Tag: music

Benny Walker | Change the date

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It’s January 26th, and social media is raging with two kinds of rhetoric regarding the significance and appropriateness of the public holiday.

It’s a sombre, but pertinent, day to talk to Benny Walker. The musician is one of the many Indigenous Australians for whom Australia Day is a day of mourning, of invasion and survival. It is these people, one of whom is me, whose pain is at the centre of this debate.

Without question, Walker, a member of the Yorta Yorta clan of Echuca-Moama, wants to see the date of this national holiday changed.

“Changing the date, it’s quite a simple gesture to be made towards the first Australians in this country to show them that people are at least trying to understand. I think it can go a long way towards reconciliation in Australia,” Walker says, as he reflects on the back and forth that has dominated mainstream and social media alike in the prior days.

“It’s changed before, you’ll still get your long weekend, and you can do it in a way that’s not throwing it back in the face of the first Australians.

“To have this kind of resistance against it, [the date] obviously means a lot to Aboriginal people. As far as us asking for a change, and there being rallies and marches held today, and festivals anti-Australia Day, or pro-Survival Day or Invasion Day.”

But Walker is also keen to note progress. Though 2018 saw no official change in the date, it, of course, marked the first year that triple j moved their inaugural Hottest 100 from January 26, to the last Saturday of January, after a vote was put to their listeners on the matter.

“It’s so significant because they’re influencing the youth of Australia. Whether they like it or not, they have a powerful voice, and it gets heard really broadly, and for them to make a change like that and stick to it even after they would’ve copped a lot of backlash, speaks volumes of what they’re about,” Walker says of the move, which although praised by many, was met with resistance from others.

“The change is going to help educate people that may have been initially frustrated with the change, and help them look a little deeper and try to understand why the decision to change the date on triple j’s part is really important,” Walker says.

The extremely talented singer-songwriter has music pulsing in his veins. His grandfather Archie Walker is renowned in their region as a guitar player. Archie’s son, and Benny’s father, Rob, has played guitar in bands for much of his life.

“I’m lucky in the fact that I was born with Aboriginal heritage. I’ve had the opportunity to travel and interact with mobs in different communities, and do workshops and play in festivals, and experience that in a way that a lot of people wouldn’t be able to,” Walker says.

One such opportunity is his upcoming appearance at the Yalukut Weelam Ngargee festival, an annual celebration of Indigenous Arts and Culture festival.

Celebrating its 13th year, the free, family-friendly festival takes place in St Kilda’s O’Donnell Gardens, a significant meeting place in Aboriginal culture.

“I’ve been lucky enough to play there a couple of times, and was happy to play in the middle of the afternoon among a group of amazing artists,” Walker says, reflecting on his evening slot that will finish the festival.

“I love playing this festival. There are worse places in the world to perform than in a park down near the beach at St Kilda.”

Walker sits comfortably among a huge lineup of Indigenous Australian talent for the festival, including Emily Wurramara, and Hottest 100 charting Baker Boy, to name but a few. Festivals like this one are a humbling experience, Walker says, and a great reminder of all that Indigenous Australia has to offer.

“I get to see new artists just about every time I do a festival like Yalukut Weelam Ngargee. It reminds you and hits you in the face with just how much talent there is among Aboriginal people in Australia. You could easily put together mainstream festival lineups just with Aboriginal acts.

Originally published in Beat Magazine. 

Vance Joy | Quietly considering album number two

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In a time where gender expectations are being broken down, and heteronormative masculinity is no longer a universally glorified commodity, it’s reasonably powerful to speak to the nearly two metre tall, ex-footballer James Koegh – who you might know better as Vance Joy – about his gentle elegance in his approach to his new album.

“When I would play guitar at the footy club, maybe an opportunity to sing covers, I found that was always me in my natural state. Even though I was playing Fuel’s ‘Shimmer’ and Foo Fighters, playing to the market,” Koegh says.

“I don’t think I’m a particularly blokey guy, except playing football. I don’t really speak the language. So when it comes to banter, and hanging around the club, it was never my comfortable place. I love football and I love the sport, and when I played at school the connections where very strong, but doing [music] feels natural, and I like that I feel comfortable in my own skin,” he says.

There’s no more appropriate title for Vance Joy’s sophomore album than Nation of Two. The album is so very intimate and contained, that it’s easy to feel like a fly on the wall in this pair of lovers’ bedroom.

