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: SKYWAY TALK COME BACKS AND MACHINE GUN KELLY

After quite a few years out of the scene Gold Coast pop punk outfit Skyway are back. I missed these guys first time around but that will be changing this time! I caught up with Daniel last week to talk about the new single, making a come back during a pandemic and Machine Gun Kelly…..

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So after all these years you guys have chosen to release a new song during a pandemic!!

Yeah, they say there’s no better time right! It’s been a crazy year. A lot of things have happened, and people have had a bit of a hard time. We recorded this last year with no indication that this was what 2020 was going to involve. But it’s here and rather than wait and bide our time we just got excited. We want to put it out and we want to start playing. We want people to hear it so here we are.

I missed you guys the first time around; I was off being a mum. Is it still the same line-up? Yeah it’s still the same line-up. We are still hanging, making music and keen to play shows. Have you guys still been making music together for the last 8 or so years?

No not really. Individually we have done a few different things musically. A few different projects here and there but nothing together. Last year was kind of the first time we all came together. I mean we have shot across a few ideas here and there and had a few little jams over the years. Last year was when we got serious about actually doing something substantial and recording to release something.

There was a reason for that, or you all just decided now was the right time?

Over the years we have entertained the thought, going back and forward with we should do this and that. One thing or another always stopped that. Last year we had a few jams, and we were like this stuff is sounding really cool we should record it. Commit to it and stick with it and see how we go. And here we are. Nothing is really planned; I think it is what it is. Something things just happen, and some things don’t, and it just happened for us last year. We are excited to be here.

I saw all these posts pop up of social media and I had no clue who you were, so I’ve been jamming your old stuff to catchup!

It’s been awhile so I can’t blame you there. Obviously it’s been awhile between making music. 8 years is a long time in the music world to kind of stop and start. I’m sure there are a lot of people exactly like you that haven’t really heard about us.

You better give us a quick rundown of who Skyway are then.

We’re a pop punk/punk rock band from the Gold Coast. We are releasing a new EP on 20th November. It’s there, it’s raw and it has a bit of energy which is what we are all about. We are looking forward to putting it out. If you’re keen have a listen.

You’ve obviously got a few people keen because your Spotify for the single is sitting on 7.5K.

It’s going pretty well. It’s always hard to try and predict anything in this industry, especially after having so much time off. I’m really happy with where it is at and how it has been received and everything else is a bonus. If I can make one person get a little bit of joy out of it then that is a massive bonus. The number one thing for us was that we were happy with it.

Pop punk seems to be making a bit of a resurgence lately.

It’s weird. It seems like a lot of different genres of music always come around full circle. It dies off for a bit and then there will be some popularity again. Have you heard Machine Gun Kelly’s pop punk album?

I have! I didn’t ever think I would listen to MGK let alone be singing along to it but here I am!!!

I know. I think that has done a massive for that kind of music because he is getting a lot of ears on it that haven’t really listened to that and that is only good for it. It’s back in the mainstream. I think his album was number one on the Billboard Charts which is frigging huge. It’s majorly dominated by hip hop stuff so for that kind of music to break through again and get the number one spot is massive. I think you are going to start seeing some more of it around. Some more new bands pop up and stuff like that. I think there are sub genres of it now. It seems like back in the day pop punk was Blink 182 or New Found Glory. It was encapsulated I that sound. But now you have more kind of emo pop punk or the more punk rock pop punk. It’s so broad now.

It’s becoming harder to put a lot of bands in a specific genre full stop. Especially across metalcore.

I think that is the way of the future of music really. It’s just the way things happen; things evolve and if genres get melded together that means you are experimenting with different stuff and I think that is great. That’s what it is all about.

I do too. I’m not a fan of genres. I think bands are playing for themselves again, not so much for the audience. This is seeing some amazing songs get released.

That’s it. That is what it should be all about, it shouldn’t be about pleasing anyone besides what you are doing and that’s exactly what we have done. We made the EP we wanted to make. I think these days you have more freedom.

People can do the entire thing themselves now and get it up onto all the platforms. You don’t actually need a label to get your music out there.

Yeah that’s right. You don’t have the outside pressure of people telling you what you should be and what you should do. It’s so much easier these days to get your music out there and not have to rely on any other outside sources.

I know Spotify isn’t the best place to put your music with the return that you get but when you are a new band starting out and you think what you have to outlay to produce a cd or record, then tour it and all the other added extras…

It’s hard to make a dollar on the streams with the way it is set up. I think that is only a matter of time before that changes. I think that there is going to be an uproar, a revolution or something like that amongst musicians. It is what it is and that is the landscape that we are in at the moment. In regard to getting your music out there we are in a much better position now than we were 10 years ago. Obviously there are still issues to iron out. Hopefully that happens. I think the freedom the musicians have these days to be able to get your music out there is amazing.

Definitely. So tell me about ‘Cut the Ties’

This is the first one that we decided to release. It’s a faster song, a bit more punchy. There are a few themes. It’s a song about disconnecting, whether it be anything in your life I suppose that you consider not healthy. That can range from a few different things; alcohol, substance abuse, abusive relationships. Anything in your life that you think is not good for you or not contributing in a positive way and you are cutting yourself away from that. That is what the song entails. There’s a few personal themes in there for me. I’m just coming up on two years sober now, I decided two years ago not to drink anymore or do anything like that. So there was a bit of personal input there for me. It’s just my lifestyle now and that’s the way I wanted to change. I’m happy with how everything went and with my life. I mean it works for me. I’m not one of those people that go out there and try and preach to people to be sober and do this and that. If someone is happy doing whatever then I’m happy. It’s just what worked for me. That’s my interpretation of it, people obviously have their own interpretations, and this is just one of the themes that added to the song.

What about the title of the EP ‘Hope floats, Love Sinks’

It was a lyric off ‘Cut The Ties’ in the bridge. I just think that it really fit with all the kind of lyrical and musical themes on the EP. I mean it speaks for itself really, especially with the goings on of 2020. I think everyone could use some hope and to remember that there is always something to hope for. Sometimes the love can sink but if you keep the hope hopefully you can resuscitate it. I just thought it was a good little hook and it explains and summarises the EP.

You shared the stage with some pretty impressive bands last time around.

We played quite a few shows back in the day in our short time. In terms of our lifespan we kind of went pretty hard out the gate. We played with some amazing bands, a lot of amazing local bands too. We were really lucky to be able to share those experiences.

Hopefully it won’t be long before you can jump back on the stage.

That’s the thing isn’t it. Live music has taken a hit this year but hopefully 2021 can bring it back on track and we can get the scene thriving again.

