INTERVIEW: SONGS

by Beth Keating.

Sydney-based band, Songs, are awaiting the release of their debut self-titled album on November 21. With a steadily growing fan base, and a strong live reputation, Songs encapsulate listless energy through simple, melodic, guitar-based pop, which echoes, drones and shimmers. We're looking forward immensely to hearing the album...

Can you tell us about how Songs came into being, a bit about the different members and what you are hoping to achieve through the music?

Steve: Jeff and I basically grew up together in New Zealand, we have more or less been working together in some form or another since high school. I moved to Australia a while ago so that I could find work that I didn't loathe doing.

Max tells me he grew up in New Zealand, cut his teeth playing in various bands, albeit a decade or two before us. Not dissimilar to Jeff and I, Max took a small hiatus from playing music, found a profession that pays and has spent the latter part of his life in London and then Sydney. He is is pretty handy with a camera these days.

Ela does an admirable job of holding her own as the sole female and Australian citizen in the band. As someone who was unfamiliar with playing in a group she has been thrown into a slightly obscure band dynamic in regards to age and demographic etc. I believe she used the term 'pathetic' to describe her first experience playing music with the three of us. To this day I still find that rather amusing and in many ways sums up her temperament quite well.

The four of us have been playing together for about a year and a half now.

In regards to what we hope to achieve, I have no idea. We don't really sit down and talk about it. It's hard not to respond vaguely, isn't it? I think we work quite hard but we are not terribly ambitious, or at least unrealistic. I guess when expressing yourself in any field there is some innate desire or hope that people appreciate it or at least engage with it on some level as well. It's nice to have an audience. An audience beyond your family and friends who feel sorry for you.


What would you cite as the main influences on the band's sound?

Steve: Rock stupidity and art smarts? That's a Bruce Russell quote Jeff shared with us the other day. I think unknowingly we tend to subscribe to this school of thought. Most references that orbit our band are most probably barefaced and equally comfortable sitting in a vague lineage that leads you to the Velvet Underground. It's pretty simple stuff. Most people can fill in the gaps from there.


On stage, the band gives the impression as being four very articulate musicians, who are very solid in their specific roles. What is the songwriting process generally like for the band? Is it directed by a particular person, or more of a group effort?

Steve: Individually none of us are particularly established on the instruments we choose to play - last time I checked anyway - yet I think you're right. We are probably quite robust, at least in the sense that we know what we are playing, and we know what we are not playing. We are pretty hip to our own limitations and we tend to avoid upsetting a song by recognizing this. If we seem solid it's probably because we don't try to anything to fancy and we like to rehearse.

The songwriting process is probably an atypically democratic affair. There are no clearly defined roles in the band, though for the most part we start with a loose melody and lyrical sort of sketch that Max brings in and puts on the table. Sometimes it works straight away, with some others not so much. These tend to go through a 'Songs' blender and come out the other end a little more mutated. We all can play each others instruments as badly as each other so if we have run any of the ideas into the ground we tend to switch instruments, and if that fails, which it usually does, we usually resort to endless dub inspired jams for the rest of the evening. Funny but true.


Most of the band relocated from New Zealand to Sydney, how have you found the local music scene over here? Has the move changed the music you are creating at all?

Jeff: I think there is a lot of great music happening in Sydney, and there are aspects of the music community here that are really incredible. Unfortunately I think that most of the good stuff goes mostly unnoticed without much of an audience. The same situation exists in New Zealand of course, but per capita it all seems a bit better.

If you mean in terms of Sydney music creeping into our sound, I wouldn't say so, no. I don't hear a real localised sound here. You do get the same infiltration of media in New Zealand as you do here, but I think musicians back home, in certain circles, are a bit better at blotting out that kind of stuff. They are isolated in small towns, boarded up in damp rooms, shivering over their crackling amps and are making really amazing, idiosyncratic, honest art because of it. The industry of music is monolithic in Sydney and I think it's helped the band to ignore that side of things as much as we can, to just focus on the music and the three other people we are sharing the room or stage with. I think being here in Sydney definitely made me more aware and critical of our practice. I know for me personally I need to be very clear about what I'm comfortable plaguing the world with. There are a lot of people making albums.

Can you tell us a little about The Spring Press label - are you still producing music through this, or are future releases coming out through Popfrenzy?

Jeff: The Spring Press is something I've been doing in my spare time for a couple years now. Its a project where I get an opportunity to work with artists I really like and put things out that I believe are crucial, or whatever. I wish I could put out more but money gets in the way a lot of the time as I only want to deal in vinyl and hardcover books. It's definitely not a business or anything. I've had the pleasure of working with some really amazing photographers, writers and musicians from all over the world though, and I hope I can keep doing it as it's something I find really rewarding. I have a few things coming up in the next year, but in the near future is a solo LP from Bruce Russell and an LP with American quartet Psychic Ills (which has been quite a while in the works, but I do have the recordings now!). Both of which I'm very excited about it.

As a band we have put out a couple releases through The Spring Press simply because we were in a position to pay for them ourselves and we had time to put into getting it out ourselves. I would rather not release anything I'm personally involved with on the label, and I'm sure we could have found someone else to do the split, but how could you say no to anything involving The Bats?

We started working with Chris and his team at Popfrenzy after he heard the EP we did off our own backs. After the first pressing he did a second run on his label and distributed it through his existing networks. He's since put out our split 7" with Love of Diagrams and has funded and is releasing our upcoming album. It's a good relationship as we're friends, and it's not completely exclusive so we are free to do other releases as we please – which is ideal really. I would imagine the band will do more releases down the line on The Spring Press, but who knows when or what that might be.


What have you got lined up for the future? Are any new releases in the works?

Jeff: Our self titled album that we recorded in March is coming out in November through Popfrenzy. Its 12 tracks and about an hour long. We recorded it live over the course of a week with Casey Rice at BigJesusBurger in Surry Hills. It was really great working with Casey and doing it at BJB where all those great Sun & Oren Ambarchi records were done, where we had access to all their amazing equipment. We are all pretty happy with it how it turned out, so are looking forward to finally releasing it. We will be following it with a brief tour in the last week of November throughout Australia. It's also being released separately in New Zealand so we are looking to go over there again early next year. We want to write and record another EP in the coming months as well as get some material down for a split we are doing with a band from New Zealand called Surf City.

Max and Ela are both working on or recording solo releases at the moment, and by the sounds they are doing some interesting collaborations, so they should be great. Steve just finished a New Zealand tour with Mild America and will be doing that again early next year. An EP of four guitar pieces I recorded about four years ago is coming out in November on Perth label Farmer Frontier, I'm working on more solo recordings soon as well as recordings with Paul Gough under the name Mandala Trap.