What've you been up to in iso?

 

Well I (Jax) live with Ricky who is the bassist. So we've been working on a lot of band stuff… music videos, recording new music. We've been working on one project for Brainworm Records with a few other bands too which is exciting.

 

I also did a live stream on Instagram with one of our friends Keep it Posi; she's awesome, super supportive. It's a lot of fun and I wouldn't mind doing some more of that! No one's there but people are watching you… it was weird! But I had a lot of fun.

 

Aside from that I've been reading, watching some shows, just chillin'. 

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Okay let's go back to your debut self titled EP. Great stuff, super grungy but also kinda indie-pop, I love it!

 

Yeah thanks! That's kinda what we were going for (laughter).

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How would you say this album differs from the EP?

 

The new album has more upbeat songs… I think that's the main difference. The songs are a lot faster in tempo and we also recorded a second guitar track which we never did for the EP. So it definitely has a more full sound to it. We also did more effects with my vocals with more gain and reverb on it which makes it sound a little lo-fi in a way.

 

The lyrics on the EP was more social-political things that I touched on, whereas this one is more about life experiences in general from falling in love with someone to losing a friend, to just growing up and realising things are more different to how you thought they'd be.

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So in saying that, how would you best describe your sound to people that have never listened to your music before?

 

Like lo-fi indie-pop I guess. Our drummer gets really mad because people still refer to us as punk… she's like, "we're not a punk band!"

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(Laughter)

 

That's kind of where we all came from and now together we wanted to play something new, but so the same people would still enjoy it. There's also a bit more rock 'n roll in this one!

I've noticed the band has done heaps of gigs. Where is the most memorable place you've ever performed at?

 

We've only done mostly west coast gigs up until Vegas. The tour we had planned we were going to go to Canada… so we're super excited to do that when we eventually can.

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But I had a lot of fun playing in Sacramento in northern California! They have something really special there when it comes to the music community. We played there on a Wednesday night and there were so many people there, and the bands that we played with were so amazing. They even made it kind of an earlier show so people could still come regardless of their work week.

 

That's also where we recorded the LP with Pat Hills, so we saw a lot of Sacramento because everyone was showing us around every night when we were up there recording.

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What would you say is the band's funniest tour story?

 

(Laughter) There's a couple of really funny things. 

 

One of the last runs we did or on the way home from recording, we were stuck in traffic and Ricky really had to go to the restroom. He literally had to pull over so he could run into the woods and take care of that. We have him on video running to and from the woods and our guitarist made a really funny video out of it. 

 

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(Laughter) You've gotta make that into exclusive content for fans or something.

 

Haha yeah!

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Okay back to Everything Goes - what is your current or all time favourite track from the album and why?

 

My personal favourite is probably You've Got You Now. We released a video for that one not long ago.

 

The song is about growing up and looking back on yourself as a child and remembering how you viewed things from that innocent perspective, and just realising that sometimes things just change. So in a way there's that nostalgia because it's nice but also kind of depressing because things are different from how you thought they'd turn out to be.

 

I titled the song You've Got You Now because the whole thing made me think of the movie Drop Dead Fred. It's an old early 90s comedy. The movie is about a girl who's imaginary friend from her childhood comes back as an adult. It’s a really funny and silly movie, but in the end they have to say their final goodbye. And he says to her, "You've got you now, you don’t need me anymore,"  because she's happy again. So that's where that  title came from because it relates to seeing the parallel of your childhood and your adulthood.

 

And I musically like it because it's dark but also pretty.

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Yeah! That's the thing about art. You can reinvent concepts and ideas from all over the place and turn them into something new and special.

 

Yeah! And actually the title of the album Everything Goes is a literary reference from one of my favourite books Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion. There's this part that stood out to me where she's reflecting on her past and she says how everything goes and that's just the way it is, so that's where the title came from.

 

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Who are you currently listening to?

 

Currently I'm listening to a lot of Anika Pyle who was the singer of Chumped, and she has her own project now called Katie Ellen. And then she and a few others have a four-track EP called Simple Pleasures and I've had that on repeat.

 

And then Mannequin Pussy is one of my favourite bands right now. Their music is amazing and they also have a female singer. I'm always drawn to bands with female vocalists, it's always just so inspiring and admirable.