CINEMATIC’ feels obsessed with romance as something slightly unreal. When you were writing it, did Like An Actress already exist in your heads, or did that idea surface later once the song was finished?
We knew that we wanted to do an EP after our second album, but we didn’t know the themes or the form that it would take. We like to let the songs dictate the emotional depth of each release, and Cinematic had this incredible joy and metaphor to it, which felt like a natural theme across all the tracks of the EP.
You’ve said the song feels nostalgic while it’s still happening. Do you think that’s about the way love works now, or more about how you both tend to process emotion?
Nostalgia is such a powerful emotion! It’s obviously a feeling of love & longing for the past, but smothered with a rich tapestry of senses. Love is the only thing I can think of that works similarly & feels alike! Love’s super physical & vivid but full of hope and fear and everything in between – at least in our experience!
The imagery in ‘CINEMATIC’ is very vivid — sneaking into places, kissing in the streets, that rush at night. Do those scenes come first when you’re writing, or do they grow out of the feeling?
The sneaking-in part was a very real experience! We built off that, every other line had to have the same gravitas, and movie scenes were the perfect building blocks for the song.
This EP leans much more into live instruments and a band feel. Was that a conscious reset for you creatively, or did it happen naturally as the songs started coming together?
It was more a result of our new environment and collaborators – we’ve both recently relocated to Sydney, so we’re working with some fantastic new people who have very different ways of working than in Aotearoa. And quite hilariously, when you relocate, your stuff is kinda in random places around your house – it just so happened that my acoustic guitar was always leant up against the couch, & would be the first thing I reached for with ideas.
You’ve mentioned the live show shaping the writing this time. Were there moments where you suddenly knew a song worked because you could already picture it on stage?
Definitely! Cinematic was a major one – as was Suckerpunch. Both have these huge senses of euphoria which gives you the feeling of being on stage. You know it’s a hit when you’re singing it in your living room pretending to hold a mic hahah.
Recording back in Aotearoa with Josh Naley, did being in a familiar place change how open or honest the writing felt?
Yeah Josh is great – it’s nice to have a collaborator that’s been across literally every project we’ve ever put out. There’s a nice grounding to writing in Aotearoa, and with Josh that helped recontextualise some of the wilder ideas we had over in Australia.
Like An Actress circles around themes you’ve explored before — love, loss, identity. Did those ideas come out of real conversations between you, or did the music open those doors on its own?
We’re always talking about our lives to each other – our challenges, joys & everything! It’s natural that lyrically our stories are often touching on those core subjects because our friendship is at the root of Foley – but which conversation or theme we write about 100% depends on the mood of the music. The first lyrics will always depend on how we’re feeling about the chords or melodies we’re constructing on the day.
After the response to ‘HONEY’ and That’s Life, Baby!, did you feel any pressure heading into this EP, or did working in a more organic way actually quiet that noise?
Not pressure, but we definitely had an intention to continue to write experimentally, and figure out what our relocation & life changes had done to the music. That’s Life, Baby! was such a pivotal record because we felt we finally unlocked the Foley sound or very intricate, experimental pop – and wanted to dive further into it, and see what other boundaries we could push!
You’ve worked with some heavy hitters on the technical side. When a song is already emotionally complete, how do you know when polishing it helps — and when it might risk sanding something away?
Haha these have been the best mixes and masters Foley’s ever had! We stumbled across Pedro Calloni who’d written with some of our favourite contemporaries, and he instantly heard what we were going for. Foley’s always been a collaborative project and we always find bringing other creatives on board helps & lifts our songs, and hasn’t ever hindered them!
Right now, does Like An Actress feel like a stepping stone into whatever comes next for FOLEY, or more like a snapshot of exactly where you are at this point in time?
A bit of both! It’s definitely a snapshot of right now – and we’ve made pains to show that in all the imagery, press photos, lyrics – lots of movement metaphors, bright colours, deep blues & some visual nods to our musical upbringings. It’s been awesome crafting this & I’m sure the next one will be a blast too.
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