I think the scene is still thriving but just in a different way at the moment. Fan bases have gone up, bands are interacting more on the socials with fans. Music is still being released and people are looking into bands a bit deeper.

That’s definitely something that has been happening. Obviously people are online a lot, I mean what else is there to do. Being locked down and listening to music, checking out your favourite bands. But I am sure that there are a lot of people out there that just want to hear some live music again too. I mean people love live music; I do. There is nothing better than going to a show where a band that you really enjoy is playing. I’m really hoping it’s not too far away before they lift some of these restrictions, like the seated restrictions. Obviously it’s good that there is still the ability to have a live show even with those restrictions, but nothing beats a mosh pit! Especially for the heavier music.

Any last words?

‘Hope Floats, Love Sinks’ is out on 20 th Nov. We appreciate everyone that is checking out the new single ‘Cut The Ties’. The people that have sent messages, or like stuff we have put online. We really appreciate it, and we can’t wait to play our new stuff live. Hopefully we will get to Adelaide when everything is back to normal. Until then the EP will be out online, and people can check it out via Spotify, Apple Music those usual outlets. Also thanks for having me.

SKYWAY ARE:
Daniel McMaster – Vocals
Rohan Chant – Guitar
Daniel Hawkins - Vocals & Guitar
Rupert Muir – Bass
Ben Hallett - Drums.

Roll on normality and gigs because these guys will be on my list of bands to see. Check out Skyway’s new single below and hit up their socials.

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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: 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: 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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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
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'DM ME' ISO LIVE JAM

TEENAGE DADS
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'JEANE-CLAUDE VAN JAMME' MUSIC VIDEO

SUBCULT
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’POISON’ LIVE AT WRANGLER

BOLER MANI
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'DOOZY’ MUSIC VIDEO

INTERVIEW: SUZE CHATS ‘ABSENCE’ WITH INFINITE ILLUSION

Infinite Illusion have just dropped a new single ‘Absence’ and the boys have definitely taken it up a notch. Liam McDonald filled me in on what has been happening with the band.

How heavy is this new song!!

It’s funny because it’s our heaviest but also our lightest at the same time and I don’t really know how that ended up working. Dynamically it is so different to anything else we have ever done. We like it.

Me too. When I first heard it I was like Wow that went next level!

A lot of it has to do with the fact that our first lot of stuff was written by Sam when he was 15. We are all mid-twenties now, so Sam wrote that nearly a decade ago. We’d all been doing our own thing and when it came around to release it was a joke. We were all just hanging around and were like ‘hey do we want to release some music?’ and it just spiralled from there. And then we just kept going. This is the first real song that we wrote as a band now.

It wasn’t what I was expecting

I don’t think even we were expecting it. We got a new member at the back end of last year and we completely changed everything. We didn’t really have any intention of releasing any other music to be honest, we were a bit stale and then we got a kick to keep going. This is the first song that came out of it. We’ve got a few more coming after this. We are actually going into the studio the day before Absence comes out to start recording another couple of songs. I think after that we are planning to do an album, I’m not 100% sure. We’ll see how we go.

What’s the story behind the song?

The story behind the song is pretty interesting actually. Dan hit me with a concept, I write the lyrics for all of our stuff, but the concepts are somewhere I have always struggled I guess. Well not struggled but I tend to box myself in to certain topics and that kind of thing. It was really good Dan hit me with a concept of PTSD and reclaiming a loss of identity. Which is actually something I resonated quite well with but didn’t put a lot of thought into. It’s a personification of that kind of feeling, of being trapped and trying to come back and overcome depression, anxiety, PTSD, whatever it might be. It’s a very metaphoric story behind reclaiming who you are before mental health kicks in, as opposed to who you are after. And that’s were if you listen lyrically as it goes along it’s very much a song that literally tells a story. It starts off you’re being held back, you’re falling apart. This thing is attacking you. As it gets further along, the chorus tells the main story. As it gets closer to the breakdown, the breakdown hits in the song “I’ll break your fucking jaw myself” is literally a line about turning around and throwing back. Just fighting and getting out. I remember when I sent the boys that lyric, I loved it and I remember writing it and going that’s really cool. I honestly didn’t think I would get away with it, I thought the boys were going to come back and be like you can’t do that its ridiculous. Instead they were like no that’s staying. A lot of the song built on that lyric, that pre breakdown lyric stayed and I edited everything else on the side to really create that story of a reclamation identity. Fighting back against something that I think a lot of people in our scene deal with.

Dan wrote this song at a time when he discovered he has PTSD. Through 2019 he definitely had this big breakdown. He was in a couple of other bands as well and he overwhelmed himself and it broke him. We bought him in as a fill in drummer. I’m good friends with him so I asked if he wanted to fill in for a couple of shows. It was like an instant click, between me and him especially with these concepts and lyrically. And really translating that into music as well. I thought everything kind of clicked and he’s got these incredible experiences, he’s older than the rest of us, that we can write about and really tell some cool stories. This is the first one where we are really focused on the story telling of the song. Even though the music is important I think for us playing this live, when we get that chance, will definitely be a little bit more emotional than anything else we have done. I honestly think it comes across in the track as well.

Like I said when I listened to it I was like what the hell happened between Ill Intent and here?

We took a break to reinvent ourselves in all honesty. We took that break intentionally and everything fell into place.  We have been sitting on this song since January, obviously with a few things kicking in it pushed it back a bit further than we would have liked. But it gave us time to really think about who we were as a band. I think above anything that is a positive. We weren’t being forced to play shows, we had time to pull back and just think “What are we doing here? Who are we? Are we just another metalcore band? Do we want to attach ourselves to politics or mental health? What do we want to do?” We all have different political views so that was a big no, but the one thing we all absolutely resonated with was mental health. Having someone who has had such heavy experiences, my best friend died when I was 16 and Sam has lost a couple of friends, To The Grave losing Josh. We saw all that and we were like this is where we need to be. I think this is the one where we can actually help give people, not so much a space, but give them a soundtrack to that space. And just really focus on doing that. I think that is why lyrically we are pushing this content so much. Lyrically, above anything else, its quite a powerful song and we are really proud of it. I’m proud of the lyrics that I came up with, they came so naturally as well which makes it better.

It wasn’t forced, it came from an experience. It’s not something that you guys have just thought ‘Oh I’m going to write about this cos I can’

Pretty much that’s exactly it. Experience tells those stories better that anything. I think as well when we were writing it we had a big discussion: do we censor it or do we just make it violent. I’m not a big fan of censoring things, I don’t think it’s ever a bad thing to feel uncomfortable. I feel being uncomfortable is a huge part of growth. Obviously people are scared to feel like that, scared to face those truths. We made the song vivid for that reason, if it does make people feel a little uncomfortable that’s okay. It could be good; it might not be good and that’s a risk we had to take.

