then worked with Ainslie Wills on each song in pre-production. She really brought them out to be the best they could be with her incredible ear and song writing sensibilities. We learnt so much from her and how she crafts her songs. 

Who's on your greater team?

We have our awesome booking agents Abby and Bec from Onya Soapbox, our album team was Ainslie Wills, Jono Steer (Co-producers plus some keys and vocals), Brett Langsford (bass), our publicists Stuart and Jonny. But the rest is all us! We're an independent band and work bloody hard to make sure we hustle and create opportunities for ourselves. Oh and our dog Messy.

What are some of your go-to records to listen to, when you're either chilling or working on new music?

We both love Bahamas, Khruangbin, Tami Neilson, Bonobo but there's too many to list! 

Anything exciting coming up over the next few months?

Yes! We have the next leg of our album tour throughout South Australia, Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales! 

What other artists and or creatives are from your community, and who should our readers get across?

We're super lucky to live in a very creative area! There's amazing artists from all mediums: sculptors (check out Ben Gilberts creations), visual artists (Kirrily Anderson), black smiths (Toadhall forge) and of course musicians!

Check out Sal Kimber, Liv Cartledge and DJ Jane Doe. 

We also have amazing whiskey distilleries (Backwoods Distillery), recycled wool and leather workers (Stonehill View), furniture makers (Indigo Woodworks). It's a really inspiring place to live with lots of amazing people doing cool and inspiring things! 

What do you like to do, outside of writing, recording and playing music?

We both love being out in nature, camping in our van with our dog Messy! Cat is a hatter, so she spends a lot of time in her shop making glorious hats (check ou Feather & Drum Hat Co.). I love surfing when I can get to the coast. 

Do you have any shows coming up?

Catch us here:

Sun April 28th supporting Ash Grunwald at Star Hotel Yackandandah

Sat June 15th Melbourne Album Launch Show w East Bound Buzz, Liv Cartledge and DJ Jane Doe at Stay Gold, Brunswick

Fri June 21st Brisbane Album Launch Show at the Cave Inn with special guests TBA

Sat June 22nd Full Moon Party, Verrierdale Sunshine Coast QLD

Sat August 3rd The Stone Pony, w Parvyn Willunga, SA

Sun August 4th Adelaide Album Launch Show at Trinity Sessions w Parvyn Adelaide SA

Fri August 23rd Wauchope Arts, Wauchope NSW

Sat August 24th Sydney Album Launch Show at The Great Club with Monstress and Juanita Tippins Marrickville NSW

Sun August 25th The Fun Haus, Gosford NSW

 Any last words?

We can't wait to hear what you think of the album, don't forget to check out the film clips for the first two singles 'My Love' featuring Inuit Throat Singer Christine Tootoo, shot up in Arctic Canada and 'Punching Underwater' filmed at the Old Beechworth Gaol in an empty 100 year old pool! 

Unveiling Telladream: A Musical Odyssey by Sash Mish

In the realm of Indie/Alternative/Electronic/Pop, a captivating new artist is set to make waves with an unparalleled sonic journey. Telladream, the brainchild of singer and producer Sash Mish, formerly known as Slumberhaze, is making a resounding entrance into the music scene with the release of two compelling singles, 'The Death of Fear' and 'Family Matters.'

After a six-year hiatus and the transformative experience of becoming a father to two children, Sash Mish redirected his creative energy into the Telladream project. Collaborating with industry legends like Lachlan Mitchell at Parliament Studios in Sydney and London-based producer Dane Burge, Telladream's debut album, featuring ten tracks that showcase Sash's unique musical style, is eagerly anticipated and set for release later this year.

Choosing a path focused solely on recording, Telladream forgoes live performances to concentrate on delivering a rich tapestry of music and visuals. Collaborations with other artists on exciting projects are also part of Telladream's journey, highlighting a commitment to exploring the depths of creativity.

Influenced by a diverse array of artists, ranging from Bowie and Outkast to Dino Merlin and electronic producers, Telladream draws inspiration from the expansive wall of sound reminiscent of bands like War on Drugs and Elbow.

'The Death of Fear' and 'Family Matters,' the debut singles from Telladream, delve into poignant themes that resonate deeply with listeners. 'The Death of Fear' explores the transformative period surrounding the birth of Sash's daughter, offering an intimate glimpse into the emotional journey. On the other hand, 'Family Matters' tackles the pressures of life, love, and the delicate balance required to hold it all together.

To add a visually striking dimension to Telladream's sonic creations, both music videos were crafted by a talented crew of film students from NIDA and directed by Forest Lim. The marriage of visual and auditory elements enhances the immersive experience of Telladream's music.

The singles were not just written by Telladream but meticulously recorded and mixed by Lachlan Mitchell, showcasing a commitment to sonic perfection. Mastered by Steve Smart at Studio 301, these tracks promise to deliver an audio experience that transcends the ordinary.

Reflecting on 'The Death of Fear,' Telladream shares, "I wrote the instrumental for this song in 2013 in Florence and could not get any concept or melody for the vocals. Then, after my daughter was born, I spent a few days on this song, and everything came together in the span of 2-3 hours. Lyrically, it talks about the experiences before she was born and after."

Regarding 'Family Matters,' Telladream remarks, "Written as an instrumental to make my daughter dance, it ended up being a song about family life – its pressures, love, and holding it all together."

As Telladream emerges onto the music scene, it brings not just a collection of songs but a profound narrative of personal experiences, creative evolution, and a commitment to pushing the boundaries of musical expression. With an album on the horizon and a unique vision, Sash Mish, under the moniker Telladream, invites audiences to join him on this musical odyssey.

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Backbeat spoke with Sash aka Telladream about the recent single and video releases, and dived a little deeper into how everything came together, and his artistry

Hey Sash, How are you today? Great, man! 

Can you tell us about the name behind Telladream? I was hoping a name would come to me, as I've just been recording the songs and planning a release but couldn't decide on a name, and then it just came during a nap one afternoon in a dream. The dream word was Telethon, then I liked that, but it was in the dream so I used the first half and added dream to it = Telladream 

Can you tell our readers about your new singles 'Family Matters' and 'Death of Fear'?

The instrumental of this was written 10 years ago and I loved it but could never come up with a structure or melody so I just left it, then around the time of the birth of my daughter, it all just landed in my lap. The song speaks about fear and finding courage in the end. The title was initially The Fear of Death, but at the time of recording I flipped it as I didn't have that anymore. Family Matters was written a year after and was initially a guitar jingle I'd play for my daughter, then evolved into a song about family, the challenges and the spirit which keeps us going during all the ups and downs. It's optimistic again. 

What was your inspiration behind writing these songs, and what influences your sound?

Starting with an idea and then waking up hours later with a song is a thrill and I love the process of it, singing, writing lyrics and melodies, it's all fun and I'm addicted to fun.   

The music videos for 'Family Matters' and 'The Fear of Death' are stunning, how was it working with NIDA students and Forest Lim on these videos?

Forest is a bright mind and he heard the demos in 2018 and just wrote a script for The Death of Fear, then made a storyboard, then scoped locations. He had everything ready for me and proposed the shoot, making it so easy! It was shot over several days with a cast and team of young, enthusiastic legends that will have a future in the sport, I'm sure. 

Do you bring an idea to the table for the videos, or did Forest Lim bring you the idea for the videos?

Yeah we definitely worked together on the concepts and negotiated on details and themes etc. It was good having someone from that world guiding me, otherwise I would need a $1 million budget to film what's in my head. 

I hear you're working towards releasing an album, what can you tell us about the album?

It's taken me 7 years. Since the break up of my band (Slumberhaze), I took years off from music, just writing in the background, never playing live and just stockpiling music for a rainy day. Then I realized it's been raining the entire time and I've just been procrastinating, so I will release it this year. Some 10 odd tracks, 5 music videos. There are songs in there written in 2016 and some written last month. As they say, it's the debut album that takes your entire life to release.

Your music has a playful indie sound, how would you best describe it to someone that has never listened to your music before?

Man, I can never explain it! It's just music that tries to be catchy and emotive and nostalgic, not sure what genre it is. Maybe you're right, Indie. I call it Nostalgic Pop, but not sure if that means anything. 

Where can we find out more about you?

Just online, all the streaming platforms and YouTube, plus have an IG @telladreamworld and Facebook with the same handle. Probably have to start a TikTok and cringe dance to a loop of my music to get it out there soon. 

INTERVIEW FEATURE: JULIA STONE - YES, THAT JULIA STONE…

In what may be one of our biggest interviews to date - Tori spoke to Julia Stone on her upcoming album ‘Sixty Summers’ and it’s a ripper-

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In my early teens I had begun the exploration into my own music taste. Dad introduced me to Sting, INXS, U2 and The Killers, while mum was more comfortable with the softer sound of Diana Krall and Nora Jones. One of the first songs that resonated, independent of anyone else’s influence was Mango Tree by Angus and Julia Stone. The sweet melody and lyrics were nothing like I had heard before, and so their music became a staple on my CD mixes and playlists.

It wasn’t long until everyone seemed to agree, as ‘Big Jet Plan’ let Angus and Julia Stone fly to the number one position in the 2010 Triple J Hottest 100. This cemented them as Aussie favourites for many years to come, even after parting ways to explore their own projects. Angus saw success with Dope Lemon while Julia released The Memory Machine (2010) and her second studio album, By The Horns in 2012.

In between releasing another outstanding collaboration with her brother, Angus in the form of their 2017 album Snow, Julia was working behind the scenes to develop her upcoming album, Sixty Summers. I had the privilege of meeting with Julia to talk about where Sixty Summers came from, her answer was bittersweet;

“this period of summer in my twenties when I would come back from London and spend summer in Australia…..this particular friend of mine, we’d spend those summers together and we go to parties and go the beach and it was just really a beautiful time and really memorable but, what I do remember about it was that it would just come so quickly all of a sudden it was summer again. I’d be back in Australia, and this whole year of touring and living in London had just gone by. On the third summer of this period of time we’re at a really fun party and were on the dance floor, we’re having this beautiful night, it was just one of those magical nights where it’s all flowing and you know, celebrating love and life and she turned to me in this moment of urgency and grabbed me by the shoulders and said can you believe we’ve only got 60 summers left. It struck me as not very long and I had this feeling of the urgency and immediacy of needing to leave the 60 summers in the best possible way….to actually make your 60 summers worthwhile and valuable”

The limited approaching summers, filled with friends and family was evident, but Julia wasn’t going to rush through things. Sixty Summers was constructed between 2015 and 2019, with one track dating back further,

“I am no one, I had that song for years and I always loved singing it, but I never had the right feel for it… it was nice, it was very folky, very fleet Fleetwood Mac, I guess in a way out of all of the tracks on the record it’s probably the one that is the most folk. A tip of the hat to that traditional singer songwriter acoustic guitar playing world that I’ve come from”.

Julia remains a folk artist at her core, she is pushing forward and breaking new ground with her talents, but she still has inspiration from her past;

“I grew up playing the trumpet from when I was five or so. I think my love of horn and wind instruments has always been there and I love it used in pop music. I think naturally as we were working, in writing that was something that I was gravitate to”.

The horns are strong in her title track, Sixty Summers and create contrast to her soft vocals. When recording vocals, the progression in music technology gave freedom to both the equipment and locations used to record the album;

“when we started making Snow, I realised that the recording vocals for me was getting a lot easier to do if I recorded myself. I felt like I had enough skills on Pro Tools and running a studio that I could do it myself, it wasn’t anything to do with engineers not being good enough, it was just that I knew what I wanted to get to. When I had control of the desk, I felt like it was a much easier process for everybody. During the recording of [Sixty Summers] I would take myself off with the microphone and my preamp and stuff and do a lot of writing and developing hooks. I try for lead vocals to do them through a really beautiful microphone in the nice studio Thomas [Producer, Thomas Bartlett aka Doveman] has got an amazing $20,000 microphone that sounds incredible but sometimes the vocals you do or the parts that you create at home, because of the relaxed nature of it I also think and sound really powerful. I’m a fan of whatever works, that sounds good - it is good”.

Her vocals and melodic flow lend themselves to remixes or covers in other genres. Previous songs like Big Jet Plane and Chateau have been mixed and born into new forms. Julia noted this was something loved and was keen on exploring in future;

“I really love remixes and I think where I’d like to go is to go even more dancey. I just loved getting sent dance tracks and padding right into it and so I’d like to make a whole record like that actually, use more stuff that I write as the foundation and then build them up with different DJs. I’m a huge fan of clubbing and I love dancing and so to go more down that road… who knows I mean, we’ll see, I would love that album”.

Me too.

“I’ll keep you posted it might be the next one!”

Julia, as with most musicians expressed her longing to return to tour life. She has been on the road most of her adult life, and clearly misses the connection with her fans. Like many of those in the arts and music industry, she expressed her disappointment at the government covid response;

“I think historically when it comes to government and politics, the arts are in general forgotten about and I’m not saying that’s across the board, there have been governments that have understood the intrinsic value of supporting the creative arts. I think all civilisations that thrive have a really well-supported out artistic industry. I think the fact that you know there’s been such disparity between things like sports and music and dance and all of that kind of being is it’s really disappointing. I definitely see the value in sports, I am a huge fan of sports and I think it really brings people together but in the same way that festivals, music and dance”.

Julia is working hard behind the scenes for her album tour to hit the road. COVID has made her cautious, waiting until they can be sure lockdowns or border closures won’t cause cancellations or the dreaded re-schedule.

While we are waiting to see Julia in person, you can enjoy her cover of The Partisan by Leonard Cohen that she recently recorded with Paul Kelly here. Julia was shocked to discover she and Paul share around the same monthly Spotify streams;

“oh wow I didn’t know that….he’s such an incredible musician and such a hard worker, that’s a huge compliment”.

Who are your most recent songs?
- All of the light, Kanye West
- The Partisan, Leonard Cohen

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A Q&A WITH VERSEARY

Our gal Ashlee had an e-chat with Verseary for a quick Q&A about her upcoming double single A Fools Gold.