“I’m glad that’s the feeling you’ve got, that was the desired effect,” says Keogh. “I didn’t set out intentionally to write a gentle, intimate song. I was just writing, and there’s a few songs that were calling out to be recorded in that way.”

The thread of a relationship that ties the album together, inspired by many of Keogh’s romantic experiences, is his favourite kind of narrative to weave.

“It’s the kind of story that grabs me when I’m listening to music or reading books. The songs that penetrate me emotionally are love songs,” Keogh says.

It’s capturing this emotional response that drives him to continue creating. Though many of the lines he croons throughout the record are pained and filled with heartbreak and rich with love, tapping into this emotion is something that Keogh derives a great deal of joy from.

“The most difficult thing for me isn’t the emotional thing, or ‘Oh this is hurting me to sing,’ because I know that happens to other artists, I’ve heard it described that way. But I’m so happy I find something I want to sing my heart out to, even if it’s a sad song, I’m happy that I’ve tapped into something that feels authentic,” Keogh says.

“The difficult part of songwriting for me is finding those little melodies and the right sequence of words that make it feel like a thing, that make it feel more substantial than all those other ideas that don’t even get off the ground.”

With a hugely impressive to-do list, including touring as a support for Taylor Swift, the time between his debut – 2014’s Dream Your Life Away – and his follow up has been a huge learning curve for the 30-year-old. Though he couldn’t find much time to write on the road, he wrote bits and pieces of songs that would eventually create his second record.

“Now, having compiled a bunch of songs that I’m proud of, I feel good about that. You finish touring for an album and see there’s an expanse of time to fill up, and having done that I feel good. I had my head down and focused on that, and it’s a milestone,” Keogh says.

“With this album, compared to the first, every song is special and has its own life. There are songs on the first album that I still love, and I still think they’re some of the best songs I can do, but I think on this new one, there’s a consistency to the lyrics. There’s some real flavour and juiciness to it.

“I feel like I’m repeating lines less so, but I do like to repeat lines. I did some songwriting sessions, but I learned there is no rulebook. And the songs that I’m most proud of are generally the songs I wrote on my own.”

Originally published in Beat Magazine.

Australian Music Vault Talks | The value of fandom

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“As soon as you get music lovers together, they start talking and networking and coming together, and amazing things come out of it.”

The Australian music industry is fuelled and built upon beautiful, personal connections. That spark when music lovers come together, as described by Amy Bennett, the Creative Learning Producer at Arts Centre Melbourne, is what ignited Australian Music Vault to launch a series of talks to run at Arts Centre Melbourne over the course of 2018.

“At the moment, we’re really in a time of conversation and the public contributing to discussions instead of just observing from the outside,” Bennett says.

“I think the music industry are really keen to have a forum where they can present these issues from the general public side. It gives the public a front row seat to the inner workings of the industry, because it can be a bit hard to understand how it works.”

The Australian Music Vault Talks will tackle what it means to be a music fan, roping in mega-fans of the likes of Nick Cave, Crowded House and Kylie Minogue to talk about their obsessions.

But the first talk will see a panel of women from all facets of the industry come together to talk about gender representation in the Australian music industry.

The panel will focus on the path to change the gender imbalance, and the challenges that stand in the way of such a thing. Facilitated by journalist and author Jenny Valentish, the panel features Grace Kindellan of Wet Lips, Mohini Hillyer of Habits, Dr Catherine Strong, who is conducting APRA approved research into gender inequality in the Australian music industry at RMIT University, and Tracee Hutchison from the Music Victoria’s Women’s Advisory Panel.

“It’s a really big one,” says Bennett of the inaugural talk. “There has been a lot of discussion on it. It’s really important to us, to the Australian Music Vault, to make sure there’s equal representation, and we felt we had a role to play. It’s really moving forward at a rapid pace.

Bennett, who is a musician in her own right, is happy to report that she’s definitely seeing a shift in gender representation within the industry. “There are more female mentors available for younger musicians. There are more women who want to be leaders, and show younger women that this can happen,” she says.

“That being said, you still go to gigs and 15 out of 16 people are dudes, so in the music industry, it really needs to stay active. That’s why some of these young musos like Grace (Kindellan) are so important, because they’re actively choosing lineups based on this.”