There is no point writing a song like that and not being real about it.

Definitely. We did get a lot of push back from quite a few people being ‘Guys this is a little bit graphic, you could really trigger some people with these lyrics’ We pulled them back a little bit, but it ended up being like what we had written to start with. The guy that we produced with was just like nah don’t pull back, just do it. You’re not going to make an impact if you are being safe. We were just yep that works let’s just do it.

I would totally back him with that one. If you want something to have an impact on people, don’t water it down. It’s not going to have the same effect.

Exactly. This song is all about that impact for us I think. Our last record wasn’t bad, I’m not a huge fan of it, I would never listen to it. That was the big one for me. This album we really wanted to make that impact. We want people even above anything else to just know out name. Even if they don’t listen to the song, that ok. I just want people to get used to seeing our name around because we have every intention of keeping it there.

You only have the one single ready to go?

In terms of all our demos, we have about 7 or 8 that are being recorded over the next 3 months. The plan is 3 stand alone singles, reinventing our sound and image off the back of those. Then we will do another record. Whether that is an EP, or an album remains to be seen. That depends on a lot of factors.  We are just playing it by ear, one single at a time. None of the singles that we release will be on that record. The record will be totally stand alone as the new version of us. Ill Intent gave us a start but it’s definitely time that we left that behind and really focused on the new version and sound that we have. Except for maybe Afterthought, that’s the only one that will stay around for a little while. We really like that song, and we think it’s a lot more modern than the rest.

I liked the EP!!!

I don’t think it was bad, it just wasn’t anything special. Musically it was good, technical, heavy breakdowns, big riffs. It was cool but there was nothing new about it. It was good if you liked it, but it didn’t hold people. I think it didn’t give people a reason to stay.

This one will if the first single is anything to go by.

I’m a lot more confident with this one. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been listening to it by myself for the last 6-8 months! I took a break of listening to it then I came back to it. I was like yes this is good. Its really hard a musician to sit there and praise yourself, questioning could you have down stuff better. But coming back to it, I actually took this lesson off Mikey from Gloom, come back to it and if you still like it, its good.

I’m a classical piano player. I have been my whole life. So for me to join a metalcore band is kind of unheard of. I remember one of my old conductors from an orchestra I played in a couple of years ago was like ‘What the fuck are you doing? How do you make that noise, it’s disgusting’. I was like yep it is but its fucking sick!!

It’s a cool genre to be in. I think as a small band above anything else, its really really cool to be in metalcore. I’ve been in other bands over the years, nothing heavy. Blues and rock and one cover band that I don’t talk about! I’ve played big blues festivals and stuff.  But there’s nothing quite like the support I have experienced in metal. There is nothing quite like the community, it’s so amazing to see a community that is so supportive of each other.

So there will be no touring with this!

There’s nothing in the pipeline. Collide, we have had to push back twice now. Unify is looking like it’s not going ahead as well. It’s shit but at the same time at least we aren’t dead. You have to take the positives. I think it has given a lot of us time to grow as well. Time to reflect. I was working stupid hours, and I know the other guys in the band were the same. We had no time for ourselves. We can either use this time to loathe in the fact that everything has been taken away, or we can use this time to become better. Really reflect on past practises, how we do things and who we are. Make time for other things in our lives. Take the positives out of being forced to do nothing.

I started Recurrent Verse at the end of April and it’s just gone crazy. I’ve already posted 60 articles and I’m getting more everyday

That’s mental. That’s so good. It’s good to see some new publications around.

I only do Australian bands because there is so much happening here. Aussie metalcore is my passion.

That’s the cool stuff. I don’t know what it is about Australian metalcore but far out there is something in the water here. Jesus some of the bands that are coming out like Elision and Inertia. Deadlights, I’ve always been a huge fan of those guys.

I am so keen for new Deadlights. Mesma is in my top 10 all time albums.

It’s such a good record. Elision’s new stuff has been incredible. The technicality in those boys is amazing. They are a very talented bunch of dudes. I have so much respect for them. Inertia as well, they are one of those bands that I think has the ability to blow up. Outloved have just announced a record. I was like omg this is like listening to BMTH but not listening to BMTH!! It had that impact on me. It was like listening to one of my favourite bands. It was so good to hear. There is just so much good stuff out at the moment.

There’s so many new cool bands coming through too like Ghost Complex, Canyon, Tides Collide, Dweller, Wake the Blind so many good bands

And Lune. I forgot about them. Then you look at the big boys and what they are releasing. Alpha Wolf’s record I thought was really good. There’s more coming from other bands. That 2 year cycle has now reduced to 1 year. To see so many bands releasing stuff is so good. I honestly don’t think I have heard a bad release this year.

I haven’t either. Someone said to me that everything I write is always so positive, do you just not review bad bands! I said to them honest to god there had not been a bad release this year.

I think album of the year has to be Make Them Suffer or Currents. They are my two.

I would say at the moment mine would be Alpha Wolf, Make Them Suffer, Saviour and We Set Signals.

Saviour’s was sick too. It means everyone has to step up or you are going to get left behind.

Diamond Construct is another one! Who would think adding a DJ would work… I’m loving all this experimentation in the scene.

It’s super important to do that metalcore has always been such a non-accessible kind of genre. It’s always been you like it or you don’t. That is definitely changing now, metalcore as a genre is changing with bands like BMTH leading the way. Whether you like AMO or not, it has set a standard for what you can do in metalcore. I personally thought it was their best record.

I personally think that 'Absence' is Infinite Illusions best release so far! After talking to Liam I think we are about to see big things come from the boys. Bring on 2021 when hopefully gigs return, and we can see 'Absence' played in a live setting..

‘ABSENCE’ - OUT NOW

CHECK OUT SUZE’S REVIEW OF ABSENCE HERE

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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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INTERVIEW: SPKEZY TALK THEIR UPCOMING EP ‘MIDNIGHT CLUB’

It seems it is Tasmania’s turn for new music! Dark Alt Pop band SPKEZY (pronounced Speakeasy) have just released a new single ‘Dopesick’ and announced their debut EP “Midnight Club. Having already released two standalone singles earlier this year, ‘Dopesick’ is the first single off the forthcoming EP ‘Midnight Club’. I spoke to vocalist Luke Vaessen to find who SPKEZY are and what we can expect from them. 

So this song is a little different to your other songs?

