Melbourne’s Foreign/National debut ‘The Hedonist’

It started a couple of years ago when i moved back to Melbourne after two years living in the UK & France and as a result, I was broke and living with my parents down on the coast with my brother Sean (Bassist). Things tend to move pretty slow down there and boredom comes only too easily, I guess. I’d played in bands since I was 15, but had taken a couple of years off music. I guess as a way of dealing with being back home, Sean and I began writing music again, mostly centering on these foreign locations and the people we’d met in our travels. From there we were sort of drawn back into music and got our mates involved, making it a collaborative 5 piece.

Partially it stems from listening to a lot of old Brazilian pop music and bossa-nova and trying to imitate the chord shapes and re-interpret those moods, whilst Tom (guitarist) listens to a a fair bit of psych and injects those broken/fried guitar parts. It also comes from treating recording and live as mutually exclusive. On record we want something restrained, lounge-y and romantic (the tropical elements), but live we want it to be visceral and chaotic with a sense total abandonment in those psych elements.

Paul Simon and The Beatles obviously copped a flogging, but probably the biggest pop influence growing up and still is, is Burt Bacharach. His songs are hits; laden with hooks but still possessing a timeless sincerity. They’ve instilled this ongoing desire for us to write ‘the perfect’ pop song. Something that is relatable, but not contrived, catchy but un-predictable and always genuine.
There are really no rules that bind the way in which our band releases its music. In terms of what we have put out, it’s been a constant exploration of ideas condensed into pop songs until we find a sound we want to commit an entire album to.

With perhaps the exception of perpetual hubs like London and New York , musical hubs are forever changing, based on a number of factors that may be the result of a traceable societal shifts or perfect coincidence. Currently Melbourne is an amazing place to be making music. There is no ‘one scene’ and I think the overseas success of artists like Courtney Barnett and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have given local artists the confidence that they can create music the exact way they want whist still gaining that wider audience. 
Listen to these bands: Krakatau, Sunbeam Sound Machine, Crepes, Ara Koufax, Love Migrate.

The album is well and truly on its way and overseas dates aren’t too far off. ‘The Hedonist’ is a signifier of whats to come, it won’t be part of the album but certainly a precursor. A focus more on feel and groove, tapping into disco, funk and Motown, broken vibrato soaked guitars and further exploring the idea of ’Nostalgic Pop’.

Tags: News, Foreign / National, Listen, Premiere