1.Growing Up
I grew up in a house with five kids who were all learning the violin (badly) at the same time – there is no worse sound in the world than that. My parents weren’t musicians but they did encourage it a lot. I picked up the guitar at 17 by learning ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ and never looked back.
2.Inspirations
There are too many artists that inspire me, but for now I’ll just say Stevie Wonder because I watched a documentary last night on his career and how he was pioneering the use of Moog synths in the ’70s.
3.Your Band
The band is me, Patch, Joe, Neely and Tom. We’re brothers, cousins and a best friend. We didn’t have much musical talent before we decided to start a band, so we were really bad for a long while, but then we got better by playing a lot of shows.
4.The Music You Make
All of our music is written in the same way, with an acoustic guitar, recorded into a voice memo on the phone and then played out with the band until it’s sitting really nicely with all of us. Once that is done we usually think about it for a few weeks, and then we go into the studio and quickly knock it out. We are yet to do a big stint in a studio so it’s currently a day per song.
5.Music, Right Here,Right Now
Music right now is amazing. I hear an album like M83 – Junk, Chance The Rapper – Coloring Book or Two Door Cinema Club’s new one, and I get inspired and excited to write more music. Things like venues closing down and no one buying music are sad, but for a band like us who have only known that side to the industry, we just focus on creating the best songs possible and going to as many gigs that we can get to.
Castlecomerplay Selina’s @ Coogee Bay Hotel, withThe Gypsy Scholars, onFriday February 24.