I would probably say a lot different. When we first started the band we essentially wanted to try and incorporate rock music, because we were all brought up on rock, with today’s modern type of RNB/Rap music. With this EP, more so with ‘Dopesick’ than the rest of the EP, we tried to incorporate more of our 80’s influences. I think that the main thing for us was to have each band members influences more prevalent than what we have before. The EP is a more cohesive of us as a band than the two stand alone singles we previously released. 

You said that your influences are from the 80’s?

Yes. So our guitarist, who is also our producer, is very influenced by 80’s sounding music. It’s more so him that has brought that influence to the band. Especially Huey Lewis and the News, he said he just really wanted to write something that has that sound. We’ve all played in rock and metal bands over the years. Tyson our bass player leans to more that sort of stuff. Our drummer has a very broad range of influences, but he is more dance music orientated whereas I am a lot more hip hop and rap. 

You’ve definitely got a lot of genres covered!

I just think that for myself I was finding it hard to write music in a band when I wasn’t listening to that particular genre of music. So for us it was just being able to write music that we enjoy and that we hope other people enjoy. People obviously listen to a lot of different stuff. And I guess when I first started playing metal I was listening to lots of metal. Over the course of when you are touring you are listening to metal bands night in and out and you get to the point where you need to listen to something else. I guess that is where it got to for me, and probably the other guys too. We just needed to do something else. 

I have a broad range of musical taste even though I mostly listen to metalcore.

It’s good to have that broad range of musical taste because you get to experience all these different emotions listening to all types of music.

Is the writing process a group thing?

It’s definitely a group thing. We get together at least once a week at our guitarists house and that’s where we will record and write all our stuff because that’s where his studio is. He has taken a much bigger role on in the band this time around. When we had our lockdown he spent a bunch of time relearning all this stuff so we can do everything in-house. It’s made it a lot easier I guess because we know what we want the music to sound like, it’s a little bit harder when you are sending it to someone else and they don’t fully grasp what you are trying to do. It has been good just to be there with each other and just write and if it sucks it suck and if its good its good. 

There are more songs floating around than? 

Like I said we get together once a week. This EP, while it is probably not the most optimal time to release because we can’t tour with it, we are really proud of the way that it sounds. We want other people to hear it and we hope people enjoy it. For us just to get it out there is the main priority so that we can move on to whatever it is that we are going to do next. 

I don’t know that not being able to tour has been really detrimental because most people are in lockdown or some form of quarantine at the moment. Bands releasing stuff are probably getting more attention during this time. There are no gigs, so people are looking to the online content. 

I guess I hadn’t thought about it like that. That people can actually connect to it more and spend more time with the product because at the moment they don’t have a lot else to do. 

Even though you can’t gig you’re actually building an audience for when gigs return. Laying those foundations for when the world returns to some normality. Bands are interacting with fans more too on social media and making those connections which is awesome. And Australia has such amazing talent.

We really do. It’s become more evident to me over the last couple of years. Obviously there is always good stuff from overseas, but I’ve noticed more really good bands coming out of Australia lately. It’s a very good thing. 

I think Australia are leading the way at the moment. 

100%.  I feel like a lot of the bands that are coming through, and they are all really young which is really good, are really putting Australia on the map. 

‘Dopesick’ has obviously gotten some traction because you’ve already had over 6k streams on Spotify in a week?

We’ve received really good feedback on the song. How it’s written, how its been recorded and all that. But also just on the song itself. People seem to be really enjoying it which is always nice. 

What’s the story behind the song?

Essentially it is a conversation between two people, one of which has had substance abuse problems all through their relationship. It’s that person promising to try and get better for the sake of their relationship but realising how hard it is especially with all the outside influences.

Is there a common theme in the EP?

It’s not about substance abuse or anything like that it’s more so a collection of love songs really. However way you want to look at how that love is being portrayed. Essentially they are all love songs but from different views. 

How long have you guys been together?

We’ve been together as SPKEZY for about 18 months or so. But we have all played in bands together or in other bands for the better part of 15 years. 

Have you played any gigs as SPKEZY yet?

We’ve only played two as SPKEZY and both were in Tasmania. In our previous band we toured around Australia. 

Which band was that?

Save the Clocktower. 

So is it basically all you guys but with a new name? 

Yes essentially, there is one less member. Our bass player joined Save the Clocktower just before we broke up. 

I guess you are keen for Covid to end then so you can tour again?

It would be very nice. 

Have you got gigs happening over in Tassie?

They have just started up again, but you have to be seated and no dancing 

Seems to be the same in every state that has gigs. 

Anything you want to tell us?

Just that as a band we really hope that people enjoy the EP. That’s our main aim is for people to enjoy what we do and can find some form of connection to it. 

‘Dopesick’ is a dope track with it’s cruisy vibe and made my Sunday morning coffee just that little bit better.

‘Midnight Club’ will be released on 13th November via all platforms.

‘DOPESICK’ IS OUT NOW.

‘MIDNIGHT CLUB’ EP IS OUT NOVEMBER 13TH. PRE-ORDER IT HERE.

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INTERVIEW: THE JENSEN’S NEW ALBUM CROSSES SCI-FI WITH THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND WE’RE HERE FOR IT

The Jensens have had a pretty turbulent year. After their slots at Pineapple Music Festival and Splendour in the Grass were postponed and their first single of the year was dropped the same day Australia shut down, the band felt pretty down in the dumps. With their brand new album ‘Hammer and Blush’ pushed back a whole year from its original May, 2020 release date too, the year of 2020 has not been kind to the Brisbane five-piece. Despite this, the band have come out the other side in pretty good shape according to the band’s front-man Joe White, as the band gear up to support their most recent single ‘Paper Walls’ on a tour around Queensland. 

‘We're pretty much back to normal,’ says Joe. ‘We played a gig last weekend...they were all dancing and having a good time, there was definitely an excitement in the air and everyone felt like this was the start of normality’

For Joe, normality has been the farthest thing from what he has felt throughout the quarantining process of 2020. Finishing and mixing an album left him feeling pretty chuffed however and the 15-track album aims to project these feelings into a three-act LP extravaganza.

‘At the start of the album we're a bit more optimistic, there's a few like call to arms songs,’ explains Joe. ‘And then as we get towards the end of the album it's really just processing the world around us and how relationships have changed due to online communication. We get a little bit sci-fi with it, but it's mainly just commenting on how weird it is to be alive in 2020.’
Joe also explains that this three-part structure reflects three distinct musical styles with the latter third reflecting this theme of living in a digital age.

‘The start is up until River of Gold. There's more 70s influence there. Late-70s Fleetwood Mac-style. And then it gets more abrasive with Paper Walls towards the middle. The last third is more experimental, very experimental. Half of the songs on the end don't have a real drum kit and don't have any guitars,’ says Joe. 