The Australian Music Vault was launched at Arts Centre Melbourne in 2017. Set to run for three years, the free exhibition is a celebration of the past, present, and future of the Australian music industry, and an insight into the history that has shaped it.

“The idea is to celebrate Australian contemporary music, there’s such a rich history and there’s so many amazing people involved in the history and the present, and obviously the future, but it’s been something that the Victorian Government and us at Arts Centre Melbourne, the music industry, and major stakeholders like Michael Gudinski, have wanted to celebrate for a long time,” Bennett says.

The vault, and these talks, are there to remind the audience that it’s not just musicians who make up the scene, it’s every audience member, and the stories they have to tell.

“When it was announced that Festival Hall would become apartments, that was a change in the city, a change in infrastructure. But what it did, whether or not it’s bad or good, is it made everyone tell their stories of Festival Hall. That’s what we want to encourage,” Bennett says.

We all have stories of Festival Hall, of our youth, no matter how recent that was. “The members of the music industry are really passionate about a lot of issues that are a massive part of their everyday lives.

“Having these talks helps to give wider context for these issues. We want it to generate discussion, to excite people who then give back their stories. It’s a two way street.”

Originally published in Beat Magazine. 

First Aid Kit | Subverting expectations set for women

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It’s been nearly a year since First Aid Kit released ‘You Are the Problem Here’ for International Women’s day. The single was written in response to the lenient sentencing of Brock Turner, following his very public trial for rape and sexual assault at Stanford University in California.

The band, which comprises sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg, wrote the song out of anger and frustration towards rape culture, but also in an entirely pre-#metoo world. The swell of support for women, and the rise of Time’s Up, is something that the sisters never anticipated.

“As a woman, we’re used to thinking that [gender inequality] is never going to change. I mean no one’s ever cared before so why would they now? But it’s amazing that change is finally happening. It feels crazy that it’s happening now and not a million years ago,” Klara says.

“We do have a super long way to go, but personally I feel so much stronger after the Metoo movement. I’m not afraid of speaking up anymore when I’m uncomfortable. Myself and Johanna, we’re not going to let the little things fly. Because that’s what really gets to you. That’s what leads to these big things happening, because we always let these big things fly,” Klara says.

In the year that has passed since releasing that record, the Swedish duo wrote and recorded their highly anticipated third album, Ruins. But before getting there, they had to make a lot of big changes, and step away from the band that had consumed the entirety of their adult lives.

“We couldn’t go on the way we had. We’d worked so hard, and it was really fun, but we got to a point where we needed to stop,” Klara says.

“We needed to take time away from each other, and from the First Aid Kit world. Because that had basically been our whole lives. I was 14 when we started the band, and everything was so exciting that it got to the point where my body was spent, and I couldn’t do it anymore. I was so exhausted.”

Klara’s body and mind, which had been through a huge amount of physical stress over the decade of being in First Aid Kit, began to falter.

“I remember we were on tour in Europe and we were talking about making a music video, which would mean we wouldn’t have as much time at home between tours, and I started crying. And I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t imagine just one day of work, I couldn’t do it,” Klara says.

It was, of course, a confusing time for the young woman, who struggled with balancing her need to rest and desire to work.

“It’s tough, I felt a lot of guilt for feeling that way, because I thought I was doing what I always wanted. And why wasn’t I appreciating it, what was wrong with me. Now I understand that better, that it wasn’t strange because I had been working so much, but also because it was our whole lives. I needed to figure out who I was outside the band, and if it all falls apart, that I’m still going to be a person who has other things,” Klara says.

“I think we’re all trying to figure that stuff out. I felt so much better in my own skin, and just the feeling that if this doesn’t work out for some reason, I’m still going to be a fully formed person. I have friends outside of this. And I think that’s a good thing to have, so you don’t feel so dependent on it.”

The sisters agreed to take a six-month break, with zero pressure to write or work in any capacity. During that time, her relationship of five years ended. Moving back to Sweden from the UK, Klara was struck by the inspiration that would shape the record.

“I’d had all these ideas about where my life was going, and then all of it changed very quickly. But I got to write about it, and now I can share it. And people say they can relate to the songs, and they’re in the exact same situation now that I was in, and it’s such a beautiful connection that we have with people,” Klara says.

As a new chapter of her life outside of the band, Klara is keen to continue challenging and expanding what First Aid Kit can do.