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Firstly, I just want to say that it was great working with you on this project and congratulations on the release! What was some of the inspiration behind ‘A Fools Gold’? 

It's a single with an extra song. The new song is called Losing Game.

It's called “A Fool’s Gold” as a lot of people were moving from Melbourne to regional areas of Victoria to escape the Covid restrictions. 

Essentially, the grass is not being greener on the other side. It’s also another term for pyrite which is fake gold. Victoria has many gold rush towns. Where I grew up and stayed last year was one of them. 

During our recording sessions we had a few struggles. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? 

We recorded in a busy rehearsal space and each room I had hired ended up next to the larger rooms that were occupied by a couple of Melbourne metal groups. 

You do what you can on a budget, and It was wonderful that the place was booked out and everyone’s able to rehearse again.

It was quite the competition when it came to recording vocals, but we got there in the end.

 You did an amazing job mixing and mastering the songs and I was happy to work with an up-and-coming female engineer.   

I really like the differences between the two songs and the dynamic it creates on the double single, with one being more mellow, and the other being heavier. Can you tell me about the meanings behind ‘Losing Game’ and ‘Sad, Bad and Blue’?
There are 2 different stories and they were written at different times throughout the lock down.

Losing Game is about having to move from somewhere you called home back to where you grew up and not knowing what lays ahead, especially post Covid.

The second song, Sad, Bad and Blue is about miscommunication and how some choose not to change their ways especially when you cared and tried to be a friend. 

What are some of your favourite Aussie artists right now? 

I’ve been listening to Jess Locke’s new album “Don’t ask yourself why” it’s fantastic! 

What can fans expect to see next for Verseary?                                                               

Some live shows coming up and I’m looking to record and E.P or Album in a few months. 

A Fools Gold will be available on the 30th of April via Bandcamp.

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INTERVIEW: HOLLY HEBE SAY NOTHING HURTS, SHE PROMISES

Hi Holly! Would you be able to tell me a little bit about yourself? How’re things going now that life is sort of somewhat back to normal?
Things are going well! I live in a little town in Mornington Peninsula, it’s super cute and small and cosy and I love it. I’ve just got my little studio set up in my room, I spend a lot of time they’re just kind of writing and producing and I’ve got a little outdoor piano that I sit at and play a lot at as well. I think it's so nice to be able to sit outside and play music, it’s a lot more inspiring sometimes, than sitting inside. I started uni last year doing interactive composition at VCA, so that's been really fun. It’s like a really different side of music that I haven’t really experienced before. A lot of art music and kind of more abstract, I guess. That sort of side to music has been really cool. So it’s been fun to have kind of producing at home and doing the songwriting thing and then having that side as well going at the same time. I think they’ve been able to sort of complement each other really well which has been fun. I had a great summer break just gigging and jamming out with heaps of friends and things like that, meeting lots of musos and that was just like the best thing ever. I think that’s the biggest thing I’ve gotten out of being more of a solo artist and gigging a lot more so far this year, is just the people I’ve been able to meet. It’s just been awesome.

Your new single is called ‘nothing hurts I promise’ and it’s incredibly beautiful,
I must say I’m very much a fan. Can you give me some more background on that? What was the inspiration behind writing it, how did that go?
I feel like one day I was just sitting at my piano and I was just improvising as I mostly do when I sit at my piano, just kind of playing whatever comes out. And kind of stumbled across this piano riff I guess that I really liked, I kind of fiddled around with that a lot. After meeting so many amazing people over the past couple of months, and I don’t know, certain people I guess just like come/go in your life and they impact you. I just had this feeling that people were impacting me a lot more than what I was impacting them. I was just meeting all these amazing people and I was so inspired by them, and I was like “oh my goodness, I’d just love to be able to give that back to someone.” I guess I wrote this song about things that you don’t say and just really wanting to tell people how you feel and how that’s kind of impacted you or made your life better, but just being too scared. I think in the long run it’s kind of those unsaid words that end up hurting you a bit more. So that’s sort of what the song is about, the song is pretty special to my heart I guess like it means a lot to me. I’ve really enjoyed the process of kind of building this song up from the roots and just having it as sort of a piano riff at the start, and then experiencing all these new connections over the past couple months and then just being so inspired by all of that, then kind of building the song from there.

You had a single launch recently! How did you find the song was received with the audience and how did you feel playing that live for the first time? How was that experience for you?
It was so fun, I think it was kind of what I’ve been working towards for so long and what me and my band have been putting a lot of hard work into. I think to be able to just finally play it at an event that was made for that song, I think that was really special. I told a little bit of the story about the song beforehand and things like that and it was just so nice to see people kind of moving a little bit to it and just seeing people’s faces in the crowd, which is really cool. I think just singing it live made it a lot more real. I guess it’s sort of all the times that I’ve been singing it to myself at home or my first voice memo recordings of the song when I was first writing it and then finally playing live, it’s just the best feeling. It's kind of like “oh, this is what I’ve been working towards .” So yeah it was really cool.

That’s incredible! So you’ve received you’ve released a couple of singles lately… Is this a hint at an EP release, or what are your future plans (If you can tell us!)?
I really think that I’d love to put together an EP, I think at this stage I’m sort of just writing and producing and then being like, “oh yeah I probably should release things!” I guess when I first started releasing I didn't really know where it would go and if would continue releasing, because I feel like I do a lot of different things in my music world in terms of producing and then all my uni work. So it’s a lot of different projects that I’ve got going on. But I’m loving this solo act, and I think with the collection of songs that I’ve got going on I’d love to put together an EP and kind of tell a bit more of a story. So definitely stay tuned!

I’m super curious, what does your writing process look like when you are putting together a song? You mentioned that you use a piano.
It’s so awesome, I’ve got this super old piano, it’s over 100 years old and it's so beautiful. It’s sitting in my lounge room and I’ve basically written probably all of my songs at that piano. I feel like a lot of the times where the songs are little more personal or they’re a bit more poetic or lyrical or closer to me; they always start at that piano. Because I’m sitting down and I’m just in my feels or feeling super inspired. Then other times I’ll be sitting at my laptop just with my computer program open to producing and a riff will just pop into my head and I quickly record it down and then usually goes from there. I feel like if I think too much about the producing side, I overthink it and then I never get the song done. But sometimes I just like chuck in whatever happens and in a couple of hours I’ll be done and it’s so exciting, ‘cause those songs usually turn out to be the ones I like the most. I feel like the ones that I start at my piano are often the more personal ones and then I’ll record them. Then other times I’m just sitting on my laptop and I’ll be like “oh let’s just do something and see what happens” and that’s so much fun. I feel like there’s two different ways of writing and creating a really good ‘cause it kind of suits then different songs that end up coming out at the end which is really cool.

How did you know and when did you know that this was something you wanted to pursue in the music industry?
I don’t think I’ve ever thought of being anything else but a musician in my whole life. I remember when I was really young and I started playing the piano, I think I was four when I first sort of played and then started getting lessons when I was five. I have never ever thought of another career path. Which I think is probably a little bit naïve.

When I was younger I just always thought like “I just have to be a musician, like this the only option.” I think that’s actually been a bit of a blessing and a curse because I’ve sort of had tunnel vision. I just cannot see myself doing anything else and I think that’s actually really motivated me because it’s just what I absolutely love doing. I think that maybe took a bit of pressure off during school because like I felt like I really knew where I was wanting to go and so that was helpful in terms of picking my subjects and things like that I feel like. I enjoyed year 12 a lot more because I was doing subjects that I really loved that I knew that would help me to get to where I wanted to be later on in life.

Obviously still working towards it, I don’t know. It'’s just so cool that I get to have a passion, and I’m really grateful for that. I feel like the past year when I started releasing music, I was like “yeah this solo artist thing is really, really fun, and just being able to play in a band is awesome so I’d love to ride this wave a bit more.” I think originally always knew that I want to do something in music but didn’t know 100% what that would be. I feel like it’s always going to change, but this solo artist thing is really fun and I’m loving doing it at the moment.

And lastly, I just wanted to know who your top three Aussie artists/acts are right now?
I really like Aodhan, he’s from Sydney, he was in the Triple J Unearthed High in 2019. His music’s awesome, I really, really love his sound and his band’s vibe I guess. I really love Velvet Bloom, another Melbourne muso. She’s awesome and her music’s just so inspiring and the way she writes things I think is really, really cool.

And then, I mean you can’t go past Spacey Jane and stuff like that. I feel like they’ve
really revolutionised that Aussie band sound the past couple of years and that’s been
really awesome. Oh, there’s just too many I just love them all.

Listen to ‘Nothing Hurts I promise’ HERE

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INTERVIEW: THE SMITH STREET BAND ARE UNPLUGGED IN WOMBAT STATE FOREST

Photo credit Ian Laidlaw

The Smith Street Band have announced their return to live music in 2021, with a series of full band, stripped back, semi acoustic, seated shows in Victoria and New South Wales. Guest writer from Ambedo Magazine, Keely Millikin, had an e-chat with guitarist Lee Hartney to discuss all things tour, coffee beans, and what’s coming next!

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I wanted to start off with talking about your upcoming album, ‘Unplugged in the Wombat State Forest’ which is out on March 5th. What was the inspiration behind doing an ‘unplugged’ album per se?
During Melbourne's long lockdown we discussed the likelihood that if we were going to be allowed to play shows again they would most likely be seated... and none of us are keen on seated rock shows.

So we reimagined a set in a more acoustic stripped-back style that we think fits better for those shows and is something different and fun for us. Because this is so different and new for us we thought we should record and film it in the meantime and release it for this tour, especially for the people who can't make it to the shows or who we can't get to this time around.

I saw that you released coffee beans as a part of promotion for the new album, could you explain the motivation behind doing so? (I love the idea by the way, and had to pick up some up for myself.)
Thank you! I hope you liked it! Well, everyone's a coffee fiend in the band (except me! Ha ha), so just made sense! A few of the others knew Karon coffee as they are locals to the region where our studio is in Wombat State Forest and we wanted to support our local businesses.

You kick off the Unplugged tour in Bendigo, and all of the shows are seated, which is going to be a very different experience as a band. In what ways do you think that will change the dynamic of your shows, and how the audience reacts?
It will be a completely different experience to our normal loud, sweaty, rock shows.

We really hope people enjoy hearing the songs interpreted in a different way. It won't be for everyone, but we have enjoyed creating the set and hopefully that comes across.

What can we expect to see from your upcoming album release?
For the first time we're releasing a cassette tape & DVD. The CD comes with a DVD with a video of the whole album. Plus it's on black and coloured vinyl.

You recently announced some shows in Brisbane in May with the Brisbane Symphony Orchestra. Have you had the chance to rehearse with them yet and how has that changed your music?
We have just started discussions with them so far and organising a suitable setlist for the show. Once all the charts are written we shall be doing a few rehearsals I believe. It's all very unknown territory for us but super exciting! We are going to go in with open minds ready to do whatever we need to make it sound great!

How has the lockdown been for you all as a band? I saw you all spent a lot of time at your headquarters in the Wombat State Forest.
It's the most time we have spent apart from each other in 10 years! I think we have all enjoyed having a bit of self-imposed time off. It gave everyone a bit of time to work on other things and projects in their lives that usually get put on the backburner. And now it's just made everyone more excited to come back together and to get back to playing shows!

Unplugged in Wombat State Forest Out March 5th
on Pool House Records / Remote Control
Pre Order the album here

How has having your home base in the state forest affected your music and you all as a band?
It's great to have a place that we can all go to and just work on music with no other distractions. It allows us the freedom to record with no time constraints (which may not always be a good thing!) which hopefully means we can release better, more creative albums than we have in the past.

And lastly, what can we expect for the future of the Smith Street Band?
Hopefully lots of shows! We are gonna do as much as we are physically allowed to do. Hopefully we can record some new music as well real soon!

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Follow The Smith Street Band on the rest of their tour and for our fellow local Bendigonians, be sure to check out the interview as part of the upcoming Ambedo Magazine issue! This interview was done as part of the upcoming magazine release, written by Keely Millikin.

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INTERVIEW: PSYCHEDELIC PORN CRUMPETS TALK ’SHYGA! THE SUNLIGHT MOUND’

Kicking off her first interview for 2021, Tori caught up with Psychedelic Porn Crumpets frontman Jack McEwan to hear about their new album, SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound. Jack talked about the impact of COVID on the album, the highs and lows of touring and the battle of the aux cord.

PPC were finishing up a tour of the USA and South America, jumped straight into the Australian Summer Festivals and squeezing in a couple of months to write and record their next album when COVID-19 pulled out their plans.

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Was the whole album recorded during covid or pre covid?

It was a bit of both. I started working on it late last year when we got back from America, we got home about November and then we had a couple of months in between Falls Festival and Laneway before we were meant to go on tour with Ocean Alley, which was scheduled for I think last April, so the album had to be finished before that cos we were going to use that as a boost, then swing back into Europe. We had South America and stuff, but obviously that all got cancelled. I was actually so happy, like thank god I could become a human again and write and feel like a musician rather than some hungover Contiki traveller just being like, where am I. It was a chance to sort of reflect a bit and we wrote a lot of that material; I spent a lot of the time writing and didn’t finish the record until about the end of July. I gave myself an extra couple……actually four or five months of writing. It was definitely more of a covid album than the others, definitely a covid record.

It was a blessing in disguise then?

Oh yeah, it was a game-changer, It was the first time I ever felt like time had stopped. Do you know that show Bernard’s Watch? It was sick, it was good.

Speaking of shows, did you have any tv shows or movies that were inspiration?

I have always been a huge fan of Mighty Boosh and Monty python, that kinda like, strange, satirical world where everything is comedy central. A good time. Thinking laterally rather than give you a drama piece. Rick and Morty as well, I absolutely binged that when it came out as well. It felt refreshing, like something that had a twist on something that’s already solidified as an idea or a concept. Like Wes Anderson, he always kind of parodies his own movies. If you can get the joke, with Porn Crumpets, we are the most serious, non-serious band, just living in this mean world, so I was like, well let’s have fun with it and see where we can go rather than kind of take it seriously and be the butt of the joke, it’s like, of course we are. Let’s move on with it and have fun with it.

