You’ve just released your album ‘Sanctuary’ what influenced the sound and songwriting?
The sound of Sanctuary was as much inspired by musicians we were listening to at the time as it was by our surroundings in the beautiful Nambucca beach house where we whipped it up. We’ve always had a big stinky stew of influences and between us, at the time, we were listening to everything from Anderson.Paak and Jessie Ware to Joni Mitchell and Jeff Buckley. The album is eclectic, for sure, but I think the overall message communicated in there is a strong thread. The message is one of disillusionment and burnout brought about by the age of COVID, Instagram, billionaires and day jobs.
How did you go about writing Sanctuary?
Speaking for myself and, I think, on behalf of all of us, writing Sanctuary was one of the most fulfilling, joyous and serendipitous times of our lives. We holed up in the aforementioned beach house that we found through Air BnB mainly because I think we all just wanted to reconnect after a year of no gigs and a massive loss of momentum. We knew we wanted to write something but didn’t know just how much we’d be pumping out. I think we wrote 9 songs in a week (a couple more we added to the album later.) Between all day jam sessions, home cooked meals and beach trips, we definitely found some magic to bring home with us.
What does this album mean to you?
I think for any artist an album will always feel like a huge milestone and it certainly did for us. What makes this album even more significant to us all is that we were able to achieve it in the midst of so much chaos. We had members leaving the band, COVID running rampant and everything in between but we managed to pull something together that we’re extremely proud of and shows our fans just how far we’ve come.
Where and when did you record/produce/master and who with?
The record was produced by ourselves and our genius friend Daniel Willington, who also mixed the album. We returned to the Sanctuary beach house where we wrote the album, armed with any piece of musical equipment we could muster between the six of us and just busted our asses for two blissful weeks. We’d literally do 9am-3am days of recording and producing interspersed nicely by copious beverages and debauchery. It was recorded earlier this year and mastered later on by the legendary Steve Smart at Studios 301
How did you approach the recording process?
We took a full blown DIY approach to the record excluding mastering (hey, it’s always good to have a 3rd opinion). We literally piled all our interfaces, studio monitors, guitars, horns, synths, percussion and anything else we could muster into our cars and hauled it up to Nambucca. When we got there we chucked some mattresses against the walls, I claimed a cupboard as a vocal booth and we got to work, trying to use the house, which was definitely not built for recording, to our advantage.
What programs/equipment did you use?
The best thing about recording so collaboratively was that we were able to all use our own DAWs to work on some additional recording. Daniel ran Logic through UAD in the main room for drums, guitars, bass, horns, synths and percussion. I also ran logic in my little vocal booth and got to edit and record my own vocals which was a huge treat! Travers also would be tapping away at his laptop creating sounds on Sylenth which, we used as little pieces of ear candy throughout the record.
What’s planned to support the album?
We’ve been holding back since the release but we’re finally set up with a big East Coast tour from January – April 2022 which we are absolutely itching for.
Any shows coming up? When/Where?
The tour will cover Brisbane, Sunny Coast, Melbourne, Sydney and a bunch of other spots away from the capital (see website for tix/deets!) We’re also excited to be jumping back into festivals next year with Bohemian Beatfreaks and Dragon Dreaming kicking us off.
What’s planned for the remainder of 2021 going into 2022?
Fun, games, surprises, tears, laughter, debauchery, deep introspection, self discovery, world domination and a few gigs.
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