Highline Interview

by the partae

Where are you currently based?

Sydney.

How did the band form?

We started playing together a couple of times during highschool. We were all in the school jazz band and just slowly started to get together and muck around. About a year after we left school though we started rehearsing properly and giving it a proper go (2019).

What’s been happening recently?

We’ve just finished recording our debut album earlier in the year which is really exciting. In the last few months however we’ve all done a bit of travel and taken some time away before we dive back in to rehearsing and touring

Your single ‘Exit A’ is out now, what influenced the sound and songwriting?

Like a lot of songs of ours the sound for this was developed over a couple trips away together to the country where we spend days at a time working on nothing but music together. The structure and texture was slowly fleshed out over about a year and then the lyrics all came together over a couple hours after 11 months of writers block and mumbling.

What is the meaning behind Exit A?

EA is a song about losing a friend. It’s reflecting on the loss and realising that the writing was on the wall so to speak “I should have seen this coming from miles away”. 

It’s frustrating losing people that once meant so much to you and this song expresses that frustration. 

This song was one of those tunes where the general premise was always there but no progress was really made for about a year then it all sort of wrote itself within a couple of hours. 

The title came about because the chords were E and A, so we just called the song EA, which is how we arrived at Exit A.

The song captures the sadness that comes with witnessing this happen and the reflective emotions that come with recognising things aren’t how they used to be, and wondering whether you could have stopped it from happening. 

How did you come up with the title Exit A?

The chords to the song are E and A so we just used to call it ‘EA’ when rehearsing early on. We wanted to give a little nod to this work in progress title and James came up with Exit A which we all loved a lot.

Please tell us about your songwriting process:

Our process has evolved over the last 4 years to become a lot more collaborative. A lot of the time Sam will come with a song that’s more or less half written and then we pick it a part and put it back together as a group but on this album there are a few songs that weren’t like that at all. 

Who or what influences your sound and songwriting?

What are your highlights of 2023?

I think definitely recording this album. We were at Golden Retriever studio’s in Marrickville With Callum Howell (Ocean Alley) and it was a very special moment for all of us to see this project come together after so much time and hard work. We also had some shows early in the year with Old Mervs that were a blast and our first festival Ice Breakers in Sydney which was just unreal.

What’s planned for the remainder of 2023 going into 2024?

Release new music. Support South Summit and play our first show in Tassie on the 5th of Jan at Good Gumnuts Festival! 

Next year we plan to tour nationally and get this album out there into the world!

Favourite food and place to hangout?

Pesto Pasta. Our favourite place to hang out is anywhere with each other.

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