After listening to the album, I have to ask, Jack: What is a tripolasaur?

A tripolasaur? A friend was in a band called bipolar bear, so I thought rather than call it bipolar bear I’d call it tripolasaur, so it’s a man with three brains, or three personalities? Is bipolar multiple or two? I don’t know? If bipolar is two, then tripolar would be a three headed dinosaur. All the lyrics are about waking up feeling rough but you’re carrying on the same way of drinking each night and the audience kind of understands, and its easy to gather why he is feeling rough. Everyone keeps calling it trip-olasaur cos they’re like, this band is a ‘trip’ band, like trip-olasaur and you’re like try!

I also need to know, Is it Shy-ga? Or Shyg-a?

It’s Shy-ga. [Like tiger?] Shyga like tiger! There you go. I was listening to a lot of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. They had an exclamation mark in their name, and I was like, that’s fantastic, it already evoked an emotion before you even listened to it. I knew I sort of wanted an exclamation mark, and I was trying to think of an uplifting word that was like Eureka. I was throwing bits, Shyga, that sounds like something you would say if you get a hole in one! SHYGA! It was too interesting and ridiculous and stupid not to use it. I kept looking at it on my phone and thinking do I take the serious approach or the wonky way? But I’ve gotta do it, I gotta call it SHYGA!

I feel with a band name like yours you kind of need to say f*ck it and do it?

That’s it. I feel like we paved the way to be absurdist’s. But then if we ever tried to be serious, everyone would be like where’s the joke? We kind of ruined both angles now.

You have always been related back to Tame Impala or King Gizz, is that the same inspiration or have you been listening to anything different?

We spent a lot of time when we were touring, passing around the aux cord was a big privilege and everyone trying to outdo the other person with some strange thing they heard. After maybe a year of passing bands that we had all known, we started going back to 70s rock, like T-rex, David Bowie, all those sorts of zingers who are dad rock now. It feels quirky, but funny, but I love this. So, we all started being dads on tour, on the tour bus. That 70s style. Something about it still felt so fun and vibrant and interesting. We wanted to, or at least I did personally, write a 70s rock record that kind of reflected that but kind of put a twist on it into now. So as I was writing, there was meant to be an album called ‘The Greatest Hits of Sir Norton Gavin’ and that was originally going to be a fictional character in the 60s and 70s who was really big in Margaret River or down south and his music got lost but folklorist. I dunno, be funny trying to do that as more of a spinal tap thing. I scrapped the heavy stuff and the folky stuff, we had Pukebox, Mr Prism and Mundungus and I really liked that flavour. So instead of doing it as a ‘greatest hits’, what if we did a 70s record? You know, Google ‘deep dream’, like deep fake where AI is predicting things. What if we could do that, but predict a 70s rock record. So, all these glitched-out guitars would be in there and sound more sort of like, technological and emulate guitars and real drums and real band. That was the sort of idea of Shyga, that with tour diary inserts. What’s my life? With supercomputer picking up synths.

You have been off for a while; how do you feel about touring with Ocean Alley if it *fingers crossed* goes ahead this year?

Yeah - I love those guys. We first met them in Hamburg of all places at a festival and they did our light show, because we played a gig at like, 12 at night, I think. It was sort of like Big Sound, but the European version. They came and watched us and we didn’t have a strobe light so they kept turning the fader on and off, really quickly. It looked great, it was hilarious. We became good friends, then obviously did Laneway together. I feel like that was one of the best Laneways, for me. I just watched King Gizz for five days or whatever it was. It was amazing.

King Gizz and 1975 every day is not at all terrible!

They actually pulled out of one of them, they got sick. Might have been the Sydney one? One of them got sick, so Gizz were like, we’ve got to headline so they did a two-hour set which was OH MY GOD! It rained too so it added to this, I don’t know, it was such a wicked night.

What is the biggest thing you guys have missed from touring?

Nothing at all. I like being safe and comfortable at home. I don’t know. I think having a good yarn with people and catching up, finding the strangest people in the cities that usually seem to be attracted to a Psychedelic Porn Crumpets gig. I would love to do more sightseeing rather than being hungover in the day. I think, not drinking as much and be planning to do something, but then everyone has to be in agreeance so it’s hard. It’s weird. It’s like being on a strange holiday but it’s not. I would like to go to a festival again though. When we are playing early and get the rest of the day off, I miss that. That’s a great day.

A few big artists have come out of Tik Tok and social media in the last year, do you think you still need promoters, labels pushing things for you? Do you think that’s still important or needed in the music industry?

Well, it’s always changing, isn’t it? I think some people find it easier doing the old school bits and pieces and I think for the younger artist or whoever sort of growing up on tik tok, I mean I would have no idea who they are but if they can pack out a venue, they are going to get big eventually and make people pay attention. I think if you can do all of it, it would be amazing. Try and utilise every angle. I am still the worst on social media, I am so glad we have a manager who deals with it. I can’t do it. I feel like an old soul. I feel like I need a Guinness by the fire with a border collie and I’m happy for the rest of my life. I don’t want to keep up appearances.

One of the songs remind me of a song Hocus Pocus by Focus.

I have heard of that song! I love that Hocus Pocus Focus! That’s so ridiculous. I was going to put it on, have the rest of the interview just Hocus Pocus Focus on. That’s great.

Did you have any special equipment or things you used when recording?

Not so much physical hardware, but I got really heavily involved in sort of the software and like how to warp a guitar and just working out how Ableton and all those features I hadn’t used before. All the glitch guitars and basically every single part and vocal is manipulated, warped or pushed up like an octave or even sometimes two or down to give it this strange visual sort of sound. I got so hooked on it I made it the whole flavour of the record but in hindsight I probably went way too overboard with it.

What can people expect from you this year?

I am working on the follow-up. I kind of have it finished, but I want to take my time. Having a month off to see, is this what I want to release or am I just writing for the sake of writing. But at the moment I am enjoying, it’s sort of different elements which is different to what I did with SHYGA!. SHYGA! was one sound and try and write as much in that frame whereas I am sort of going opposite of that now, how many different styles can I put into one record. I think hopefully more enjoyable. I am stepping up production again.

SHYGA! The Sunlight Mount is now available on all good streaming services. Check it out!

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MUSIC VIDEO PREMIERE & REVIEW: ZACHARY LEO’S ‘IN MY HEAD’ TAKES US BACK TO THE 70’S IN THE BEST WAY

HELLO 70’S VIBES!!!!

The scene opens with a short intro as a beautiful, long haired 70’s style man with a durry hanging from his mouth enters the hallway to answer a phone. Is he being broken up with? Is he being cancelled on? We dunno, but the poor muffin is so sad about it. He sits down next to the receiver and puts out the ciggie, with a short silence as we look deep into his eyes.  He’s got one of those little hallway stands that my Nonna has, it’s so precious. 

I have to be honest- I KNOW I already reviewed the EP and all, but I feel like the song is different now I’m viewing a video? 

Mr Leo has one of those film filters that makes it seem like you're watching a dusty old movie, I thought my screen was dirty for like a split second before remembering that is Leo’s signature style. I wonder what it’s like being stuck in a different era? I love his whole vibe honestly. 

Back to the video and Leo wanders down the hall to the lounge and a stunning record player as the song starts, and this is where the fun begins… 

Who’s sitting behind the bar but the girl in Leo’s headspace…. No spoilers but you’re going to love it like I did. Pure gold... and I’m not talking about the hair.

This whole set is so quirky, do we know if this is where Leo actually lives? There are so many beautiful artistic shots, cutting between Leo strumming away and him lounging around the house, being haunted by the mystery girl. It's just so beautifully mastered and I can’t get over the general aesthetic. 

As it turns out, the whole thing was shot on Kodak Super 8 Film, which makes sense in relation to the actual dusty quality of the film. 

The video feels like it was built on the idea of the song- YES, I know that’s what music videos typically are but this one just is a perfect mesh of Leo’s musical and personal style- it’s subtle but also If you watch, listen to or follow Leo you know what he looks like and can definitely see these comparisons in this video. 

Covid has really hit us all hard in many different ways, but the fact that he was able to film and produce this whole music video during restrictions as well is a testament to his dedication to his music. 

This music video is a kicker. Go and watch it, you need it. It’s so good. Zachary, I adore your costume changes… All of them. 

Huge credit also goes to Brandon Carr, who assisted with Set Design, Directing at his very own house in Melbourne!

Don’t believe us? Watch for yourself as we bring you the exclusive premiere below!

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HOT DONNAS TAKE YOU AROUND THEIR FAVOURITE LOCAL NZ HANGS

HOT DONNAS TOP DUNEDIN EATS

Well we know a few things for certain… Since making their debut in 2017 with the Greek Yoghurt album, Hot Donnas have been releasing music and touring consistently throughout NZ and even out to Australia in the three years since. Their energy on stage is unmatched and with their new music ready to go, the band is champing at the bit for their return to touring. The Dunedin four-piece have been creating music primed to get bodies moving, heads banging and brains hooked on their infectious melodies and fired up rock attitude. Having just released their latest single ‘Two Brains’ the guys are gearing up to drop their EP ‘The Adventures of E-WAN’ on Friday the 13th of November. The last thing we know is that they love food. We mean all of the food. Plus a sneaky bev or 10. 

‘Two Brains’ is the sort of track that could exist in the same sonic landscape as early Arctic Monkeys as it could Queens of the Stone Age. A song about indecision, overthinking and figuring out which way is best to proceed, ‘Two Brains’ is three minutes, fifteen seconds of shredding guitars, thrashing percussion and strangely hypnotic vocals. The perfect dose of rock serotonin for any fan.

“I wrote the hook for ‘Two Brains’ in my head at the end of a big night of foolishness, when I found myself facing a decision of what to do next. The ultimate suggestion throughout the song being that whichever choice I make throughout my life, I will face the nagging pressure from both good and bad influences. And forever be lost bouncing between the consequences of my judgement.” 

Jacob King, Hot Donnas

We spoke to the guys who were able to give us the run down on a few local spots in Dunedin that were never a bad decision for all the good foods, check out the must do’s below.

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Mornington Tavern 

This pub is the local watering hole for the Hot Donnas and a very quick 5 minute stumble from their flat. The taphouse is the perfect place to start your weekend with large pizzas and cheap pints.

Eureka Cafe & Bar

This bar is for when the Hot Donnas lads are feeling fancy. Eureka supplies an ever changing range of the best New Zealand craft beer and cider. Their food is also some of the best you can buy in Dunedin. If it’s a business meeting, it’s a Eureka meeting. 

Cafe Tokyo

This Japanese takeaway is God's gift to the human race. Their crispy chicken rice balls are a thing of beauty. This team never disappoint and are a must-have whilst stopping into the city of Dunedin. Jacob has spent many hundreds of his hard earned dollars at this fine establishment, with not one regret.

North Dunedin Dominoes

You know what it is. It's cheap, it's nasty, but boy does it fill a gap on a sunday after you've spent your last penny in catacombs. hawaiian with a peri-peri swirl is one of the boys' go to choices. The wings here are a thing of beauty too.

Location classified

Last but certainly not least is our good mate and neighbours house. This is one of the greatest spots that Dunedin has to offer. Whether you're starting the party or kicking on at the crack of dawn, this is the place you want to be. DM the boys for the address!

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EP REVIEW: ZACHARY LEO’S ‘FEELS’ IS GIVING US THE FEELS

G’day, kids and kidlets! I know, been a while but here I am, and lawd do I have a stunner for you!

If anyone remembers, I reviewed a sexy little single called ‘Feels’; a beautiful blend of soul, r&b, and some pretty rock vibes all weaved into that mix. 

Well, wouldn’t you know who popped into our email inbox!

Without further ado; I give you….

Feels, an EP by Zachary Leo. 

1: Prelude

Ahh, what a start! This instrumental number is a little bit 70’s, little bit mysterious, and a whole lot of rock. It’s very… music for those good 70’s and 80’s movies- hear me out- Pretty in Pink? It's just so SMOOTH. It’s delicate, slow burning but oh so sensual. This whole intro really sets a high bar for the rest of the EP. It’s so magically weaved together, I can’t even see straight. Where are my glasses???

2: Insane

You know what? I believe there is a vinyl being released on the 20th of November. I am telling you now- I really fucking want one. The transition from Prelude to Insane is LITERALLY INSANE. It’s so smooth and just seamless. What a good start, Mr Leo!

This one is a bit more on the “Rock” side of Zachary’s somehow multifaceted genre. 

I did struggle to understand the lyrics a bit, but I think the focus was the instrumental aspect of this song. It was definitely interesting to hear the somehow unending vocal limit. I understand the angst in this song, this really conveys Leo’s struggle with anxiety and you can feel that? Once you know what the song is, you can hear it. 

All around, it was a really punchy start to the vocal aspect of this EP. Zachary is really mastering the production of his own work, and let me tell you it is hard to stop playing with something until you’re sure that it’s reached it’s peak. This is that peak. The vocals and instrumentals aren’t battling each other for dominance. Everything is working together to create a great sound. Rock is really versatile in that it can basically reach everyone with very little effort. It’s a genre for the people. 

3: In My Head

Hello, gorgeous! This is a really funky little track. I'm wiggling in my seat, it is so easy to move to! I think there is a music video attached to this song, being released early! 

This is way more gentle than ‘Insane’, it’s got remnants of ‘Feels’ so you know it’s a kicker really, it’s got that slow build to the bridge and it just feels like it’s directed at me? I mean, the listener. 

You get your classic Zachary Leo Serenade, with familiar guitar licks and punchy bass. Very good stuff, Zachary. I can dig it. 