“As women, people expect us to be a certain way. There’s an expectation that we’re the Swedish, bohemian sisters who make beautiful folk music. And, well, yes. But we also do other stuff. We don’t want to limit ourselves,” Klara says. But just in the way that they empowered so many women, singing “I hope you fucking suffer” to any and all men who have abused their positions of power on ‘You Are the Problem Here’, Klara says they continued to be empowered and energised by the movement across the globe pushing women to the front.

“I feel such a sisterhood, we’ve come together. We need to change how we raise children. I feel there’s more and more people every day are realising it. That change will be better for everyone. But it’s going to take a long time, but I think we’ll get there.”

Originally published in Beat Magazine.

Cable Ties Ball | The Corner Award

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“It’s a bloody bleak scene if you’re only in this for yourself,” says Jenny McKechnie of the Melbourne music scene. “The music community is everything to us. It fosters interesting music, meaningful friendships and creative relationships. The music community in Melbourne is our life. I’d be so empty without it.”

McKechnie is certainly a well-functioning part of Melbourne’s music community. When she’s not fronting punk outfit Cable Ties, she’s strumming guitar in Wet Lips, while also running things over at Hysterical Records – an inclusive label she founded with Wet Lips comrade Grace Kindellan, and Amanda Vitaris of boutique booking agency Future Popes.

But at least for today, the focus is Cable Ties. The three-piece punk outfit has experienced a quick ascent to acclaim and a cult following since their inception in 2015, something that McKechnie, drummer Shauna Boyle, and bassist Nick Brown didn’t anticipate, but rightly deserve.

“When we started, we had all been in bands or were already in bands in the Melbourne music community, so we were well supported from the start to play gigs and make music,” McKechnie says.

They played their first show at the inaugural Wetfest, which humbly began in the backyard of McKechnie and Kindellan’s share house, and the support of this DIY punk community is what the band attributes their successes to thus far.

“We got to play a heap of shows with our mates because Joel booked us at every Old Bar show possible. This set us up pretty well to record and go on to everything else.”

From Old Bar and beyond, the past year saw the band signed to Poison City Records, release their self-titled debut LP to critical acclaim, earn triple j rotation, a place on the Meredith festival lineup, and support the Kills on their Australian tour.

So hardworking is the trio, that pinning them down for the interview for this article proved a struggle. Their hard work is palpable and was suitably acknowledged by their Corner Award win.

The Corner Hotel’s Corner Awards began in 2016 as a way to acknowledge and support Melbourne’s musicians who work so hard year round and push the boundaries of the scene. Alongside $2000 cash, the pressing of 150 limited edition 7” vinyl singles and rehearsal time at Bakehouse Studios prior to the big show, the winner’s prize includes the opportunity to put on a show at the iconic Corner Hotel. For Cable Ties, their winning show all comes back to honouring and supporting their community alongside them.

This February will see the first ever Cable Ties Ball, a multi-stage event with a huge lineup featuring the titular winners themselves, Miss Blanks, Habits, The Dacios and more. “The lineup is made up of bands or artists that inspire us in our creative practice or political ethos,” McKechnie says.

“Being able to put on the show is very exciting for us. We got to ask all our heroes to play on the lineup and somehow they all said yes. We can’t believe it.”

The band’s vision for the ball took inspiration from an event Cable Ties put on alongside Wet Lips at Gasometer last year to mark the release of their split single. “We put in a lot of effort to ritz up the place and make it a special event and it felt like a big party for everyone involved rather than just another gig.

“We wanted to take that idea but make it an even bigger thing at The Corner. We hope everyone gets in their glad rags and makes a proper night of it,” McKechnie says.

Originally published in Beat Magazine. 

Rise Against | A space dangerous for injustice

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“It would’ve been very easy to bitch about Trump, and have a negative overtone, but we didn’t want that.” Rise Against has always been a politically-charged, punk-rock outfit – so it’s no surprise that when Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, it had a big impact on the work.

“It definitely changed the direction of the record,” the band’s bass guitarist and co-founder, Joe Principe says of Trump’s win. “We started writing the record pre-election, and we were in the studio when Trump won, when we found out he was the president-elect. And Tim, who writes all of our lyrics, he took a step back and rewrote some things.”

What the record would’ve sounded like in the event of a Clinton administration is a mystery to everyone except Tim McIlrath. The lyricist had shared very little of his work before the album, and world, shifted.

