INTERVIEW SERIES: BOLER MANI & X PROMOTIONS

Melbourne’s boler mani’s Facebook page states, “a little boy with big sounds” and I have to agree. Boler is a part of X Promotions AND WE ARE LIVE which is will live streamed on Thursday 29th October.

Boler and I recently had a chat about what he is all about.

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You’re a solo artist, tell me a bit about yourself.
I produce all my own stuff. I rap and I do vocals, I also am practising singing currently, I am waiting until I am more confident before bringing that in.

You have a fair bit of content on your YouTube channel. How long have you been doing this for?
I kind of started dabbling in music production in year 3. I put my mind to trying to establish a career out of it around the start of 2018. Ever since I have just focused on constantly improving. I have an EP coming out around the start of next year that I am putting all my effort into. That’s going to be my big jump into the scene.

You’ve actually played some festivals already haven’t you?
Yes. I did Bigsound in Queensland and I have also done New Years Eve on The Hill.

How did you become involved in AND WE ARE LIVE?
Andrew who runs X Promotions hit me up and asked me if I would like to be involved. I was like yes let’s do it. I’ve been craving doing a performance for a while now, so I snagged that opportunity.

Do you normally play a lot of gigs in a “non-Covid world”?
Yeah, last year I would say I was getting gigs every now and again. It’s hard to reference what is often or not because I have only just started doing this. When I was trying to manage school it felt like it was often. Time would fly doing my school work and then I would get another text saying another show was coming up. I guess last year pre-covid it was pretty good. I’m excited to start performing new songs because I have been performing the same songs throughout the year. It’s going to be good once I get the new EP out.

So you’ve spent a lot of lockdown writing and creating?

Yeah. It’s kind of been a blessing in disguise. I think a lot of artists would relate. Like for sure w e miss out on the shows but we have all this time to make music. I’m blessed to have my production set up at home so pretty much everyday has just been working and trying to make the best of it.

You can work at your own pace when you produce yourself too.

Pretty much. It’s really great because I don’t have to travel anywhere (during lockdown) but the downside is when you go somewhere your environment shapes your mindset. It makes you more in the zone. Being in the bedroom, waking up and going to the desk you don’t really have the cues ready to let you know that it’s time to work. It’s just a matter of getting into it anyway. I love it anyway. It’s obviously a massive plus not having to go anywhere. 

Ryan talked you up when I was speaking to him. He thought this was ging to be your year to break into the scene.  But like you said you’re going to have a lot more content now.

For sure. There are lots of ups and downs to it. I always just try to see the best in it because there is no point in ruminating on what is not happening when there is so much that is.

Did you have much lined up for this year?
At the start of the year I was tossing up whether or not I wanted to continue doing music, so plans weren’t really in place. As the year went along I started getting my foot in, coming out of school I felt a little bit lost. But I was like no I definitely want to do this. Every time I just resort back to opening up Abelton and working on music, so I knew this was what I wanted to do. I’ve just stuck to my vision; we have big plans. This year has just been a big setup for next year. I’ve released one song this year back in February. Releasing any more this year wasn’t on the cards, we were planning on dropping something later this year, but I think taking our time and just working on new music for the rest of this year is the goal.

Who have you shared the stage with?
I supported Jai Waetford and Camouflage Rose last year which was really cool. And 3K was at the Camouflage Rose gig if you know them. They were two pretty significant shows. And then Godlands, she’s like a hard dubstep/trap DJ producer. They were the highlight gigs of last year for me.  

Anything else you want to let people know?
I have my EP coming out at the start of next year. The single off that EP is going to be performed live at the AND WE ARE LIVE gig. So whoever tunes into that will get a little bit of something! I think what X Promotions is doing for us is amazing. I feel like the acts represent the split in the Melbourne taste in music. So you have indie, rap and soul which I feel is pretty representative of what people are into. I’ve been practising and I’m ready to go. I’m pretty excited about it. It’s going to be good.

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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 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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