4: Interlude

Ah, this feels like the part where you’re supposed to take a breath and relax a little. Every single song on this EP is able to stand on it’s own; and yet they all work together so wonderfully? How does this happen?? 

This interlude is a little bit of lullaby, it’s so soft and delicate, I think this is exactly what the EP needed- just a teeny tiny little breather. 

5: Feels

Now listen; I know I already reviewed this song, however when I heard it again in the order of the EP, I felt like I was hearing it for the first time. I feel like there is a whole other facet to this song that I wasn’t hearing before. It’s a whole new song when tied into this EP. It’s so brooding and I feel like I’m sitting on the couch on hot (Australian) summer night, and Zachary is explaining what he’s feeling towards me, the listener, the partner, the fling-or-something-more, and he's just pouring his heart out, the little muffin. Poor darling. I hear you. When I heard it as a single, I wasn’t sure how it would sound in the EP but now, it fits. Here is the missing puzzle piece. It’s a 6 piece jigsaw but it still needed this song.

6: Out Of Place

Did you think we were leaving the rock behind? You are sorely mistaken, my friend. 

This is such a garage band kind of rock song. It’s super vulnerable but also so wonderful in the sense that we are being pulled in by the delicious guitar and enigmatic drum kicks, and the lyrics just set us down for a great show. This is the garage band your brother and his friend started and you go because his drummer friend is hot but you stay because you love the music. 

This one definitely fits with the title, Zachary definitely puts across that he's feeling out of place in the scenario; I can’t quite pin whether or not he’s been rejected or if it’s coming, but there's a little bit of angst hidden between the rock/grunge guitar riffs, and is that a solo I hear? Yes. Come to mama. 

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Overall, this is a really solid start to Zachary Leo’s Album/EP discography. I believe the songs all worked together to create a beautiful story of love and the mental struggle with comes with that whole thing: rejection, hope, questioning of self worth,; it’s all there if you listen hard enough. 

There is definitely some cohesiveness to each song and the transitions are wonderful, and while I think that while interlude was needed in such a multifaceted EP, it feels slightly out of place in it’ lullaby like form. It was a breath of fresh air from the heavier, rock/funk tracks, but I felt like maybe it could have gone at the end instead of the middle of the track list. A calming, almost moment-of-clarity end to the EP would have rounded it off well. 

In any case, it’s wonderful to see such strong music coming out of Melbourne; it’s looking like the music industry will recover from the hefty times we have all been through as of late. 

Great work, Mr Leo. 

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INTERVIEW: REINS TALKS WHAT KEEPS HIM HERE

Since first listening to Chris Pearce’s solo project last year I have been waiting for more to be released. What Keeps Me Here is what Reins have blessed us with. I reviewed it recently and that just left me with more questions than answers, so I asked Chris if he was keen to have a chat about the EP

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So this is a little bit different to Saviour!

Yeah it is, big time. I’ve always done stuff like this, but I’ve always loved metal as well. It wasn’t a big change for me. If anything I was probably way less metal by the time I joined Saviour. Joining Saviour made me get back into metal again.

I’ve been following Reins for a while and I have a feeling that it was Nick Deveril that put me onto you.

He’s the most supportive dude.

Yeah we met through our common love for Saviour.

What Keeps Me Here is so good, I couldn’t believe that nobody had done a write up about it.

I didn’t really send it around. I probably should have. I had one review in the works but never followed up on it.

I had it on loop for about 3 or 4 hours when I wrote the review. There are so many messages in the songs

It’s an awesome review. Thanks for that.

The more I listened to it the more I got out of it. Then I realised that it loops from Losing Your Mind back around to Storm Clouds. Just like the pattern of depression can repeat itself. Did you know you had done that?

Nope not at all. I just wrote all the tracks and chucked them together on the EP the best I could kind of thing. Its even interesting hearing people see it as like this release around the one thing. When I was writing the songs they were all so separate. Every track was separate, and I pieced them together. I guess it’s worked out because they all flow well into each other.

I actually thought you were telling a story because when you listen to it from start to finish you start with that depressive state, you hit rock bottom and then you start to come good only to fall into that state again.

Some songs are obviously specifically dark and angry like Storm Clouds. I get weird sleep paralysis and start doing weird stuff in my sleep which my girlfriend has to put up with. So Losing My Mind is about that.

See I took a totally different meaning

I always try and write lyrics that are not super obvious, they are more that you can take it on however you want.

Which is what I did because that’s not how I interpreted it. I took it as when you are in that depressive state it paralyses you.

I write a lot of songs that are specific and others that aren’t. Temporary Fix is about when you have a problem with something, or you are unhappy, and you turn to alcohol or anything to try and numb the pain and forget about it. It doesn’t work, it always comes back in full force. It’s just that temporary fix.

I took Temporary Fix as being in that dark spot and self-medicating. 

It’s all along those lines

When I published the review I was like OMG I hope I got this right!!!

I really found it an interesting read. It was almost more in depth than what I’d kind of processed my own songs. I just write them I don’t really think about them.

Grey and Old to me was someone at that suicidal point of depression looking forward into the future at what they might miss if they were to take their life. I’ve got this whole story from this EP!

That’s cool. Way more in depth than I went. Grey and Old for me is just every lyric is a specific memory that I have, something that has happened. It’s all good memories, yeah it’s more just memories to take when I am old really.

I’m still over here following this story that I have got happening.

I like that though, that’s cool. I like that your getting that vibe from it. I think it’s very upbeat and happy music wise, but a lot of people reckon there is still a darker tinge to it which is surprising. Because I listen to heavier music and emo music I see that song as a super happy boppy song, but other people are like no its still not that boppy.

The first few weeks I played it I was bopping around, and I was singing but not actually listening to what I was singing. It wasn’t till I sat down to review it and I’d already written this big blurb about what a happy boppy EP it was, I had to scrub it and start again haha.

Some of the songs have that emo vibe, like Storm Clouds. It probably makes the rest seem like they are emo, and they are probably not. Brightness is a happy song, that’s about family. But also acknowledging that you should put more effort into seeing your loved ones.

And I took a different take on that one as well

Whatever you wrote was almost that kind of vibe but more in depth. I think it was more feeling bad that you’re not being present for your loved ones.

I think my favourite is What Keeps Me Here but choosing one is hard. And I took that as, going back into that cycle again, and there’s that one person that is holding you here.

I don’t really know what I meant with that song, but it makes sense at the same time. It’s like a sad love song but its not at the same time. It’s for the people that put up with you through the bad times. They’re what keep you around when you could obviously be anywhere else. They are the reasons that you are where you are.

I think I wrote that it’s not the physical space of home it’s the people that you surround yourself with.

For sure.

Do you have more songs piled up?

I’ve got so many honestly. It’s hard to get through them there is such a big pile of songs to finish. I’ve got another EP, hopefully I finish it this year and release it early next year. It’s a follow up to ‘What Keeps Me Here’, like a part two.

Do you do a lot of the writing for Saviour?
No not a lot. I think I did three songs on A Lunar Rose.  We all throw in our little 2 cents worth, but Bryant does most of it. He’ll send stuff over and get me to have a listen. I’m not as good a metal guitarist these days.

You do alright playing stripped back guitar. Like I said WKMH is an EP that you can throw on Sunday mornings and get that chill vibe.

Yeah it’s definitely that kind of vibe. Mellow, chilling kind of vibe. The next one is going to have a bit more of a full sound I think. I’m going to write it as if it’s a band rather than a solo act. I’ve got a band that can play my songs, I’ve got some mates that can jump on board.

You’ve got some older stuff up on Spotify as well that I love.

Yeah the older stuff still sounds like a full band. I’m going to stick with a similar sound to what I’ve done previously but I just want to make it more fine and crisp I think.

This one is definitely different to your older stuff.

Some of the songs on this EP I wrote back when I did that older stuff. It was just finally getting around to them.

Do you do the recording yourself?

Yeah I do all the recording here and then send it off to a guy who does all the mixing and mastering for me. He recorded the drums on the EP as well for my drummer who is really good.

Did you have a band at the EP launch?

Yeah they all played at the launch. They are pretty much band members, but they don’t have to deal with all the other stuff. It was a good night, even though there are restrictions it sold out.

That’s great that it sold out. So they just turn up and play?

Yeah pretty much.

I guess that means that you can probably tour eventually???

Hopefully. Obviously touring is a bit out the window at the moment. Lots of people are touring WA at the moment though. I actually didn’t even record any music during lockdown. I’ve just been gardening, cleaning out the shed. Stuff I normally neglect!

It’s been a productive time. For the normal everyday stuff that you neglect, but also for bands to regroup and write new stuff.

Yeah. The number of albums that are dropping now, that are quarantine albums, is actually crazy.

Anything else you want to tell us about the EP

Not that I can think of. You went pretty far into it (laughs) better than I did. I think I just write these songs and chick them out and don’t think too deeply as to what they are about.  Storm Clouds is such an emo song, I wrote that in one session. Wrote and recorded it before I even had a chance to think about what it was about! That happens frequently. I wasn’t even going to put it on the EP but once I wrote it I really liked it and I released it straight away. I got it out there as quickly as I could. That song did way better for me than anything else I have done so far. I was really surprised at how quickly it came together.

Sometimes they are the best ones!

For sure. Other songs like Grey and Old, I wrote the first half of it 4 years ago. I’d kind of forgotten about the track. My partner kept telling me it was a really good song and I needed to finish it. I was like yeah one day! Eventually I decided that I should try and finish it so the last half of the song I wrote 6 months ago. It’s kind of like a different track the bridge onwards but it works. I’m really happy with that song.

When you posted about which one was our favourite I couldn’t even really pick one because they are all good in their own way.

There doesn’t seem to be a clear favourite that I have seen. I thought Temporary Fix would be the least liked, but a few people have said that was their favourite. Heaps of people are liking the title track too. All my favourite songs I haven’t even released yet, that’s the funny thing.

That’s good then! Are they coming on the next EP?

Yeah. I have to get a move on I guess and get it finished. It always takes longer than you expect though.  

Hopefully it doesn’t take too long! What Keeps Me Here is one of my favourite EP releases this year and one you should definitely throw on Sunday morning while you’re having your morning coffee.

READ THE ‘WHAT KEEPS ME HERE’ REVIEW HERE

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RECORDING RITUALS WITH JACK DAVIES & THE BUSH CHOOKS

Jack Davies and the Bush Chooks gave us a run down on their usual ‘recording rituals and their creative process behind their funky folky tracks.

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Our ritual for recording generally involves lots of snacking and jamming and pacing around. We’ll try to get there at around 11am (We’re not morning people). We never really plan for lunch and usually end up getting a burrito, which in the confined space that is a recording studio can be a bit of a challenge. Dinner then usually gets left till whenever we stumble home. 

Some days, when we’re treating ourselves, we’d also do a coffee run in the morning, and a bottle-o run in the evening. Otherwise we’re stuck with instant coffee and whatever five dollar bottle of wine we can find hiding away in one of our backpacks. Also a kilo tub of hummus and turkish bread was a frequent sight, snacks in the afternoon functioned well as a sustainer of the good mood… Snacks aside, we started off early in the year by live tracking seven songs; mostly older songs but a few new ones too. 

After lock down we came back and recorded a whole bunch of new songs and dropped some of the older tunes, I guess it was our way of moving forward when things changed, and it felt like the right thing. We didn’t keep all the new ones either though. But I would be keen to come back to all those songs at some point in time, when we have more resources I guess. Maybe in an album.

 Anyway, back to recording… We never really had much of a warm up ritual, generally Elise would have a cuppa tea and play through the melodies a few times, George would have a beer and turn the amp up real loud, Chet would hang in the car park and I’d go find somewhere to yell. Sounds chaotic but actually it was really calm, usually it’s just one person recording at a time so the rest of the crew get to hang out and keep the good energy going.

CHECK OUT LATEST RELEASE ‘HALF FROZEN BEER’

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INTERVIEW SERIES: TEENAGE DADS & X PROMOTIONS

Teenage Dad’s released a new single a few weeks back ‘Thank You For The Honey, Honey’ and are playing their first live show for a while via a live stream on Thursday night along with 3 other acts from the Frankston/Mornington Peninsula area brought to you by X Promotions and The Frankston Art Centre.

I caught up with Vincent and Connor this morning to talk about the single, the live stream and I may have caught a few funny stories from the boys!!

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Tell me about Teenage Dads and how you got your name?

Vincent: We’ve been playing gigs since 2017 but we started in 2016 just playing at everybody’s 18th birthday parties. Early on in the band we had a second guitarist, and he suggested the name. It was turned down from another band he was in. We all thought it was funny at the time, so we just held onto it since we didn't really know what we were doing haha. It’s been a good ride so far.

How did you guys get involved with Ryan and Andrew from X Promotions?

Connor: That was through 2016, towards the start of 2017. Andrew had put on a couple of gigs at The Rockstar Bar in Frankston on Sunday afternoons just for young bands, all age events. Some of my friends at the time played in a band and had done a couple of gigs with Andrew. They put in a good word for us and I think that’s how the relationship started with him. We did one of the Sunday afternoons there and have been in contact with Andrew ever since.

Vincent: Yeah he has always thrown opportunities at us the whole way, whether or not we have been able to do them. He’s never forgetting about the local bands that are coming from the area which is really cool. When they came up with this idea I think he said us and the rest of the line up were the first artists him and Ryan thought of and reached out to. Obviously everyone is really keen.

Yeah they said everyone jumped on board really quickly! And they have discovered a really cool AA venue with the Frankston Arts Centre. It sounds like a really great space, having the three to four different areas to play.

Vincent: I’ve only been in the main theatre section which I never thought they would end up using for something like this. The other space we are using Cube 37 we have played in before during a Battle of the Bands. So again there’s the all ages aspect. But I haven’t seen the other spaces. Have you Connor?

Connor: Yeah I did a couple of primary school productions there, but I can’t really recall what it is like inside because it has been over 10 years.

