While genre-crossing Sydney-based songwriter Andy Bull first garnered attention with a handful of collaborative singles (‘Dog’ with Lisa Mitchell one of his earlier successes), the chameleonic artist has spent the better part of his decade-long career working alone.
Although there’s been an EP and a number of successful singles since his 2009 debut album, We’re Too Young, it seems like a lifetime since that release. Now, Bull is ready to air his latest album, Sea Of Approval – but still he’s transitioning into the next juncture.
“It’s all beginning now – this is the moment where I go from having finished the record to talking about it,” Bull says. “I think I’m starting a bit late, though. If I take forever to answer anything it’s because I haven’t figured it all out myself yet.”
When asked what part of the album journey he’s on he chuckles at the cliché, and rightly so. “The word ‘journey’ is, you know, used a lot, but making a record really is like that – it’s a series of shifts that you have to make intellectually,” he says. “Before you start the project, for instance, and where you end up, and the end of it when you play it onstage, there’s half a dozen shifts you need to make, and it’s quite challenging.
“To be perfectly frank, if I were to approach this part – this shift – while I was too caught up in the making of it, I wouldn’t engage very well. I’d be too focused on the small details and I’d be too critical, which isn’t necessarily a compelling narrative to someone else. Because I work mostly alone, I’m forced to constantly analyse everything – I’m songwriter, I’m performer, I’m musician, I’m producer, I’m kinda manager, now I become, like, my hype man, and underneath all that you’re also maybe a jaded artist.”
Despite this artistic isolation, Bull’s time on the road and pushing out of his comfort zone in collaboration provided a bridge of sorts between his first album, his 2010 Phantom Pains EP and the new record. “I toured with Little Red and Lisa Mitchell and a few jangly, folky, indie bands and it was really fun, so I think that EP was reconciling all those experiences of collaborating with people who were less musicians and more performers, or something. That EP was about getting that energy in there and getting me to loosen up how I do things, and feeling like I can be a part of what was happening around me.”
Actually, from an outsider’s perspective Bull has appeared to be positively immersed in the local scene for years, but that hasn’t always been the truth. “On the subject of scenes, I was talking to Kirin J Callinan who – in his words – was front and centre in the scene when I was completely oblivious to it and completely on the outer,” he says. “Growing up, I didn’t feel connected to the scene and I didn’t feel like I had a way into it, but now I see tonnes of people doing amazing stuff that matters globally coming out of the scene all around me. The whole world was so foreign it was like I didn’t even know what I was missing out on, but once I stepped in I realised it was accessible and it’s not nearly as inaccessible as I thought it would be.
“People are just so busy just trying to survive for themselves that generally speaking there isn’t any cliquiness – not entirely, but for the most part, everyone wants everyone else to do well.”
Sea Of Approval out now through Island / Universal. Catch Andy Bull alongside New Navy at the Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle on Friday September 12 (tickets here)and the Metro Theatre on Saturday September 13 (tickets here).