Abrasiveness is just what the band were hoping to reflect with their most recent single ‘Paper Walls.' Rough and harsh is intentionally what the single reflects in both sound and lyrical content. According to Joe the song’s lyrics and general theme weren’t even written during the year’s COVID-19 quarantine, but he felt the lyrics coincidentally reflected the harsh truth of isolation. 

‘I think that the lyrical themes apply to many situations of taking stock of your life and being like 'well, I don't have to keep doing things I'm doing them, if I'm not happy with that,’’ explains Joe. ‘People could definitely have developed bad habits, or developed just even unconsciously the feeling of hopelessness. One of the things that's really been hard is the inability to plan anything. It definitely fits in with that.’

Reflecting further on what the metaphor behind what exactly a “paper wall” is, Joe suggested a paper wall is an empty promise you make to yourself, a fairly recurring feeling in isolation. 

‘A paper wall to me and in the song is sort of like a new year's resolution that you never follow through with, so you've built a wall and you're like 'yeah, this is a sick wall, this is great, I've done what I needed to do,' but there's no stability to that wall and it's going to broken over with the slightest push, says Joe. ‘You're gonna start something, you're gonna change something, but really you haven't put enough thought and effort into it.’

‘Paper Walls’ is one of the first few singles to be released off of the band’s next album Hammer and Blush, which is presented with a confusing and intriguing album cover. Working with artist Uncle Chronic Bone, the band was presented with a numerous array of potential covers but just knew this one was the one. Being an image that seems to morph and change the more you look at it, Joe was adamant to not let too many details slip. 

‘I don't want anyone to know what that is, says Joe. ‘I love how it looks like it's in outer space...it was shiney, glossy, confusing, abrasive, it really seemed like it summed up the album for us.’ 

With laws expected to change from November 1st allowing punters to dance and drink at the same time in Queensland venues, Joe is hoping that the upcoming ‘Paper Walls’ tour will be exhilarating and thrilling. With the new album dropping in May of next year, the Jensens are hoping with crossed fingers for a national tour as well. 

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SOUNDS FROM THE SOUTH: TYLER JENKE ON THE SOUTH AUSTRALIA MUSIC AWARDS 2020

The South Australian Music Awards (SAMs) are set to go ahead in November, celebrating another incredible year of both up-and-coming and established South Australian musicians. 

The ceremony will be in line with COVID-19 restrictions, with the winners being announced on 3 November 2020. 

In 2019, the SAMs made waves as they encountered a record-breaking number of votes in the lead up to the event. 

Amongst the judges of the SAMs, ex-Adelaide local and Editor of Rolling Stone Australia, Tyler Jenke has a personal connection to the sounds which are emerging from South Australia.  

“I’m originally from Adelaide, so I’ve always had that really close experience and relationship with South Australian musicians,” he said.

“I think from a personal point of view that’s the big thing that really appeals to me, it’s just giving back to the music scene that gave so much to me.” 

Adelaide, a city which at times was overlooked on tour schedules by bigger artists, has been coined as the first and only UNESCO City of Music in Australia. Jenke found this to be a great step in the right direction for Adelaide musicians and fans. 

“As an Adelaide music fan, you would always miss out a little bit,” he said. “To have this sort of distinction like a UNESCO City of Music I feel that would really help for putting Adelaide on the map as more of a music city… it’ll mean that a lot more bands and artists have much more of a platform to show their stuff and end up as huge Australian names in the future.” 

Something which draws Jenke to the South Australian music scene is a sense of realness and vulnerability, with artists such as Wing Defence and Triple J Unearthed High Winners, Teenage Joans developing and distinguishing the South Australian sound. Jenke found the songwriting abilities of South Australian’s to be something which draws him to that scene. 

“And that shines true in their storytelling – they don’t necessarily sort of want to better all the other states or anything like that, they’re just sort of blazing their own trail,” he said. 

“It’s something to really be proud of, I feel.” 

Artists such as TOWNS, Horror My Friend, and Stellie are amongst the nominees for this year's SAMs. Jenke has a feeling that the bar will be raised yet again at the SAMs. 

“Every year it’s always such an amazing example of everything that artists have done off of their own back, there’s always so much creativity and innovation that comes out from these artists,” he said.

“So I think if anything I’m still just expecting more of the same - just expecting the next level to be reached once again as they do every year.”

In regards to COVID-19’s impact on the South Australian music scene, Jenke said 2020 will serve as a reminder of South Australia’s sheer determination to revive the scene. 

“I really feel it’ll highlight the tenacity of the South Australian music scene and hopefully a lot of outside states will be looking over and saying, ‘Wow, Adelaide have really got it,’” he said. 

“South Australian musicians really know how to survive under pressure.”

2020 SOUTH AUSTRALIAN MUSIC AWARDS
 
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020
Further details to come 
 
The SAM Awards is looking ahead to the future in continuing their commitment to celebrating the thriving community of musicians that really make SA Great.

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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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SEVEN DEADLY Q’S WITH RON GALLO

Its our first international-artist-based article, and Dan has for sure swept us up with this one!

“I was honoured to be able to interview the amazing Ron Gallo through the power of the worldwide web. We talked meditation, the importance of being multi-faceted in todays ever shifting workplace and stress and its relation to creativity 😊“

1. I was listening to Stardust Birthday Party and kept thinking to myself that a lot of the lyrics reminded me of the kind of introspection one has when meditating (something I started doing as a result of the pandemic). Then I heard OM and that sort of confirmed that, but what are your views on meditation, and does it help your creative process?

 Ron: Meditation was hard for a long time; I think because I didn't understand what it was.  Now, I see it as a practice to remind us of our natural state of being. A way to return to that empty, nothingness for a bit and observe the mind rather than be consumed by it.  I go in waves with it, months where I will have a daily practice and then months where I don't at all.  It's super easy to talk yourself out of meditating, haha.

 2. Given that writing is such a prominent part of your works, what are some of your favourite authors and poets? Do you think music with literary intent is on the rise?

Ron: I actually hate poetry haha, at least reading other people's poetry - I feel like poems are usually only good for the people that wrote them.  Myself included. When it becomes a song it's different though because the delivery is equally as important as the actual words.  As for authors, I don't read a TON honestly but the last book I finished a month or so ago was "The First Bad Man" by Miranda July and I thought it was great and I feel like I really understand her oddball way of thinking and saying things.  I don't think music with literary intent is on the rise - I think really basic, vulnerable songs that are like "today I woke up alone, sun was out, I scrolled my phone and saw you in my DM's" is on the rise.

3. If you had to have another career, what would it be? Do you think there's a place for renaissance men/women in today’s day? Are genres or an artist sticking to one discipline a thing of the past?  