You have a new single out ‘Thankyou for the honey, Honey’

Vincent: Yes we do. We’ve had it for ages, but I think when we once we had recorded it we had a couple of other songs that were ready as well. I guess we kind of planned to release them in this order Pocket Money, Adrenaline Rush and then Thank you for the honey, Honey. We did the first two and that was awesome. Then getting ready to get Honey out around May and Corona happened. We just had to delay it all. I think in some ways it may have been for the better. We are really impressed with how it is doing so far. If we had of put it out earlier in the year we might not have had anything to do all throughout lockdown. I think we have done really well at staying active.

Connor: At the start of lockdown when we were scheduled to put it out we discussed staying on schedule, but it was so unclear. What if we threw this song out there and it just feel on the ground. I think waiting was good in the end. Getting to the point where we knew that it was safe to put a song out and people would hear it. I think at the start of lockdown at lot of stuff could have gotten lost.

There’s been some great stuff come out during Covid

Vincent: And what is still to come that has been written during lockdown.

I saw that guys you had played a few of the bigger festivals like NYE on the Hill and St Kilda Festival.

Connor: Yeah I think NYE on the Hill and St Kilda Festival are probably our two biggest ones. NYE on the Hill was really fun because we played the day before NYE and it was 40 degrees plus. We were so scared with all the bushfires starting to pop up around whether we were actually going to get to play. Our whole area was pretty sweet in regard to that. On stage the wind gusting in at 40 degrees…. They had sandbags on Vince’s cymbals, but they got blown right over half way through the set.  Shit was flying around everywhere! We were in the shade of the stage but everyone in the crowd was getting absolutely char grilled. We had to have lie down after that set, it was pretty rough.

Vincent: Not long after that the typical storm came through it got hectically windy. I think a tree fell on someone, but they were okay. I just remember hearing about that and thinking holy crap.

Connor: It was at Welcome to Country at the start of the day. So there was a big celebration going on and everyone was watching the dancing and you just heard this almighty snap, and this tree falls down. Luckily no one was hurt. Everyone rushed over and helped them out.

You also released an EP last year, how was that received?

Vincent: Yeah Red.

Connor: Yeah it was alright. We had just come off doing our debut album (Potpourri Lake) at the end of 2018. We wrote a bunch of songs that we were really pleased with, it was when our sound kind of changed a little bit. We got Jordan our singer on guitar as well as keyboards. A lot of the songs we were writing were really interesting and exciting for us because we hadn’t played with two guitarists since 2016 when we were a 5 piece. It was exciting to get some of those sounds back. That’s were our songs Message in the Sand, Pocket Money and Taylor came from. I think we pumped that EP out really fast and into the open, but it was still a fun process. I don’t know that it performed as well as we would have liked it to, but it still did well, and we got heaps of opportunities from it.

Do you record in a studio or do you do it in house?

Connor: Jordan did it at Uni for a bit, but he has been teaching himself to do it for a long time. We’ve had one song mastered by someone else and we kept telling Jordan he should have a go at mastering it as well so we could compare them, but he never did! It turned out good but not quite how it does when we do it. It wasn’t that one was better or worse it’s just that we like how Jordan does it better. So we are sticking with that for the time being.

Vincent: If you’re competent enough with the programs you can pretty easily figure it all out. We just enjoy the process too, all being there. It’s easy enough to make changes and not be worried about the ‘time is money’ thing. If you’re getting someone to mix it or something then you’re paying for every change. So it’s good inn those aspects for sure.

Tell me about the story behind the new single.

Connor: Most of the instrumentation I had done I think in 2018. It would have been the last year I was at Uni. I was pretty fed up with Uni and if you take all the lyrics out and just listen to the instruments it sounds heaps more angry than what it turned out in the end. Which is good. I think it’s a good thing that Jordan and I have got going at the moment. With his musicality and lyricism and the way I write songs as well I think we’ve got a pretty good combo going on at the moment. Also our bass player Angus has been stepping up and doing a bit of song writing too which is cool. SO now there is bit more dynamics going on in the song writing process. The lyrics, from what Jordan has explained, it’s about you kind of being left in the dark not knowing if someone just wants you for a short amount of time or if they are in it for the long haul. That’s what I understand from what Jordan has told me about it. Like I said the instrumental part has been around since 2018 but we didn’t do anything with it until 2019, we recorded it all and haven’t been able to use it since, until September when we could put it out. We’ve been playing it since before this time last year, so I think that kind of helped with the anticipation of it. We would announce that we were putting a song out and that it wouldn’t be this song and people would be like ‘Oh come on put out Thank you for the honey, Honey’ already. It was like na we want to put this one out.

Vincent: Pretty much after every show people would message us saying I can’t find that song where is it?

Connor: Or they would put it on Instagram stories asking what’s this song. Or do you guys have this song out? There has been good build up to it. I think being able to practise it for a year before it came out is pretty good too.

I did see someone had written something about it being leaked prior to release, I’m assuming that is what they meant. You guys already playing it live.

Connor: We had a mutual friend leak our song. Often we show our friends to see what they think of songs and get some feedback. It was pretty funny, one of Jordan’s friends put it in a team fortress 2 gaming montage. So he had it in a gaming clip, I don’t know how big his following is, but I assume he has a bit of a following, but people watching started asking what’s this song. There was just silence, he was like I’m not allowed to say what the song is because it’s not supposed to be out yet. It had a couple of changes before release and you’d have to dig pretty deep into YouTube to find it.

I guess you are pretty keen to get on the stage on Thursday night and play

Connor: Yeah it’s going to be good. We are mixing up our set a little bit and trying something that we have wanted to try for a long time. We are going to tandem our songs into one another because there is only a very short set so there are going to be no breaks or end of song, just play them straight through. We are excited to try it out because we haven’t done it before, we also haven’t practised it together either so we could scrap that last minute!

Vincent: We could get into rehearsal and realise we need more time to do it! But we’ll see. Hopefully it works.

Connor: We have some time to rehearse prior to the gig. After taking a bit of break, the first time we play it’s like crap we’ve lost the mojo between us but then the next time it’s like it’s just there again. We are all back in sync with each other. Hopefully that happens on Thursday!

It’s a very talented line-up and I’m looking forward to watching you all.

Vincent: We are super keen. Specially to see Boler Mani.

Connor: I was doing a phone interview the other day and I was saying Boler had his first ever gig in 2018 and my friend group knows him from his sister being in our social group. Everyone was like get down for his first gig and I missed it by like 5 minutes.  So I’m excited to actually see him play.

He has so much content on You Tube.

Connor: Yeah he has heaps of stuff.

And Velvet Bloom are just amazing. Maddy’s voice is something else.

Connor: We have been fans of Velvet Bloom for a long time. They have played a bunch of shows with us.

Had Ryan not sent me the PR pack weeks ago I would be none the wiser about these bands. I’d heard of you guys before but not the other acts.

I also got a little touring story from the guys when they set themselves the task to free camp the entire tour!

We Big 4 a lot when we tour or free camp. On our tour at the start of the year we had a goal to try and not pay for any accommodation for the whole tour. We did really well but there was one night where we couldn’t stay where we were going to, and we had to get an Air BnB at the last minute. But the rest of it we tried to do it without having to book and pay for somewhere. Obviously when people let us stay we buy them beers or dinner or merch. I think it was funny. I think our biggest show in Adelaide we supported Lime Cordiale at HQ, that’s a huge venue and when its full it looks awesome. Some of the other guys rocked up early and we were like where are the rest of the guys? They were like there at the hotel studying for exams.  We were like that is so different from our set up!! We are at the West Beach Big 4.

That’s actually a really good caravan park!!

Vincent: Yeah it is I love it there.

Connor: Actually we were at Wills that time! I remember thinking man I wish we could pay for a hotel (laughs) I reckon out favourite packing the car story is one of the first times we had to fly from city to city. We flew from Melbourne to Sydney to play our own show and then the next morning at 5am to play the HQ show. In Sydney we got a hire car. Vinnie and I were talking about it for ages. Like should we get a sedan or a small hatch. We went with small hatch thinking it would have more space. We rock up to the depot and we have all of our shit and we look at this car. It’s like stuff under the arm, hold cases, bags and stuff and we just looked at it and thought there is no fucking way that this is going to fit in there. Basically it just fit. It was the most ridiculous set up ever. The front seat was pushed right to the front. We had one of the back seats down and Angus and I were just about sitting on each other’s laps!! It was a good time, but I think we will go for a Rav 4 or something next time! We just wanted to cheap out but sometimes its not a good idea.

You get good stories from that and make hilarious memoires.

Connor: I just remember Jordan losing it!! “Who’s fucking idea was this??” That was before we had even attempted to get anything in the car. Just doubt straight from the start, like this is not going to work.

I can relate to that. When I picked up the Diamond Construct boys from the airport we got to my car, which is a Commodore, and just looked at the car and all the gear!! We looked at each other and then at the car and we all had that “how the hell are we going to do this” look on our faces. It was like Tetris packing, but we got it all in.

Last words…

Vincent: Stay tuned because we have more stuff in the works as soon as we are able to record.

Grab a ticket to the live stream on Thursday night here: https://bit.ly/2FV8QOz

Teenage Dads are another band to keep on your radar. Go follow their socials to keep in the loop.

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INTERVIEW SERIES: SUBCULT & X PROMOTIONS

subcult are a young energetic alt/rock band from Melbourne who I think are about to take on the world. Having released their first single Suffocating back in August the band are releasing their second single Medicated on Thursday. You will also be able to watch the band play it live Thursday night at AND WE ARE LIVE  https://bit.ly/2FV8QOz

I caught up with Declan to talk all things subcult.

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Who are subcult?

Well we had our first rehearsal as a band almost two years ago. We’ve all been in a band with Ben before, that’s how we all really know each other. Ben met Lex through school, Adam through a Facebook page and me through a holiday program. We tried playing covers, I think we did an MGMT Kids/Untouched by the Veronicas/Replay by Iyaz cover for our first thing, like all the songs in one! It wasn’t good but it was fun. Three or four months in we finally wrote the first song, that we still play and love. This time last year we decided we were going to record. We put together this big plan, we released Suffocating in August and we are about to release our next single Medicated on Thursday. We’ve been lucky enough to play gigs with Ruby Fields, Crywank and Bakers Eddy. It’s been fun.

When I first went and had a listen to Suffocating I got Terra/Yours Truly vibes straight away.

Fuck yeah. I love Yours Truly and Terra. Shout out to Cassie (Terra) for being the biggest legend. We tend to align ourselves more with the indie/alt rock scene than the pop punk scene, but we get that we are very pop punk, and we all love it.

Tell me about Suffocating.

We were sitting around outside. I brought a guitar out because I just thought why not as we had been trying to write something. I had Ben’s acoustic guitar thinking that it would give my something different, and it did, it gave me that riff. I was like I think I’ve got it. Ben got his other acoustic guitar out and came up with the chords. Lex came up with the vocals. We ended up singing it around the fire pit. The next week we got Adam in because he wasn’t there, and we put it all together. Instead of being the prettiest song we had it was probably the heaviest song we had at that point. Which it definitely didn’t start that way.

Suffocating is about being in a relationship or almost relationship where you are the person who is doing all of the work and it feels like the other person doesn’t really care. You’re constantly waiting on them and you just want them to show that they are actually in, you can’t tell.

I’m digging it. More people need to hear it that’s for sure.

Hopefully our new single will help with that. We’ve got set goals that we want from this song. We don’t have video clip at this stage for the single due to Covid. We have an idea for it but due to restrictions we haven’t been able to do it.

How did you guys get involved in AND WE ARE LIVE?

X Promotions asked if we wanted to be involved. Also I’m mates with the Teenage Dad guys and Boler’s manager. And Velvet Bloom are from here as well.

I spoke to Maddy a few days ago.

Maddy’s a legend.

I just want to watch her sing live!

She’s amazing, that entire band is. I work at Wrangler Studios

AH! That’s why your face looks familiar… photos from the Wrangler FB page!

Yeah Dean has put up enough photos of me. That’s how I know Maddy, from Wrangler.

You guys would be so excited to play live together

Omg don’t even get me started. We’re going to be so under practised though because obviously we haven’t been allowed to get together.  The gig starts at 7.30pm and we are allowed there from 12pm so that’s the time we are going to have to practise together. Last time we came out of lockdown we smashed out our songs without any problems. It will be fine.

Have you played many gigs as subcult?

Our first show was actually at the Frankston Art Centre on the same stage that we are going to be playing. Funny little loop back around it was a show with two other bands Richard and The Twins and Plastic Pash who is name is now Tabloid TV Darlings and they are amazing. They’re awesome, they are like a grunge band.

Who influences you musically?

Before we started writing faster songs we thought that we were Slowly, Slowlyesque. I still that we are. I know the others are really inspired by Neck Deep as well. For me Jeff Rosenstock 100%. We are also influenced by a bit of hip hop which you might not be able to tell.  Waxx, Press Club, Crywank, Ruby Fields and Bakers Eddy. There was one point when I was seeing the Bakers Eddy boys every couple of days, they are my mates, I was going to their shows and thinking ‘Fuck I want my band to be this energetic’. So now we are writing songs like that as well.  

How does your writing process normally go, obviously not around a fire pit!!

Usually Ben or I will come up with a riff, then depending on who is there at the time, if it’s all of us we will usually do all the instruments first. If we aren’t all there then it’s just whoever is, something will happen. Then we build it up from there. The one exception is a song that Lex wrote on her own and then we brought our stuff in. It’s a really pretty song, I’m excited for people to hear that one day.

What are your post Covid plans?

Well personally I really want to tour. I’ve already put together a little tour plan because that’s what I do, I’m an events guy I’m a booking guy! We are going to record as soon as we are out of lockdown, go back to Wrangler and put some tunes down. Release those, mostly as singles but also an EP. Then we will try and get into the studio again as soon as we can. We’ve already got some songs that we reckon are better than Suffocating and Medicated. We love them, but oohhhh wait until you see what we’ve got coming up!!!