“Musically, it was the same, the music was there, but lyrically, I’ll be honest, I’m not sure. I heard two songs pre-election, ‘House on Fire’, which is about Tim’s daughter, and ‘Bullshit’, which both have nothing to do with the election.”

Though not usually a band to shy away from melancholic political statements, Rise Against’s seventh record, Wolves, developed into a more uplifting narrative than the initial change of politics inspired.

“We didn’t want a doom and gloom record – just wallowing – we wanted a sense of hope, we wanted to feel a sense of empowerment,” Principe says.

The bassist points to the record’s title track for the best example of Wolves’ tone and themes. “It’s a song of empowerment, that our voice needs to be heard, and that there’s strength in numbers. That sums up the record, not every song is political, but the songs that have a positive spin.”

Rise Against have their roots firmly in the punk scene, starting out in the ‘90s and early 2000s, yet they’ve always had a knack for bleeding their very political work into the mainstream. It’s something that Principe attributes to the hard grind of starting out as a band, and the work ethic that develops from that kind of lifestyle.

“Playing in people’s basements and sleeping on people’s floors, it made us have thicker skin, and it helped us form valuable relationships in the music scene. There are people I met 25 – 30 years ago that I’m still friends with because of music,” Principe says.

It’s a lifestyle that’s less common as time goes on, and Principe argues that this is to the detriment of musicians. “Generally speaking, I feel like more and more bands are missing that experience of starting from the ground up. They have the internet at their disposal, some bands are signed before they even go on tour. We would’ve imploded if that had happened to us.”

Tapping into the joy of being a punk hardcore kid prompted the band to be mindful of those core, basic values that make the punk scene so adored and unique. Encouraging inclusivity and kindness, all members of the band have been vocal about the zero tolerance they have for hateful and toxic behaviour at their performances.

In the lead up to the release of the record, McIlrath said “In many ways, a Rise Against show is a safe space for our fans. But I want to create dangerous spaces where misogyny can’t exist, where xenophobia can’t exist. I want to create spaces where those sentiments don’t have any air, and they suffocate: where those ideas die. Wolves isn’t about creating a safe space, it’s about creating a space that’s dangerous for injustice.” It’s a sentiment that Principe echoes. “The whole reason why I got into the punk rock scene was because I felt like I was an outcast in the mainstream world, and when I found that scene and went to those shows, I felt I was with like-minded people, that this was a safe haven,” Principe says.

“If you’re going to bring homophobia, xenophobia, there’s no place for it. It’s not welcome. This is a safe haven. And we want that to be known. It’s 2017, we want to make sure people know it’s a safe haven, people can be who they want to be. Gender, faith, it doesn’t matter.”

 

Originally published in Beat Magazine.

Bianca Martin | Punk is an Attitude

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“Giving femme, queer, POC, trans, and gender non-conforming artists an extra leg up is imperative to their growth and success,” says Bianca Martin. 

“There’s nothing more punk than doing something you love and being your truest self. To me, this means radical vulnerability in songwriting and complete dedication to your passions. It means standing up for yourself and your values, and placing an importance on your community.”

Through her love of punk, Martin has experienced firsthand the striking state of gender equality within the music industry, and beyond. Rather than let this be, the drummer for The Girl Fridas and Piss Factory has strived for change each day since her arrival in the scene.

As a musician, booker, and fan, Martin has experienced difficulty gaining recognition, representation and support in the industry, from not being taken seriously, to micro-aggressions, abuse, and outright physical harassment.

Since her move to Melbourne, Martin has taken a proactive approach in supporting non-cis-men in creating music, driven by her dissatisfaction with the treatment of non-cis-men in the industry.

“[I was] sick of regularly being the only women on lineups and sick of seeing my queer and trans friends constantly looked over in favour of ‘mates’. I felt less inclined to go to shows where my identity wasn’t represented, because I also knew there would be a likelihood of being one of few women in the audience. The more of my friends I spoke to, the more this became an obvious issue.

“I had friends who desperately wanted to go see live music regularly, but didn’t feel safe going to a show where they knew they would stand out.

“It’s so easy to approach venues to put on shows in Melbourne, I figured it only made sense to use the privilege I had to take action into my own hands. It gives them a space where they can focus on music rather than defending their identities and existence.”

Martin regularly puts on events promoting safer spaces, and gender inclusive lineups within the scene, working with Girls Rock Melbourne and Sticky Institute, to provide support and representation for artists.

