Heart And Rockets Interview

How did you first start playing music?I started playing guitar in high school but very badly… I think Kalindy and I both started bands we actually loved – before meeting each other – in Sydney in around 2006/2007. We’d end up playing at the same warehouse parties and became friends that way. We started playing as Hearts and Rockets in 2016 just for fun – and are still having heaps of fun doing it.

What’s been happening recently?

We’ve been working on some new songs, we only really just released ‘You Don’t Know What You Have Until You’ve Had Enough’ two months ago and the video clip only about a month ago, so lots of work on that!

You’ve recently released a remix of your single ‘You Don’t Know What You Have Until You’ve Had Enough’ what influenced the sound and songwriting for this track?

Kalindy woke up singing the chorus in the middle of the night one night, and had to make it a song. We released it on a split 7″ with Zig Zag and I reckon just even that arrangement influenced how it sounds. The song had started off completely differently, then when we knew it would be being released alongside theirs we changed it and it was for the better! The theme of the song kind of stayed the same, though – it’s about how shitty people can be, just in general public interactions like shopping centres. It was written before the COVID-19 crisis, too, so that stuff is next level now.

Where and when did you record/produce/master and who did you work with?

We’re lucky that we can record at home – not having a drum kit helps with that. I engineer all of Hearts and Rockets’ recordings, but we always get someone else to mix and master them. For this single, Matt Chow mixed and mastered it, as he was doing Zig Zag’s single and knows our band really well. He’s done live sound for us countless times, including our first show ever! We’re really happy with the end result, and he even went ahead and recorded some live drums for the mix which sound amazing. Matt plays in Shepparton Airplane and Tankerville, two great Melbourne bands.

Please tell is about how the track came to be remixed and the process that took place:

It actually just came from a throwaway comment on a Facebook thread – I suggested that people could get the stems from us and make a remix if they wanted to, and a bunch of people said they were keen to do so. We ended up with 4 being finished and sent to us so we thought it was a good opportunity to do an EP. Each artist did their own remix and aded their own sound, and Mino Peric mastered the EP for us.Is the result what you originally expected?

It was different than I expected it to be, but better than I expected it to be! I guess that’s why we thought it would be worthwhile releasing it. The artists involved are some of our favourite Melbourne musicians, so it makes sense that they turned out great, but the 4 takes here are all so fresh and cool and different – not only from each other, but from the original song.

The launch at BMF was cancelled but you launched online, how was this experience?

It was so devastating when Brunswick Music Festival was cancelled – it was definitely the right decision by the festival, it was all happening right at the point where COVID-19 was spreading far too quickly, and tours and shows were starting to get cancelled left, right and centre. We had already pressed the record and made badges and printed t-shirts and had put so much into the single’s release, that we really didn’t want to just let that momentum go. So we decided to host live sets on the same night that the launch was supposed to be happening. Zig Zag did there’s from their backyard, and we followed with a set from our loungeroom. It was one of the first – if not the first – weekend that people had really started to stay home so we had a nice collection of people watching and commenting, and it coincided with the first Friday that Bandcamp waived their fees, so we were also able to sell a bunch of records and merch!

Who are you listening to at the moment?

I can’t get enough of Primo!’s track Comedy Show, and Mystery Guest’s album Octagon City rules. Kalindy’s still stuck into her faves Siouxsie and the Banshees and disco! She’s big into Betty Davis Eyes at the moment.

I run the label that we release music on, Psychic Hysteria, am a freelance publicist, booker and photographer, and work part time and broadcast at a community radio station so that’s most of my time done. Kalindy is a freelance illustrator, designer and photographer. Aside from that, we both like riding bikes, gardening and cooking.

What’s planned for 2020, any new music on the way?

We do have new music coming! We’re about to announce the launch for our next single, which will be happening June 20 as part of an online music festival that’s yet to be announced… The song is called Milk Bar and will also have a video clip.

Favourite food and place to hangout?

Inside for the moment still, but otherwise we’re pretty low key with eating food out. If we do, it’s usually at Tonkin on Smith Street, it’s amazing. The sushi place in Northland is better than most fancy Japanese restaurants I’ve tried!