Keep your eyes and ears on this young band because they are going places.

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INTERVIEW: PSYCHEDELIC PORN CRUMPETS TALK TALLY HO AND THE CREATIVE PROCESS, AND A LOT OF OTHER MUSICAL ARTISTS AND THEIR BEST BITS

Fair warning: it’s a long one. Dan chatted to Jack from Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, for an in-depth convo about the creative process, their latest release ‘Tally Ho’, visual art inspo, and a lot of other musical artists and their best (and worst) bits. We’re talking The Beatles, Oasis, Queen, Ariel Pink, King Gizz, the lot.

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Dan: Let’s talk about the single first. I read that Tally Ho is a song that springs from Pseudo-ground-breaking late-night conversations, ideas that seem great in the heat of the moment but aren’t quite that solid later. On that note, what's the most 'Tally-Ho' idea you've had on a night out?

Jack: Man we’re always coming up with them. We had one the other day wanted to create a football fantasy league for bands. Went into like the whole thing how it could be paired with Spotify streams and get Taylor swift up front, Kanye in defence or something. Then we were like, but people would be competing on music and we were like should we make music competitive? We passed on that one. We wanted a voting app idea, so every morning you wake up, rather than having parliament, which is like fifty people to do it, whatever goes through parliament that day you’d have to basically say yes or no to which bill you’d want to go through. You can’t start work without doing like five…I reckon that one would work.

D: To me the song sounds like a hybrid between the vulnerability of 'high visceral' and the classic rock and roll of 'whatchamacallit'. What influenced the song from a sonic perspective?

J: We listened to a lot of t rex on the road, a lot of Creedence as well. It started off kind of cheesy and then we just started getting hell into it. We put together all these playlists, after a while we listened to all of the albums of Yousef Gamal, Flying Lotus, and we couldn’t show each other any new music so we were like what old school bangers have we got? And then it just went full zeppelin, t rex, kinks. So that kind of chuggy beat, the triplets, we listened to that for a while, so as soon as we got home that was just drilled into my head about writing an old school rock record but adding some modern elements to it, getting kind of glitzy with it on Ableton, get those guitars sounding strange enough so it doesn’t kind of relate to those bluesy records.

D: What inspired the digitally abstract cover for Tally Ho?

J: This guy was called Sergeant Slaughter Melon. He’d done some stuff with Sam and Matt designs as well, they’re really cool. They look new age; it’s almost got this style that feels contemporary. You watch it on sports now, all the players will come on and do their pose and it’s almost mainstream? It’s hell weird. I was playing around in Ableton and sort of randomly ran the guitars through the DJ patches at the bottom. You can transpose it up a few octaves, but you leave it in beats rather than keep it in complex. I just ran with that and made an album of it. Rather than be like that sounds bad I thought let’s use that as sort of the main instruments, like the guitar tone. It sounds like spaceships a lot of the time, almost like a Mario kind of style. Had a real arcadey vibe to it, going back to old school games like Atari and stuff, the eight-bit kind of tone. Got really carried away with that probably more than I should of.

D: who are some visual artists that you enjoy?

J: I watched that Van Gogh documentary, Loving Vincent? That things so sick.  I really liked Scanner darkly and Richard Linklater when he did Waking life. But actual artists? oh man diving deep, jean Michael Basquiat has his old head crashing’s on art and stuff, but also like Alfonso Mucha, I think he’s French? He had all those old women on cigarette tins, has that cool style that flows really well…I follow those Instagram pages that are like abstract (@minute6) so many people on there that are doing weird stuff. It’s gone back to paintbrush strokes which I suppose is the same idea as what a guitar distortion is. Rather than having one paintbrush it’s like let’s add this to it or that, it’s like a pedal I suppose. Also the collage art, Winston hacking, I think he did Andy Shauf the magician and I think he did one for flying lotus as well. So that kind of vibe.

D: Did you record the entirety of the upcoming album in iso? If so, what effect did doing that have on the overall project?

Allows us to develop on it more. There was a point basically were we had to hand over all the finished stems and get the mixing and mastering done by either April or May. And the album at that time, I don’t think one song that is on that record now was on it…. We had all this heavy music. I was listening to loads of Korn and slipknot, and there was so much Nine-inch nails. There were all these heavy guitars and fucked up sounds. But then there was also like Mr prism, so I had to go back and sort of find what the album was about and run with it that way. It’s almost worked out now that I’ve got a couple of different projects on the go. Rather than working on it for one record, it’s like I put it onto this bank, rather than make the one album sound so all over the shop, it needs that flow, it needs that sort of theme.

D: As artists it’s what we leave out as much as what we put in. Hardest lesson I‘ve ever had to learn.

J: Still trying to learn that. You’ll hear all these guitars fighting for places and I’m like why did I leave them in?

D: What's the best place you've played, and if you’re feeling it, the worst?

J: Oh man…All the ones we had in Melbourne were really cool. The early shows seemed to be really good, when we were just sort of coming up and getting our name out there. Over in England we did one at electric ballroom, 1200 people which was so sick…Japan was so sick. We got told they don’t clap or cheer or anything and then as soon as we went there the fans were like, mate, it looked like an apocalypse zombie movie. They were crowd surfing, just a wall of people, and no one would of heard of us there and it was like eight thousand people in this huge stadium.  The worst? We played a gig in phoenix were we were all sick and it had taken us 20 hours of driving to sort of make it to the middle of America and we rocked up to this pub and we were so dead. All of us were on antibiotics and we got there about six hours too early for load in, so we were like fuck it let’s have one beer which turned into the messiest we’ve ever been. All of us on antibiotics. All of us so drunk. I couldn’t even remember a word or how to play my guitar and it turned into one of those Jim Morrison sort-of moments. It was bad and I felt really bad for the 30 people in the room. Frankie and the witch fingers probably played the best set of their tour and then we went on after them so it was just like, oh god…yeah I still have cringe moments about it aye.

D: It’s always either when someone’s sick or when you’re playing to like three grandmas in the back isn’t it…do you find that playing a show is just as exciting as when you started or has that feeling changed?

J: Definitely...we just played a run of shows here. Did Badlands bar. It’s a 400-cap room and I think the last time we played there was like three years ago. It almost felt like being a band again (this has been the longest time we’ve ever had without touring or playing). When we came to it we were so keen. The nerves came back…even though we sold it out we were still nervous no one would show up and it was just some elaborate prank that our parents were pulling, that it’d get to there we get to the point where they really think they’ve made it and they’d be like ‘surprise, you’re actually shit’.

D: You guys just keep getting bigger and bigger. Is there a pressure to put out a certain kind of sound?

J: I thought that for ages. There was sort of a moment when I was writing whatchamacallit where I was like do you chase what people wanted and I was like nup. I record the music and then we learn it as a band so sometimes there’s a strange sort of mix over part when we’re like shit this doesn’t sound as good when we play it. Cause recording you can go so many different ways of being like just basically drums fill the room but when you’re jamming they don’t at all…now I just really want to focus on the heavy music side again rather than writing slower stuff and getting into that kind of mode. Even though I do like writing those kinds of pieces I still don’t feel I’ve cracked really good psych rock yet. Rather than being like I’ll change now I might give it five years to find that perfect riff and then we can go off. I feel like we’ve got more to explore in that genre before we move on.

D: What made you become a musician in the first place?

J: I always remember playing guitar. There’s not really a memory I have without playing music. Even at year five at school in England we had a band, and I was playing bass. My parents would go to the pub and then their friends would have kids my age that I would go to school with…and we were pretty good for like nine years old. Did a song called Peterphilia. It was a riff man, it was a big riff, at the best of our abilities on one string. But it was about this paedophile that was chasing kids and we had this thing where we were like “you gotta ruuuun” and it was so hectic. I’ve listened to it sometimes and I’m like what the fuck was going through our ten-year-old brains.

D: Have you ever thought about doing a cover of that song?

J: oh man...it’s a definitely a positive song?

D: What would you do if you weren’t a musician?

J: I did graphic design at uni, so something art based, I think. But even then, I was working on a building site as well, so doing all sorts. Bit of carpentry. My brothers a sparky, we were just basically doing the groundworks for a lot of stuff. I managed to make a surveying degree from my graphic design course to get myself a surveying job. Then I was like from there...I dunno, I was working at a bar. I think something with beer would be good, maybe starting a brewery.

D: A lot of celebrities do that. Matthew McConaughey has a bourbon.

J: He’s always on the whiskey, isn’t he? I have no idea. I would always do music though. It was a hobby; it’s always been my sort of escapism. Now it’s almost ironic that that escape is almost becoming a job, well it is a job I suppose, but I don’t think about it that way cause it’ll just lose its fun.

D: Was there a point specifically where you said okay, now, I can sort of not work bar or carpentry, and when was that?

J: It kind of coincided with me getting fired from indie bar

D: Generally does…

J: It was kind of serendipitous. Yeah, I basically got kicked out of an open mic night for trying to trying to sing Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody and they just turned the mic off and I was like fuck no! I was so sloshed. You know when you wake up in the morning just like fingers in eye sockets…I had that and I was like well I’m not going to look for another job I’m going to really try and do music now. I just gave myself the time to sort of write. Doing that I was like sweet this is what I’m going to try to attempt to do at least.

D: Would you recommend that to other aspiring musicians? Maybe not with Queen?

J: I was pretty poor for a long time. Yeah if you really wanna do it though then you’ve gotta give yourself a chance. That’s what someone said it’s like there’s no point taking a safe option and failing at that so you might as well take the hard option and fail at that and then go back to whatever.

D: A lot of people are focused on a sense of security but even now with Coronavirus and how it’s affected the workforce that security is less than it ever was before. If there ever was a time to be creative, it’s now.

J: The bar I worked at everyone was at uni there was like lawyers and whatever and we were like we’re all working at a bar, what’s going on with the world?

D: Do you think that as a musician you have a certain responsibility on how you influence your audience?

J: I dunno I think on one hand if you think about what you’re saying or what you’re doing or what you’re writing it’s almost not worth saying? If you’re thinking about it too much. It’s way better I think just being like here’s the song and then think about it, that sort of train of consciousness or stream of attacking a song will sort of lose its grasp and you’re always thinking in the back of your head about how people will perceive it before you’ve finished it. Muse is a great example. What a solid band doing music for the first two or three albums, but they’re kind of going back through their catalogue going like ‘that works’ and re using this and this and this…It’s cheap, it’s not honest. Me and Sam (the guy at tone city) we were talking about honesty in music and it’s something like maybe if you’re like ten you can’t hear it but as soon as you start getting older and you listen to a lot of music you can really hear how honesty kind of comes through. As soon as we had that it all made sense it was one of those opening moments where I was like that’s it that’s exactly what I need to do, just write honest music.

D: I was writing my own stuff and thinking well I need to shred this way or rap that way or do a certain thing, but what sort of came down to what a good song really was, at the end of the day, was honesty. If someone’s being sincere or being themselves even if they’re wacky, it works. Plenty of artists are weird and strange until they become commercial.

J: It’s like when everyone heard Conan Moccasins first record and it was honestly strange. There’s so many Conan Moccasin rip off bands where it’s like you’re doing it cause you heard Conan.

D: Same with Ariel Pink, some songs you never would have expected it to become commercial.

J: I don’t think anyone expected psych rock to become mainstream. We started making it six years ago when we were recording at home, and it was almost because it was the underground thing not many people were doing it, I think there was like Oh sees, tame impala, king gizzard was sort of getting into it but even before then it was like Wolfmother was the last rock band. It was a weird time where rock music had hit a strange stagnant wall. And it really was almost like Kevin parker that was like ‘and here’s this ep and here’s this record’ and it opened the door for really honest rock again, even though now what he might be making is the complete opposite to what he first did. And from that you’ve got the entire L.A psych scene with Wand, fuzz, Frankie and the witch fingers, levitation room, Vinyl Williams, Morgan Dealt. Even here king gizzard have their little group, but then was babe rainbow and orb, bits and pieces. I suppose Melbourne had a lot of bands coming up. Now (in Perth) it’s gone back to jazz and hip hop.

D: Sort of like we’re going back to the eighties now in 2020; everything goes in cycles.

J: It does go in cycles.

D: I guess if you’re thinking about the audience…I guess it’s about putting that aside and giving them something pure otherwise you might not release it. 

There’s so many tracks we’ve recorded where there’s like one tiny bar phrase of word of a four minute track and it’s so good until this one little shit part but you can’t change it because it’s almost like you enjoy that change. Music’s weird. if you keep it to you, like you’re saying, if you keep it sincere and honest then it’s gonna work. We sound like Hemmingway talking about it.

D: Good.

J: I saw him on what do you call it? Midnight in Paris.

D: Do you think those small intimate and vulnerable parts, that leaving them is essential despite you thinking okay it needs to sound perfect? That leaving them in is what gives you character, right?
J: Yeah for sure. I think that now it’s funny. If it wasn’t the fact the record has been pressed to vinyl and it’s sitting there waiting to go I’d just keep working on it man. There’s bits I just wanna do this and this and this, but I don’t know if that’s because I’m at a point where I wanna make it perfect and you just almost have to…I remember there was a time where we finished it and I was like that’s it. And I probably didn’t listen to it for a week or two. When I bought different pairs of headphones, I’d been switching around my headphones, so the left pan was in the right ear and I was like this oh god this is so different now! That’s why I was like maybe we should release these really bad headphones with all the vinyl so I could be like listen to it! It sounds good through these headphones!

D: Have you ever achieved perfection? Now I’m wondering have you ever sat down, given it a week or two and then said; ‘I wouldn’t change a thing?’

J: I don’t think that’s ever happened.

D:  That’s a very comforting thing for our readers to find out, I think.