Ron: I want to get into fashion design and start a line of kid’s clothes for adults, maybe try acting and eventually start an Italian kombucha company. I could never stick to one genre musically, hence why the music I’m putting out now is drastically different than the first few and may always be that way.  I think now is definitely the time for "renaissance" people because the creative industries are so fucked and fragile and in my mind constant evolution is the only way to survive. 

4. Aside from the Really Nice fest/blog as well as the new EP; what have you been doing to keep yourself inspired and or busy during these times?  

Ron: Washing dishes, cleaning, eating non-stop, aimless drives, took a trip up to philly/new jersey to see family for a few weeks and that was a lifesaver.  It's difficult to be inspired right now because very limited perspectives and locations aren't super stimulating. 

5. Are you someone that works better under stress or do you find having a clear head and being positive does the trick for good songwriting? Do you sometimes need time away from the craft to re charge or do you think it's better to write and be creative daily?  

Ron: Unfortunately, I think turmoil or distress makes it easier to create but I'm not interested in that path anymore so it does take a little longer because I would rather create from a clear, positive mindset now because I have to relive whatever is behind a song every night when we start touring again.  Feels like a better thing to build a life on.

6. Has it become easier or harder over the last decade to get an online presence? Who's an undiscovered creative you could shoutout?  

Ron: It feels impossible right now.  Especially from a musician perspective, the world is living on the internet all at once and the ability to cut through seems very difficult.  I think I am realizing the best way to get an online presence is from the real world - going out touring and being around people.  Nowadays it seems people only want bad news, or funny stupid viral shit to take their mind off of things. I would shout out - Jota Ese, chickpee, Stuyedeyed, Binki and also the 4 new Ron Gallo songs out now.

7. And lastly; what's one thing the world needs more of and one thing it needs less of?

Ron: World needs more compassion and less entitlement.

Ron Gallo’s new EP EASTER ISLAND is out now, make sure to check it out!

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INTERVIEW: ILLYRIA TALK WARMING UP TO NEW MEMBERS WITH ‘FROSTBITE’

With a new line-up, Perth based Illyria have just released a new single Frostbite. Don’t be deceived by the beautiful, melodic beginning to this song because things heat up to a frenetic pace pretty quick! I’m loving everything about this tune and how it captures so many elements seamlessly. I caught up with vocalist Ilija to talk bands, black metal, self-production and everything in between!

Hey Ilija thanks for taking the time to chat. What does the world need to know about Illyria?
We’re a very small band from Perth just making our way through in this very competitive and busy world. We are currently working on our third album. We play a form of progressive metal that has black and post rock elements it and because of the whole crazy 2020 scenario we are just trying to consolidate and find our feet again.

It’s trying to navigate releasing stuff in a whole new way I guess

It’s not only the whole studio thing. We really miss being on stage and doing the whole live performance thing because that’s another service you provide as a live band. When you’re in Perth, which is so isolated, it’s kind of restrictive.

That’s it. It’s not only having no gigs but having that distance as well.

Especially with the border restrictions. I understand that, but obviously you have to find new ways of getting your music out there which has been a very big learning process.

Totally. The good thing is more people are taking to social media and things like Spotify to discover new music seeing as there isn’t really any other way at the moment. People are engaging more with the bands to which is good to see.

It’s very true. We have noticed an influx for sure. It’s the retention now that we are learning to maintain. It’s cool that you have 25,000 people listening to you this month but how many more are going to keep listening. There’s a lot of new bands and endeavours that are coming in that you have to stay on top of, so we are just still trying to find our way through this. It’s a big learning curve.

It’s good that everyone is in the same position but it’s also really good because it means that everyone is involved. And everything you do doesn’t just represent your backyard it represents the whole planet really. We definitely keep that in mind when we release our music because I think we can safely say that our biggest audience is everywhere but Perth. Not saying that we don’t succeed here, its great but we have a lot of loyal fans in Europe and the Americas and you have to honour that as well.

You having that black metal element would get you a lot of that European audience. Black metal in Australia isn’t as big as it is overseas.

When I created this project it was because of that dire need and urgency that I wanted to bring that sound to somewhere new like Australia. I was living in Europe at the time and got exposed to the sound while I was there and feel in love with it and wanted to bring it back. It’s worked really well. For me personally I actually enjoy the post rock side, the members that used to be in the band were more the black metal side. I still love black metal, but I don’t get into the dark, gloomy clique sort of thing. For me it’s more a way of expressing an atmosphere and ambience to my liking without getting to depressive. I like to think that our music is a little more upbeat, a lot more Australian in some kind of way. We like to bring that charm in.

I think the best way we like to explain our sound to people instead of whipping out genres is us just saying it’s a roller coaster ride of emotion.

I’m not a fan of the genre label.

Yeah. It’s hard to bottleneck bands into genres in my opinion. I think the best way I like to explain it is I like to bring up emotions instead, I think people get that more. We definitely take pride in our music and lyrics.

So who does most of your writing?

I do most of it in terms of the way its all arranged, the foundation of it. I write the guitars and vocals predominantly and the bass player and drummer will review what I’ve done and then we come together and amalgamate it all and put our own bits of flair in. It’s initiated by me or the other guitarist and then we get together and refine it.

Have you guys toured over this side of the country yet?

As Illyria we have only played in WA, but we have all toured over east with other projects. We were looking forward to taking that leap of faith, but this year has been quite the hinderance and I don’t think we are going to be able to do anything anytime soon.

Where did the name Illyria come from?

I was in Ancient History class in year 11 and my first name is Ilija. I was trying to make a solo project at the time and I was struggling with it all and my ancient history teacher got out a map of the Roman empire and one of the provinces was called Illyria’ I had a chat to my teacher and asked how you pronounced it and he was like yeah its Illyria! I told him what I was thinking of doing and he said that it was perfect because it had my name all over it! We did a google search and there was a band called Illyrian at the time, but Illyria wasn’t taken. Google searches for us are interesting because there is a Buffy the Vampire character named the same and historical roman stuff comes up! It’s very charming and it represents me very well. What started as a solo project has now turned into a band 7 years later. I’m very grateful for the journey and for being on this call right now.

That’s is actually a very cool story. What’s the story behind Frostbite?