It’s an impressive effort, to say the very least. But Martin’s clear passion for DIY culture, and encouraging self-expression is so very punk. The community she’s helping to foster is important, as there is certainly a need for support and encouragement of non-cis-males in the industry.

“I don’t hear cis-male artists saying they’re having difficulty getting offered shows, or having bookers and sound people take them seriously, or that they get hassled and heckled or that people go out for a smoke during their set.

“Because of the society we’re raised in, cis-men generally feel more confident and deserving of shows. Giving femme, queer, POC, trans, and gender non-conforming artists an extra leg up by offering them shows first in environments where they feel comfortable is imperative to their growth and success.”

Representation is crucial in creating a shift in challenging what is considered punk, and the misconceptions, and dangerous gender norms and inequalities that exist within the industry, and beyond.

“There’s a saying, ‘You can’t be what you can’t see,’ which is something I keep going back to. Unsurprisingly the riot grrrl movement was a huge inspiration for starting the Girl Fridas. It really wasn’t until fully exploring that movement that we began to understand that what we wanted to do was realistic and achievable,” Martin says.

In early 2017, Bianca proposed a punk event for Melbourne Music Week, gathering her dream lineup, and fuelled by the fact she’d be able to pay them well, a rarity in local shows. However, the powers that be at MMW asked her to join the Live Music Safari, as her desire to represent the diversity within Melbourne’s punk scene fit the theme for the year, celebrating 40 years of punk.

This application of Martin’s original proposal to a large-scale event has allowed her to bring the punk acts she’s so passionate about to a wider audience, something she’s excited to do. “I’d like to broaden people’s perceptions about what punk can be,” Martin says. That’s pretty much as punk as it gets.

Originally published in Beat Magazine.

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Foster the People | An improvisational tone

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Isom Innis, keyboardist of Foster the People, brims with excitement, having just received the news that the Australian population had voted in favour of legalising same-sex marriage.

Though a remarkably joyous moment, he’s innately aware the landmark result follows not only months of campaigning during the actual polling period, but lifetimes of discrimination and pain for members of the LGBTQI+ community.

At the same time, the entertainment industry is in the spotlight for its abuse of sexual violence and assault towards women, and the leader of the USA is a man who’s on the record bragging about such behaviour. It’s exactly this harsh reality and political climate that inspired the indie darlings’ third album, Sacred Hearts Club, directed by the band’s lyricist, Mark Foster.

“Mark’s lyrics on the album are a response to everything that’s going on around the world. We’re experiencing divisiveness worldwide. We’re experiencing the same trends of nationalism and racism, all these horrible things around the world, not just in America,” Innis says.

The resulting record is far from downbeat, though his explanation of the inspiration may lead you to expect otherwise. In the same vein as their breakout hit, 2011’s ‘Pumped Up Kicks’, they’ve taken difficult and complex subject matter, and created something glossy and groovy. And that’s exactly what they set out to do.

“We wanted to turn around and make a record that celebrates life, that’s joyful and that says love is bigger than politics,” Innis says.

In their attempt to create something that broke away from themes of pain, their music took on a hypnotic tone – both musically and lyrically.

“It’s a dancier, more hip hop driven record than any of our previous works,” Innis says. “It was really exciting to create these grooves, and create these beats that take you out of your head, and almost hypnotise you. There’s something hypnotic about a beat you want to dance to. That was the foundation of the record.”

The four members of the band share a passion for the genre, and the beats that the record is built upon are rich in hip hop influences. The beat-driven album is a fresh sound for the band, and a growth from their extremely well-known earlier work. The change is something the band certainly felt they needed.

“Whenever you sit down to make music, especially when you make a record, you have to chase your instincts, you have to chase what’s inspiring, and what you’re 100 per cent passionate about. And for us, hip hop is a really special genre of music. It refuses to be characterised, and it takes in so many different influences,” Innis says.

Though Innis has been playing with Foster the People since 2009, Sacred Hearts Club is the first album in which he’s billed as an official member. He jokes that he and Sean Cimino, who is also billed as a core band member for the first time on this record, have always been a part of the band, this is just the first time they’re in the promo photos.

Innis co-wrote on the band’s sophomore album, 2014’s Supermodel, but Sacred Hearts Club is the first record he’s contributed to from the ground up. Though a difference to the band’s previous work is palpable, that change was largely born off-the-cuff, and without planning.
 