J: The closest I got to that was when we had about three months to mix, we spent a month and a half working on Mr Prism to the point where I wanted to re-record all the drums again and Danny was like well you two are going mad, it’s fine, it’s absolutely fine. And now I can’t listen to it anymore. It was 99% there. I’d get home and listen to it and be like alright that’s the song that’s it and in the morning we’d be like no we’ve got to put cymbals in, oh god, we gotta change it all around. It almost got to the point where I didn’t wanna record guitar anymore…I think that’s with everyone. Sometimes I feel you get a happy medium. Ty Segall I always go back to. He’s brilliant. But do you think he realized he was aiming for lofi or do you think he happily wandered in there and that’s the way the song sounded good and that’s his first attempt at recording it?

D: Yeah well, it’s garage. There’s a whole different set of ‘rules’ that go into making that kind of music.

J: It’s almost better to find something that you’re good at doing. Some people are aiming for Rick Ruben-esque production on everything and you’re not going to get that. You might as well be like I want my record to sound like Ty Segall because you probably can do that in your bedroom cause he did it in his bedroom.

D: I realized recently with my band and our budget that we needed to look at bands like GIzz and the way they did 12 bar-bruise among other low budget recordings. That really helped us.

J: It would just be so cheap. I’d say he gets someone to mix it but then they’d probably just be like nah chuck it all back through like, the master’s an iPhone.

D: Garage sounding records are back in fashion.

J: I think it’s always been there. Lofi just got swept under the rug for ages. There’s always been like Fugazi or whatever. Even modest mouse’s first couple of records, all kind of diy stuff and it sounds great. Every band finds their sounds through that but then they go back through or get better. If you’re not learning or trying to progress, then it is going to be more difficult. It’s probably why bands first records are the best they just didn’t think about it and they were like ‘sweet that’s what I can do.’

D: Those bands as well probably think fuck, if they can’t listen to their fifth record they certainly can’t listen to their first.

J: I was listening to Deerhunter talking about how they can’t listen to micro castle. And I was like that’s one of the best albums ever, start to finish it’s amazing.

D: Just goes to show how different our perception is to our audiences’ perception.

J: Exactly. I don’t know what you can do. There’s nothing you can do

D: Release whatever? Do something I suppose…What's your view on the current state of music?

J: Man, it’s the best it’s ever been to be honest. Every festival we go to there’s always ten bands I wanna watch, usually not on the main stage. We went to desert daze when we played there in 2019 and every single band was a bucket list band, it was insane. Stereo lab, wand, flying lotus, black angels, temples…krrum played, so many bands that I’ve wanted to see forever playing on two stages and I was like, maybe it’s cause I grew up recently with that kind of style of music like tame Umo king gizz or whatever but this is like for me this is the best music’s ever been cause they’re taking on an older artist and making it contemporary.

D: It’s a resurgence.

J: Exactly. And even If I had the choice of watching king gizz or grateful dead or something I’d go watch king Gizz. Pink Floyd are obviously brilliant but because everyone’s sort of ripped of their sound over the years it’s almost like that twelve minute extended jam thing they do you’re almost just like come on boys…It’s not dated well. But there’s bands like Beatles and shit…that music doesn’t age, it’s so weird. There’s nothing else like it’s horrible. The Beatles are like what the Simpsons are to all other animators.  

D: Yeah except The Beatles didn’t suck towards the end.

J: Exactly they got better.

D: Who’s your favourite Beatle?

J: All of them combined apart from Ringo..

D: Do you ever watch someone on stage and find it affects your recording because you start to compare yourself to someone else?

J: I definitely find people inspiring. When I watched tool recently, I was like oh man…it just made me want to go back, drop d again and get back into all that sort of heavy music. Probably more so when I was younger like now, I have the opposite where I watch someone and I’m like oh god I hope I don’t look like that. Even though that’s probably a bad way to go about it but you kinda get cringed out sometimes. People doing something that you know doesn’t work. Even if they’re not whole heartedly into it, it’s gone kind of gimmicky when they’ve got a four year old bass player, do you know what I mean?

D: It can sort of bleed into your own work

J: Just a really misplaced band that are there for the wrong reasons. Not that there’s anything wrong with that if they’re getting together and playing live but they’re always like ‘we’re the best band in the world’.

D: Are you a fan of Oasis…

J: Dude…I  never used to be. I sort of went back into it. It came almost from nostalgia cause it wase everywhere in England. They are absolute dicks but I dunno I love them for it. I reckon Noel Gallagher would be a great night out.

D: I loved the Claymation in Mr Prism. What are some of your favourite animations, and can we expect to see more of this?

J: Yeah man we just got the trailer for the new one from Ollie, so that’s coming with tally ho. It’s like a movie. It’s literally like Wallace and Gromit ins pace. Wallace and Gromit meets star wars. It’s fucking nuts! Claymation is something you don’t see a lot of people doing, one it’s kind of time consuming but also I had a point ages ago where I kind of wanted music videos to be scrapped altogether, like unless they’ve got a sort of budget or whatever, telling a band, especially when they’re up and coming it’s like sweet, you’ve got this really great song then no money to put together a music video and then everyone judges you your shit music video. Why is a music video still a thing? It shouldn’t be. It should be once you have a thought or something and you want to release a music video-cause there’s no such thing as MTV anymore or V where you used to go and watch great videos…When we first started out I was like don’t need do a music video, and then obviously everyone’s like you have to. It’s a thing; you’re literally throwing five grand at something. But then as soon as we got a bit bigger and there was budget for it we could afford to be like sweet we have this idea to do this animation or something that then it became more interesting.  We can actually afford to do Claymation or pay like Mike who did the cornflake video and it’s just like fuck that’s actually movie worthy. It’s sick. Now we’re at that fun stage where we can create what we want whereas before it was budget oriented and a bit annoying. I’m not really a fan of bands in the music videos. When they’re like playing guitar and strumming.

D: Well I can already hear the song and I know what you look like…

J: Exactly. It’s almost like a chance to put a movie together or something.

D: Do you write the script or a bunch of ideas and give it to the Claymation guy?

J: We usually have a skype or a zoom and throw together ideas. The last one with prism me and Ollie we were back and forth about how it should go, It’s a lot easier when working with someone that creative to let them go to town on it. If he’s got an idea and he’s really excited we rarely say no. When someone is in that mode it’s gonna be a lot easier for them to work till eleven/twelve at night when they know it’s their idea rather than being like oh now I’ve gotta do whatever jack wants and all these changes…you’re gonna pretty quickly give up because you’re not enthusiastic anymore. It’s much better if you work with people to let them do what you know they do and you just stick to being like ‘sweet’ and when it comes back in the end say it’s shit! Nah…

D: Yeah if there’s too many cooks in the kitchen it can cause issues. What’s your fave animation? (besides Wallace and Gromit)

J: Tim burton was kind of cool…He had a style going. Now animations got to the point where it’s fucking nuts like Pixar or whatever the studios creating it. There are some really cool independent stuff on YouTube. I really don’t like the cartoony side of it. There was a Claymation one where it’s the Simpsons and they’re at home and they get hacked up by the bullies, have you seen it?

D: Can’t say I have…

J: that’s where we got the idea for prism. The Simpsons are like Claymation cows and I think like moonlight sonata is playing in the background and it’s hella dark. All the bullies are there in Halloween masks and machetes. They literally hack off homers hands and marge ends up with a rifle and just scalped...it’s so gnarly

D: Very happy tree friends.
J: Yeah all that cartoon gore. it was terrifying but funny as fuck. So we were like we gotta try do that with prism…but now It’s with almost like with dog the bounty hunter. But he’s old now and he’s got this beer belly hanging out, so that’s the new video.

D: What hobbies do you have outside of music?

I literally do everything. I love sport, like football, soccer. We were able to watch the local league here cause that was the first thing to come back up and they do beers and they got a stand. I was like why does no one go and watch the local teams anymore? It’s brilliant. The level of football is pretty good the beers are exactly like they are in the pub but they’re cheaper. You go and sit in at three o’clock and you can go out afterwards. Going to play golf tomorrow, enjoy playing a game of golf.

D: Yeah it’s back up. I’m trying to get a golf membership just to have something to do.

J: Golfs sick. It’s like the most annoying sport.  And then I kept thinking about it too much I’m going to get really good at golf and the only thing I could potentially do is get to the point where I’m like good enough to beat someone else? I can’t be professional anymore…I have this thing where if I can’t get to the stage at being the best at it then sometimes I don’t try, but I play it as a hobby?

D: Have you heard of John Daly?

J: Yeah. He is good. I mean it’s funny watching all the old 80s opens and they’re all drinking and smoking. But yeah I like all sorts of things, also movies, beers…

D: Finally, what’s something u can tell us about the next record that you haven't told anyone else?

J: The whole idea of it was it to the be the same time as a line of coke. It starts slow, gets to the point where it’s like aaaah! and then it comes down again just at the end. It was supposed to be Shyga the sunlight mound, but the album cover was just a giant mound you know like with jack black when he’s in tropic thunder? We had the other labels like you probably shouldn’t do that and we were like alright…. It’s a Coke and alcohol record where it’s just gonna be fast paced and kinda back down. I really like the intro track cause I haven’t wrote anything like that before and it’s fucked up. I don’t know if I should have put it at the start. It’s almost like a weird nursery rhyme with a really scary guitar tone

D: Well people who have never heard of you guys before are in for a treat

J: I love how they’re gonna put it on and it’s just gonna be this weird like…There’s a Russian simpsons with that song at the start, it’s like all these weird soviet sounds, it’s nuts. So if everyone can get past the intro track and onto Tally Ho then sweet, we’re away.

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INTERVIEW VELVET BLOOM & X PROMOTIONS

Mornington Peninsula songbird Maddy Herbert has one of the most amazing voices I have come across. Think along the lines of Norah Jones/ Amy Winehouse!! Playing original soul filled songs with her band Velvet Bloom and The Vito Collective Maddy is one of the artist’s involved in the live stream gig AND WE ARE LIVE (X Promotions) on 29th October

With a new single out ‘7hundred25’ and a video clip for the single coming out on 13th November I had a chat to Maddy about her music and her involvement in the live stream that X Promotions are putting on.

First off I absolutely love your voice!

Oh thank you so much. It’s been so hard not performing for such a long time, but we are so excited for this event it’s going to be really great.

The venue sounds amazing. The X Promotions guys were telling me about it the other day.

The venue is so huge. I’ve played there for school concerts and I did a theatre production when I was maybe 12. It’s a crazy venue, it’s so beautiful. A lot of people on the Mornington Peninsula wouldn’t know it exists. This show will be really good to show people, especially the young people, that there is a space down here.

How did you get involved in AND WE ARE LIVE?

I’ve been chatting with the guys from X Promotions for quite awhile now. Andrew DM’d me a while back and said he would love to organise something in the future, I don’t even think that this concept was thought of back then. When he put this line up together he really wanted us to be involved and obviously we jumped at the opportunity because we haven’t played shows in such a long time. We have had a few live streams which have been incredible. We did one at The Nightcap in May and one at a place called The Love Machine with Moor Music in June. That was the last time we performed. Andrew and the guys from X Promotion and The Frankston Arts Centre were just so eager to have some Peninsula talent onboard to do this event.

It’s been hard during lockdown for you guys.

Yeah but the silver lining is that I have been able to spend time writing so that has been really good.

So is Velvet Bloom a band or is it a solo project and you have musicians join you?

It’s a project, its just kind of like the concept. I perform solo, so I write the music. I then perform with different variations of Velvet Bloom in a live setting. So there is a full band which will be playing at the Frankston Art Centre, then there is a 4-piece, a 3-piece and a 2-piece version. I like doing it like this because we can be more diverse when we are playing at different places. Having so many different versions of the one act you can always see the songs in a different light which I really enjoy.

What is The Vito Collective?
So that is what I use to describe when I am playing with the full live band. The Vito Collective have been performing with me for a while. Two of them have been with me for about 4 years. The reason that I wanted to call them that is because it means ‘life giver’ and so I guess they give a lot of life to my music.

You’ve just released a new single ‘7hundred25’ recently which I love!

It was put out for 2 weeks as a part of a compilation album done by record label Cousin Will that came out on the 18th September. We then released it onto Spotify in early October.

Tell me about 7hundred25, the title intrigues me!

I guess I wanted to incorporate numbers into writing because I hadn’t really thought about it much. When I started writing this song it was when I was in the midst of a break up and I thought about how through our relationship, we had been together for this amount of time. I was trying to pinpoint different parts of our relationship and where I guess things stared to fall apart. It wasn’t meant to be a negative song or anything, it was a realisation song. Figuring out what I needed to do to move forward as well.

Do you have an EP in the works?

Yes we have an EP in the works. It’s just been really hard because we haven’t even been able to jam for like 3 months at least. As soon as we are allowed to be in the same room we will be recording.  We have all of the stuff ready for our EP, but it won’t be released until some point next year.

Do you guys self-record?

No. We usually outsource everything. We have recently started working with Quin Grunden from The Grogans and he’s really great. He will be our recording engineer, so we are really excited to work with him..

Andrew was saying that you have broken into the Melbourne scene

Yeah. I love performing. That’s just what I love to do. I guess our weekends, mine and the band, revolve around playing gigs. They aren’t always advertised, sometimes I just play solo stuff that’s not necessarily my own material. Prior to lockdown I was playing 3 gigs a week. It’s been an adjustment that’s for sure.  There are so many incredible venues and musicians in Melbourne. People just need to discover them. It was really hard for me at first breaking into the Melbourne scene and I don’t think I even started playing as many shows as I wanted to until maybe a year ago. We’ve been this version of our band for probably three years now. Even prior to me saying that we have only been where I wanted to be for a year we were playing shows with other bands in Melbourne quite frequently. But I’ve only really just started to find people that are more similar to our music. I think that on the Mornington Peninsula we have a very heavy surf rock kind of community. We fit into it to some extent but not really. I need to be playing with soul artists I think. As much as I appreciate all the opportunities we have gotten from people down here when we are playing at a surf rock gig its not going to be the same vibe.