Frostbite is actually the first song by Illyria that wasn’t written on guitar by me. We have a new line- up now and have two new guitarists. One of them is a good friend of mine and Matt’s that we used to play in bands with called Steph en. He’s a tremendous guitarist to work with, in fact I even consider him one of my massive influences. He’s not played in bands for the past 5 years and he has all these songs banked up. I really liked this demo when I heard it. It’s the first song that I have truly gotten to just focus on the vocals. I wanted to provide something a bit different for the listeners to hear the new line-up. And that we are going in a different direction but still holding on to some of the past. We are just building up our chemistry and the fluency within all of our sounds and styles in the new line-up. Bringing in two new quality guitarists that are far, far better than me technically I really wanted to showcase their ability. Instrumentally this song is quite different. It’s a bit more ambitious but I know thematically and lyrically I don’t think I’ve strayed to far from the path. It’s still about all the typical emotional struggles and battles. I really hope that people like the new package that we are providing. We are working very hard to get our next release out.

You guys have produced everything yourselves?

Yes our bass player produces everything, our new guitarist is a videographer, so he filmed the music videos. And we all have experience in engineering our audio. Everything is through experience and sheer will and desire to do it ourselves. There is actually a whole consortium of self DIY producers in Perth and we all just get together and help each other out. It’s like we are shifting back in to musical tribalism in a way, bartering our services. That works for our dynamic because we are a small community here in Perth.

We love that by self-producing we are not limited to deadlines. We normally take 3 years to release an album, its really nice to have that freedom to go with the flow, to fuel this passionate hobby with four other blokes that you really get along with.

Finally who are your influences?

It ebbs and flows doesn’t it? When I first started this band it was bands like Deafheaven and Lantlos were definitely at the forefront, but you can’t ride on that saddle for to long and you’ve got to find new moments to latch on to. Lately it’s been American Football, Fallujah, Between the Buried and Me and random prog bands from the 70’s. I’m just really stretching out and trying to find stuff that I can latch into to keep writing albums that don’t sound stale.

ILLYRIA ARE:
Ilija Stajic – Vocals/Guitar
Andre Avila – Guitar
Stephen Barrett – Guitar
Daniel Hacking – Bass
Matt Unkovich - Drums

KEV CARMODY: OUR PILLAR OF SOCIETY

Pictured: Kev Carmody holds tradition dear with the 2020 edition of Cannot Buy My Soul Image: Supplied

It could not be a more appropriate time for the re-release of Kev Carmody’s 2007 album, Cannot Buy My Soul. Produced by Sian Darling, Cannot Buy My Soul encapsulates the essence of Kev Carmody and more, as the tribute album is adorned with Australian artists such as Paul Kelly, Bernard Fanning, Missy Higgins, Alice Skye, Electric Fields, Courtney Barnett, and Mo’Ju. 

In June 2020 the world saw the rise of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement following 46-year-old African-American man, George Floyd’s death, serving for us as a reminder of our very own black history. 

Whilst the BLM movement may have been no surprise to Carmody, the re-release of Cannot Buy My Soul still stirred within him passion and purpose to fight a seemingly familiar battle. 

Talking to Kev Carmody is like chatting with a long-lost friend: despite us only meeting for the first time, it’s as if we’d picked up where we’d left off the last time we spoke, possibly due to Carmody’s incredibly friendly nature.

“Crikey, I reckon it involves us all, Selin, it’s global now!” he said. 

“The thing is it’s connected with Black Lives Matter, because musically we’ve been talking about this for 40-50 flaming years, and it’s still relevant, like 438 deaths in custody, [and] nobody’s been charged in Australia, it’s a hidden tragedy.”

Since the 1991 report of the Royal Commission of Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, over 430 Indigenous deaths in custody have taken place. 

First Nations people account for just over three per cent of Australia’s population, however Indigenous children are, on a national average, 17 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Indigenous youth, a study released by the Sentencing Advisory Council of Victoria found. 

It’s this passion which Carmody hopes to pass on to future generations through the notion of storytelling, with young First Nations artists such as Alice Skye, Electric Fields, and Mo’Ju, all performing unique renditions of his tracks on Cannot Buy My Soul.

“And that’s what I love, Selin, the old Indigenous tradition of oral storytelling,” he said. “Passing it on to the next generation, and the generation after that, as we’ve done it for thousands and thousands of years.” 

A track which encapsulates Carmody’s remarkable storytelling abilities is one which he wrote with fellow Australian musician, Paul Kelly, From Little Things Big Things Grow, which tells the story of the fight for land rights by the Gurindji people in the Northern Territory, led by Vincent Lingiari. 

First Nations indie-electronic duo Electric Fields re-interpreted From Little Things Big Things Grow, incorporating excerpts of Lingiari’s voice throughout, with the duo also singing in language. 

Excited, Carmody expressed his appreciation for the glimmering rendition performed by Electric Fields. 

“It’s blown me away because it’s all globally connected now… the transformation and evolution that’s happened with the genre of music, as an example, Electric Fields, goodness me, hearing that old mans – they got permission too off the Gurindji people – they got permission to use that old man's voice,” he said.

“And it’s like his spirit is re-lived, he’s become alive again, in that video. To hear that, it just floored me.” 

Electric Fields:

Another track which Carmody holds dear is one he wrote when he was only 22, called I’ve Been Moved. The year before he wrote this song, First Nations people had only just won the right to be counted in the National Census, with 94 per cent of Australians voting “yes” in the 1967 referendum. 

“Young Dan Kelly did a beautiful version of it – Paul’s nephew. That was done in 1968, and it’s the only song really that I’ve ever done the lyrics first,” he said.

“What moved my spirit outside the things which were happening around me, I tore off some cardboard off a cereal packet, wrote it down… I’ve been moved, by the crying of a newborn, because our son, our eldest son Paul was just born in 1967, and he’s in the second verse.”

“It’s just that whole concept of energy is born, that I thought was precious.” 

Carmody’s 1988 powerful debut protest album, Pillars of Society, gained critical acclaim with Rollingstone Magazine describing it as, “The best album ever released by an Aboriginal musician and arguably the best protest album ever made in Australia.” 

Since, Carmody has had a remarkable career with accolades to show. 

In 2007, Cannot Buy My Soul won the Deadly for Best Album. 

In 2008, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Southern Queensland (formerly the Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education) where he studied. 

Shortly after, in 2009, he was inducted into the ARIA’s Hall of Fame. 

And, despite it all, Carmody manages to maintain his love for songwriting and storytelling, with his infectious optimism felt throughout the re-imagining of Cannot Buy My Soul. 

“Let’s hope the music is going to be uplifting, let’s hope we can be optimistic my friends.”

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MEET SIDNEY ROSE: MELBOURNE’S NEW INDIE-POP TRAILBLAZER

Pictured: Sidney Rose has made the most of lockdown, with her new single, Guarantee Image: Sarah Caust 

For some artists, the push and pull of Melbourne’s lockdown measures has stunted creativity, forming mental roadblocks. This was not the case, however, for a newcomer to the scene, Melbourne indie-pop artist Sidney Rose. Described as “pop, but left of centre” by Triple J’s Tommy Faith, Rose has established herself as one to watch with her second single of the year, Guarantee. 