“Sacred Hearts Club is a record that’s born out of experimentation and improvisation. It’s a beat and groove driven record,” Innis says. “‘Loyal Like Sid & Nancy’ was the first idea that we got really excited about. It started as this atonal dance beat that I’d made. I showed it to Mark and he instantly responded by playing these orchestral chords – really the polar opposite of how you would expect someone to respond. These chords became the bridge of the song. That became a really important moment, not just musically, but lyrically on the record. It set the tone for how we wanted to finish the album. We really applied some of the sonic textures that we captured in that song across the board.

“A lot of happy accidents we stumbled upon just by opening ourselves up, chasing ideas, and following things wherever they were going to go,” Innis says.

It seems an apt way to write a record celebrating life in the midst of a rocky political climate.

Life is nothing if not improvisational.
Originally published in Beat Magazine. 

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Allday | Channeling spirituality

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On Allday’s single In Motion, he professes he’s no deity.

It’s but a line in the killer track with Japanese Wallpaper, but Tom Gaynor’s belief in something beyond him – and the inspiration that comes from that – is a rolling, passionate current that flows beneath his work as a musician. “Spirituality and musicality are a tightly entwined partnership, creating something better than the sum of their parts,” says Gaynor.

“I feel like when you’re making music, or making art, you have to be channelling something. And it’s something that I just feel. I’ve had enough evidence of spirituality in my experiences creating, so I have to live by it.”

Though he now resides in Los Angeles, and has lived most of his adult life in Melbourne, Gaynor’s Adelaide roots are part of what underpin his connection between his music and his spirituality.

“My friend says there’s a crystal shaft under the city, and I definitely feel that strange psychic pull going on in Adelaide. To be honest, I didn’t make much music in Adelaide. I made some of my first stuff there, but oftentimes I’ll go back to Adelaide and I’ll find it a very fruitful time for lyrics and ideas.”

After being raised in a Catholic household, and embracing what he calls typical teenage Atheism, as an adult, the 26-year-old has become interested in other philosophies. Though he muses that it’s probably a path walked by many people, he’s driven by what he identifies as spiritual energy, and apparently that energy is plentiful in his home town.

“A lot of artistic people, not just musicians but all creatives, move away from Adelaide and when we come back, we feel that same weird psychic energy that creates a freaky feeling, but also good artists,” says Gaynor. “If you’re a sensitive person to that weird energy, Adelaide can either freak you out or it can move you.”

Releasing a slew of mixtapes and a hugely successful debut album in 2014, Startup Cult, Gaynor has recorded the process of his growing up, since first becoming Allday in 2011.

 “Early days my motivation was be as big, be as known, as possible. On Speeding, my motivation was probably perfect a sound and perfect a mood.” Gaynor is not happy about the three year wait between Startup Cult and sophomore LP Speeding, a stretch he labels as weirdly long and says he plans not to repeat. “That should be the time where you just go hard and put out an album 11 months later, but I guess I was just going through a transitional phase, doing too many drugs, and I didn’t know what to say. “It was hard, because I wanted to make music, but I was spending too much time laying in bed feeling sorry for myself.” Fuelled by his indulgence in a less than healthy lifestyle, the move to Melbourne, and the bite of its bitter winters, may have seemed to halt his progress as a musician, but ended up shaping what would become Speeding. “I wanted to capture a more fun perspective of living in Melbourne, but it just didn’t come. The themes were unconscious.” Despite originally being inspired to create a big pop record, the resulting album is made up of vastly different themes and sonics than he set out to create. “Those [pop] songs weren’t turning out right, and it ended up being a shorter, Melbourne-esque thing. I think I had to get that out of the way, I had to get those songs from that era done,” Gaynor says. “My attitude to that time had changed, and this was where I was at. By the time I finished it I wasn’t going through that heavy, come down from drug depression in Melbourne anymore, but I had to get that out.” The influence of producers Cam Bluff and Mitch Graunke helped Gaynor step away from the set-in-stone idea of creating a pop record, and perfect the wintery, Melburnian sound that resulted. “Cam is amazing on drums, watching him program drums on Ableton is amazing, to me it’s like watching a sunset, or a waterfall, it’s beautiful.” The partnership between the three saw Gaynor possess a level of control he’d not had on Startup Cult. It also helped him grow into a more collaborative musician, something he is somewhat resistant to. “It wasn’t so much conscious as I have trouble connecting [with other artists], especially with rap. If I can do it, why put someone else on it? It’s something I’ve had to get over. “When you’re making a song you’re either making it for yourself or for an audience, or a bit of both, and sometimes I make it for myself too much. It becomes more about me wanting to say certain things, rather than write a song for the enjoyment of others. That balance, it’s something I wrestle with,” Gaynor says. “Control is important to me. It’s my product, I’m the one whose name is on it. It’s hard to make anyone care about it as much as I do, it’s not physically possible. But [creating the album] was an exercise in growing and understanding what to control. [On Speeding] I had a high level of control, that I didn’t have before, maybe too much control. I know now that some things are not meant to be done alone.”