We also have a music video coming out in about three weeks’ time for the single. A lot of the live footage in it was filmed about a year ago while on tour and it would have been when I had first written the song. So it is very nostalgic, and it also has a lot of scenery from the Mornington Peninsula. I’m really excited to put it out. 

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If you’re looking for something to do this Thursday night jump on and grab a ticket to AND WE ARE LIVE where you can see Velvet Bloom along with subcult, Boler Mani and Teenage Dads. 

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INTERVIEW SERIES: AND WE ARE LIVE!

We all know that Covid has well and truly messed with the music scene this year. X Promotions have taken matters into their own hands to promote some of the best local indie pop/rock, soul and hip-hop acts from the Frankston/Peninsula area. This 60 minute event will be live streamed into your lounge room from the Frankston Arts Centre via their Facebook and YouTube pages:
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YOUTUBE

Tickets are priced at whatever you can afford and 100% of ticket sales will go to the artists and guest hosts on the night. Support the artists via the ‘Donate Now’ button HERE

 Check out the Facebook event page HERE

Ryan McGeary and Andrew Gorman from X Promotions sat down and had a chat with me about what they are doing and why.

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Well to start with I guess you better tell me about X Productions and what you guys are about.

Ryan: It’s a pretty new venture into the live-streaming stuff. Andrew and I stumbled upon one another with an interest in putting on live shows. Back in the day it was me with my band. We were looking to get some shows. Andrew had an interest in fostering some live shows. We met while doing separate shows and then came together to do some. This is just our next step in the Covid friendly world.

There isn’t anything friendly about Covid!!

Andrew: Ultimately, as much as we love to see the crowds and bands having a great time, we can only do half of that at the moment. With this event, we saw the Frankston Art Centre putting on live-stream events for the traditional theatre type crowds. We though hey there is no reason why some of the younger music acts couldn’t get in on that as well. Thankfully the theatre have jumped on board and the council has backed it as well. There are a few more big announcements to make in the coming weeks, there are a lot of things going our way. Thankfully everyone is loving it.

That’s a really good thing to hear. Good for the bands and for the fans. So there are just the four bands on this bill

Ryan: Yes we are seeing some really talented bands. We are trying to keep it local, there are some really awesome acts down this way that we thought needed the spotlight shone on them a little bit more. Especially during this lockdown. So we have subcult. Velvet Bloom who are.. how would you describe them Andrew?

Andrew: They are a very grass roots soul act. It’s a really cool sound. It’s not a sound that you expect. Maddy the singer has the smoothest voice.

Ryan: Maddy has that voice that as soon as she starts to sing you just lean in a little more than what you were.

And then we have Teenage Dads who have an indie pop sound.  They are just an awesome bundle of joy on a stage. And then we have Boler Mani who is in the hip hop/rap game. Again he is high energy, really good stuff that is well produced. As soon as I saw him I was like cool. It’s tough when there is one person on stage, tough to get that energy across and he’s got it

Teenage Dads

Boler Mani

Andrew: He was also lined up 3 or 4 festivals this year, so this was going to be his break through year.  Teenage Dads have some festival experience. Velvet Bloom has been around on the peninsula for a while. She has broken into Melbourne in a big way, she has a big fan base. subcult have a new single out and are releasing their second single on the night of this show. They have all had stuff put on hold.

Subcult

Velvet Bloom

It’s a good time to be interacting with fans on social media and getting your music out there. Building that fan base so that when gigs return you already have a following.

Ryan: It’s a really good time to ‘gather your supplies’ is what I have been telling people. Strengthen your foundations and get all your processes in place so that when you do get released into the world it goes gangbusters. The really good thing about the acts that we have got at the moment is they were all on the verge of something really great this year. They still are, don’t get me wrong, but using subcult as an example they did shows with Ruby Fields and names like that and it was looking to be a huge year for them. This has delayed them a little bit, but it gives them an opportunity to get more songs under their belt.

Andrew: Support local doesn’t have to be just for your shops. Support your local bands. We aren’t going to see any international acts in Melbourne for at least the next 6-12 months. So we all need to get behind not only Aussie music but the local bands that are in your back yard. All the big bands started out small so let’s help these smaller bands get there quicker.

That’s why I started writing for myself. I want to help promote the smaller grassroot bands that we have in Australia. There is so much talent here. And I’ve been lucky and had so much support from the scene.

Andrew: It’s huge. When Ryan and I were sitting working out how to spread this as far as we can, you don’t discount anyone who has even 50 followers. Speak to whoever you can because it’s not only about getting to 5 big 10,000 follower groups, but also about getting to as many small pages and groups as well. The love comes back and forth amongst these people.

Tell me about And We Are LIVE

Ryan: We have four acts that we have mentioned, so Boler Mani, subcult, Velvet Bloom and Teenage Dads. It will be hosted by the awesome Ali Barter and Oscar Dawson (Holy, Holy) we were stoked when we got the call from them saying they wanted to be involved. It’s hosted at the Frankston Art Centre, for us it’s one of those venues in Frankston that everyone has an experience with. Whether its as a kid in your school play, or as an adult in a lot of theatre based things. They haven’t really dabbled in this scene as much so in our conversations with them they were really excited to be expanding their horizons to a new audience.

Once Covid blows over you have yourselves another venue.

Ryan: I’m going to be there as often as possible. There are some awesome spaces within that venue. There’s something like 3-4 performance spaces, each with their own little quirks. Fortunately we get to cover off a few of them in this live stream, so we are doing it in different ‘studio’ spaces which helps with the changeovers and all that. It also showcases what they have to offer as well.

Andrew: The main theatre is 800 seats, so it’s a huge theatre. The Cube theatrette is 200 seats.

Ryan: The Cube 37 is an amazing space. Its an art gallery mixed with a performance space. When it is set up for a live show it is such an awesome spot.

Andrew: It’s not your traditional pub venue. It’s a world class venue that these acts don’t have access too. This event is not for profit, we are doing this for love as well.

It would be a perfect place for AA shows!

Ryan: I was going to mention that. The world is hanging out for AA shows. If you ask people what their favourite show was there is a 90% chance that the answer is we had this all ages show at this hall. It was an awesome atmosphere. It’s almost like you take the alcohol away and everyone is more invested in the music. It’s something that I hope we can foster. 

We then moved on to genres!!

Andrew: Don’t read a book by its cover!! Ryan gets as dark as any.

Ryan: (laughs) This is my formal attire.

I listen to anything from Country to Black Metal!

Ryan: Good. That’s the way to be though. It’s a thing I have always found with people who are so genre bound with their tastes. When you’re not feeling angry and angsty or if you’re not feeling lovey dovey what are you listening too?? You have to embrace it all and each genre has their own advantage. And bringing it back to the event I think we capitalize on the moment by having four acts that arguably you wouldn’t see on a bill together unless it was a festival setting.

There’s been a lot of talk about bringing back the mixed bill line-ups.

 Ryan: I think the only prerequisite should be that they are good.

100% correct

Ryan: I used to be in bands that sort of did the heavier thing and now I’m dabbling in weird electronic stuff. I would love to be able to still play with those bands, I’d love for their to be a scene that ‘Is it good? Yes. Cool let’s do something together’

Andrew: You have to look at the broad brush. If you have a fine artistic brush and you are just appealing to that one corner you might get your 50-100 people along. Where if you have that bill where you can get the boyfriend bringing the girlfriend and her mate because they all love something different that is on the bill it makes for a great night. And you fill the room. And as Ryan said if it’s good you will.

The diversity was key in this line-up. Funnily enough all four acts were the first four acts that we approached. We thought that we could do it with three acts not expecting them all to jump on board. Being a live stream we didn’t want to have them playing 30-40 minute sets so they each have 15 minute sets so if you’re not loving this genre wait 10 minutes and the next act will be on.

After having a listen to these bands make sure you jump on and purchase a ticket because you are in for an hour of great music by some up and coming talented young Australian bands.

Leading up to event day (THURSDAY OCTOBER 29) we have a series of interview with the artists involved so watch out for those over the coming days!

Hit the links below and give them a follow on their Facebook pages and check out their YouTube channels:

XPROMOTIONS
FACEBOOK

VELVET BLOOM
FACEBOOK
'DM ME' ISO LIVE JAM

TEENAGE DADS
FACEBOOK
'JEANE-CLAUDE VAN JAMME' MUSIC VIDEO

SUBCULT
FACEBOOK
’POISON’ LIVE AT WRANGLER

BOLER MANI
FACEBOOK
'DOOZY’ MUSIC VIDEO

INTERVIEW: BLONDE TONGUES TALK SONIC INFLUENCES AND ART

Dan caught up with Cal Mateer of the Brisbane Dreampop band ‘Blonde Tongues’ to talk about sonic influences, band life and the importance of cover art!

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How did you first get into music?

 Initially I think music came to me through Rage and my mum’s CD of the Cure’s “Greatest Hits.” That CD was especially important in developing a love of music. Songs like “Lullaby” had sounds I was immediately drawn to, and I don’t think have ever really left me.

Who are some of the artists (not exclusively musicians, creatives in general) that have influenced you?

Some artists that we were into while making the albums were obvious to some extent. My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins, Swirlies and stuff like that were always on high rotation, but we were also listening to Karen Dalton, Bob Dylan, Slint, Drive Like Jehu and Beat Happening as well. We were heavily focused on music at that point in time, but even poets like Frank O’Hara and Marina Tsvetaeva made their way into our thinking and definitely had an influence on the content of the songs (lyrically). Our song about Paula E. Sheppard (again lyrically) was 100% influenced by her films “Liquid Sky” and “Alice, Sweet Alice.” Definitely check them both out if you haven’t seen them.

What’s the best thing about being in a band? And on the flip side, what’s the hardest?

Best thing is feeling free to express yourself. That was what drew me towards writing songs in the first place. The hardest part might just be me being lazy – I hate loading in and out for gigs. But it might actually be trying to find a time that worked for everyone so that we could practice or record regularly, but life finds a way of getting in the way sometimes.

I can’t really interview you without mentioning your atmosphere drenched single ‘Hey Good Looking’. What was the inspiration behind that song?

Funnily enough we’d started writing the chords for the song and developing the vibe and I was in a Ralph Bakshi phase of my life. So I was watching films like “Fritz the Cat”, “Wizards” and another called “Hey Good Lookin’”. That was where the title came from and that kind of fed everything that you heard on the record now. I had been listening to a lot of the Smiths, Husker Du and Felt as well, so some of the lyrics were reminiscent of some of those bands. But I think the song was about a break-up… who’d have guessed? But it was also me airing out some broader concerns about the world and the existential view I had at the time about things.

How important is good cover art to you? Do you think there’s a correlation between presenting a strong aesthetic or is this something that’s overlooked now?

It’s an essential part of a record for me. There are great records with terrible covers, but the great ones always have something special. The cover of My Blood Valentine’s “Loveless” and Beat Happening’s self-titled are some of those great covers. I feel like all the sounds on those albums sound like how their covers look. I don’t know if it’s overlooked, but I think everyone has different priorities when it comes to covers and sometimes, they get pushed to the side and just get done as a necessity. Which is fine as well, good music doesn’t need a good cover. During the recording of the first record we were listening to Girls heaps and that was us trying to put our spin on those album covers. And the second is just a really special, personal photograph. It was taken in Barcelona or Florence and captured a lot about how I felt at the time making that album. Maybe as long as the image holds meaning for people who created the music is all that matters. But it is a really important part of the process for me.

 If you had to pick three things that make a song great, what would they be?

There’s got to be a vibe, something that feels like the band is having fun with what they’re doing. Lyrics are essential for me as well, perhaps the most important (in terms of my listening). Though even if they’re bad, a fantastic vocal melody can save even a terrible song from obscurity and make it a favourite.

Did you get a chance to play any shows outside of Brisbane? How would you compare those with gigging back home?

We actually never played outside of Brisbane. We played mostly in Fortitude Valley, sometimes in the city, and occasionally in West End. That wasn’t because we weren’t offered outside opportunities, we just never found or maybe never made the time to explore further options.

Do you think comfortability affects creative output? If so, positively, or negatively?

I think having a set-up available/close-by really helps, so if that’s comfort, I think it’s important. But, as far as a mind-set goes, I think the negative moments in your life (at least for me) really become important in creating, but that can only ever really happen once you’re in a more positive space and you can look back at things objectively and say what you want to say.

What have you been working on/getting up to Post-Blonde Tongues?

Everyone’s all over the place. Some still live up in Brisbane, others in Melbourne and even the UK. Everyone still makes music from time to time, but mostly just for personal listening and having fun. We’ll sit and drink and listen to music. Not much has changed in that regard, we just haven’t put any of it to use.

And finally, what are you excited for in 2021?

Being able to go to gigs again for sure. But also getting out and exploring more than I have. If COVID taught me anything it’s not to take things like walking around outside without a mask on for granted. I’m keen to find some new things, sounds, etc, that inspire me.

                            Thank you to Natalie Jackson for setting this interview up!

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HEAD OVER HEELS FOR ST EMERALD

Move over Bachelorette, MAF’s, and Farmer Wants A Wife, it’s time to turn off the tv and straight onto the radio - or any form of streaming service - to tune into Melbourne indie-pop band, St Emerald, with their new single, Head Over Heels featuring the incredibly talented fellow Melbourne singer songwriter, Jessie Singleton. 

Compared to their EP, Worried Hearts earlier in 2020, Head Over Heels moves away from a full band indie-rock sound and is a sweet love song with the duets to match, as Jessie’s vocals add that layer of tenderness. It’s an interesting direction St Emerald are taking, but one which showcases their adaptability, and further explores their gentle songwriting abilities. 

It’s a gorgeous release from the relatively newly formed group, with finger picking moments sure to strike a chord with fans of Plain White T’s Hey There Delilah. But the melody isn’t overpowering, the acoustic moments blend almost seamlessly with the backing vocals along the way. This track, just over two minutes in length, is an ode to that fairytale-love-stuff which is perfect for those moments spent daydreaming about a future lover. 

Single artwork by: @jamesmactaylor on Instagram

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