Produced by Ben Oldland, Guarantee is a captivating indie-pop track, which, believe it or not, was a product of her first time in a recording studio after beginning her project in December 2019. 

After chasing musical theatre for three years post high school, Rose found herself more immersed with the notion of storytelling purely through music, and so made the switch to the Australian music scene. 

“I think my real passion, at the core, is telling either my story and expressing that... then also being able to then use that [mode of] storytelling to tell other people’s stories, I think of it as a cool craft when you get down to the crux of it.” 

Drawing on influences from Canadian musician Lennon Stella and Australia’s own Eliott, Rose blends vulnerable lyricism with alluring hooks.

“What I’ve always found with music is that it’s a lot easier to sing something that’s really raw and honest than it is to sit and say that to someone’s face, so Guarantee wasn’t necessarily written about a certain person,” she said. 

Pictured: Rose embraces vulnerability in her track, Guarantee 

Image: Sarah Caust 

“With Guarantee it was the first time I was really trying to write from just kind of what was in front of me at the time, rather than trying to pull on past experiences.”

Indie-pop as a genre is proving popular among the masses, with artists such as Rose appreciative of the sheer amount of work which goes into creating an indie-pop track. 

“Working with Ben on Guarantee I just didn’t understand the full craft of indie pop, there’s so much craft to coming up with hooks that stick with people,” she said.

“And so to try and translate really sad emotional stuff that I write with my guitar and put that into a context, it’s just really cool.”

Navigating the Australian music scene as a young emerging artist during a global pandemic is quite the task, but one which Rose was more than willing to tackle, noting her determination and much-needed optimistic nature. 

“I actually set a goal at the start of the year basically to be writing something musical every day, creating in some way, and that’s something that I’ve stuck to and I’m so grateful that I have,” she said.

“I think I’ve been able to stay growing as an artist, because I’ve either created with someone else via Zoom that day or I’ve been forced sometimes to sit at my piano or sit at my guitar and sing and figure something out because I’ve made that commitment to myself.” 

The current climate in the Australian music scene has allowed Rose to slowly make her mark and work through moments of personal growth.

“Because I haven’t experienced it in normal life,” she laughed. 

“Normal life, whatever that is, I haven’t had anything to compare it to, I’ve really just been able to grow and find ways to do it.” 

For the remainder of 2020, Rose has her sight set on collaborations and demos, and eagerly working on her live set for the return of live music, whenever that may be. 

“I think at the moment it's still up in the air but I’ve been building up a whole heap of collaborations and demos and things because I’d love to have as much released stuff [as] ready as I can,” she said. 

“At the moment it’ll look like a lot more releases and stuff to come out of lockdown – kind of like lockdown babies but [in the form of] songs.” 

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FEATURE: EVIE CHATS TO BEC SYKES ON EDITHVALE AND GIVES US HER RUNDOWN ON THE SINGLE

Every so often you hear a song that completely transports you to somewhere else. It is engulfing, wholesome, and wounding all at the same time. It is that final puzzle piece that makes the end of a relationship make so much sense. It is a memory.

Yet Bec Syke’s debut single, whilst seemingly relatable in so many ways, captures a time unique to the beholder. Through the simplistic beauty of stripped-back melodic vocals, Melbourne based singer-songwriter shares Edithvale, a story about the end to a relationship realised by the torching of a car.

“My ex-boyfriend [and I] used to drive down to Edithvale beach in summer,” Bec says. “My ex’s car got stolen and set on fire just after we broke up, so I was thinking about how much of our relationship took place in his car. The car being set on fire was like a symbol of our relationship going up in flames.”

Symbolic to its core, Bec explains the how writing process came to her organically.
“I wrote the song on my family’s upright piano and the chords, melody and first few lines poured out of me so naturally. It was quite cathartic to write.”

The sombre piano chords Bec describes initially set the tone for the song, but it is her opening vocals which induce multiple emotions, many of which I was not prepared for…

I want to be in love again. I don’t want to be friends

It is that line – honest and raw – which takes the listener on a journey told from the front seat of a car in a hot summer’s night. Whilst the song resonates with the pain of a relationship’s end, it doesn’t simply park in the heartbreak, instead it reflects the complex emotions of happier times.

Bec’s vocals are flawless, her storytelling abilities showcased as she draws her listener in to glimpse a memory with intimate closeness. This song doesn’t include all the flashy bells and whistles- nor does it need to, with vocals as mesmerising as hers.

Although a relative newcomer to the music biz, Bec’s talent scored her the chance to work in the studio with Tom Iansek (Big Scary and #1 Dads) which led to the creation of Edithvale. Recently presented with the Josh Pyke Partnership – a yearly grant whose previous winners include Angie McMahon and Gordi – it is safe to say this artist is making headway in the world of music. Bec Sykes is clearly a name to remember, and I cannot wait to hear what is next in store for her.

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PREMIERE: Thea Fitzgerald CLOSES OUT THE BUILDING BLOCKS ERA WITH TWO FRESH VIDEOS

Thea FitzGerald closes out the Building Blocks era with two fresh videos, and we’re pumped to be bringing them to you here first! Better late than never, 23 year old Melbourne singer-songwriter Thea FitzGerald has two brand new videos to round out her debut body of work - Building Blocks.

Adding to the stunningly vibrant visuals previously released for ‘Stuck’ and ‘Holding Your Hand’, the killer team at Thick Heart Productions have worked with Thea to add to the collection with videos for ‘Breathe’ and ‘Higher Ground’. With a huge focus on colour to build the emotional narrative of each story, these new videos are absolute eye-candy.

The new videos add aesthetic and emotional symmetry to the body of work - the upbeat playfulness of ‘Higher Ground’ bears resemblance to the somewhat chaotic mix of cheek an pain in ‘Holding Your Hand’, whilst the solitary power of ‘Stuck’ is mirrored in the confined discomfort of ‘Breathe’. There’s a stellar cast involved too - Stephanie Wall, Ed McCullough and Sarah FitzGerald beautifully execute the story of Higher Ground, and Tamara Bailey nails her performance in Holding Your Hand.

WATCH THE NEW MUSIC VIDEOS HERE!

If you haven’t yet sussed the Building Blocks EP, you’re bound to love something in there – it’s a catchy fusion of pop, indie and R&B with infectious hooks, and will not disappoint! These new videos are the perfect ending to the Building Blocks chapter, making way for the release of Thea’s highly anticipated second EP later this year!

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