Originally published in Beat Magazine.

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HAIM | Strong women, new music

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“We’re really feeling like strong women right now. Bosses of our own fate. Making our own music, not taking shit from anybody – writing every word, every chord and every song.”

In a time where feminism is commodified across not only the music industry, but the creative sphere as a whole, it’s encouraging to see strong women making their mark and pushing for their place in the industry.

Ahead of their sophomore release Something to Tell You, Danielle Haim’s triumphant proclamation of female empowerment on behalf of herself and her two sisters, Este and Alana – whom together make up HAIM – is more than fitting. Since their formation, the musical sisterhood has worked on honing their craft, developing into an exciting and an extremely experienced touring outfit.

The multi-instrumentalist sisters meld their charm and effortless style alongside impressive and ambitious arrangements to create a harmonic and deftly punctuated mix of pop, folk and rock.

It’s been four years since HAIM released their smash hit debut album Days are Gone, years that have seen the sisters tour extensively across the globe. But before the band became instantly recognisable for their catchy tunes, they were touring, going so far as to have performed as a family band alongside their parents – Von Trapp style – in their even younger years.

Stepping off the road and into a somewhat more stable life wasn’t an effortless transition. The end of the tour – and of that chapter of their lives – had the young women face the reality of not having a place to live. Checking out of the hotel – in the style of any young person looking for some security – the trio returned to a familiar stomping ground. Their parent’s house.

“After everything we had done it felt nice to be back – to go home and go to my childhood room,” says Danielle. “We rehearsed there every day for seven or eight years, dreaming of playing Saturday Night Live. To go back there now is very surreal. It’s so fucking crazy.”

Filled with those memories of their younger years perfecting the craft, the space was a perfect fit. The living room of their family home still set up as a rehearsal space, instruments and electronics all ready to go, the very same room featured in their first music video, 2012’s Forever.

It took months of work in that very living room before the foundation of Little of Your Love came together, setting things for their sophomore album in motion.

“When we wrote that, it felt like, ‘Hey, we still know how to do this. It’s happening.’ Then we finally got the ball rolling.”

Coming of age is a source of inspiration for many artists, and for good reason. The advent of age is the progression of a story, and with age comes the maturity and experience to push oneself.

After the success of Days are Gone, there was a lot to live up to, an expectation that the sisters seemingly took in their stride.

Returning to the very walls that heard the start of HAIM’s now hugely popular sound was a grounding experience for the sisters, who continue to grow as they work alongside each other. Rather than returning to exactly what they know, they were inspired to push themselves in what makes them unique and grow their sound.

“On the first record we were messing around a lot with production and samples. Now, coming off of three years of touring, we thought, ‘Let’s just go in and record as a band, keep it a little more organic.’ That was a mission statement for the album,” says Danielle.

Ariel Rechtshaid – who produced both of HAIM’s albums – says they’ve achieved their mission statement on Something to Tell You.

“They’re a very different band than on the last record. After three years of touring, they’re on another level. The fundamentals they have are unique,” Rechtshaid says.

“The lyrics have themes of finding strength; of old and new love. There’s loneliness and vulnerability, but also empowerment. We wanted to focus on what is unique about HAIM, and be willing to let them be them.”

Rechstaid recorded the album, and worked alongside Rostam Batamanglij (Vampire Weekend) on the production. The selection of this small team was an integral part of the album’s creation for the band, youngest sister Alana, says.

“With the first record, we learned that you really need to find people to work with that respect your musicality and ideas. Ariel and Rostam both really wanted to celebrate us as sisters and how serious we are about our music.”

Originally published here.