The strong and motley pop crew of best mates and musical geniuses from Melbourne, creating their own type of refreshing, genre-spanning tunes. Forté chat to Dorsal Fin’s Liam McGorry and Jarrad Brown.
You just got back from a performance at BIGSOUND recently, how was it?
Liam: Stunning! Always great to be in Brisbane. We had two showcase shows and a few meetings – it was a really rewarding time.
Jarrad: We are really lucky to have BIGSOUND. It’s equal parts – a chance to catch up with anyone and everyone you might now within Aus music, and it also provides a forum to think more seriously about what you are doing moving forward as an artist.
You’ve been getting heaps of praise at the moment and plenty of line-up placements on festivals, does it feel like all the hard work is sticking?
Liam: It’s always great to get amongst a few festival shows and play live. To be honest, it feels like we’re a bit more out there playing shows now than maybe we’ve ever been. It’s really a lot of fun. Festivals are a really special thing. People embrace the festival set a bit differently, so it’s a bit more of a party which is nice.
Jarrad: Yeah it does feel like the live show is starting to stick. Probably for us also, playing more we know a bit more about the ins-and-outs of ourselves as a live band.
An interview labelled your music as “fearless”, how do you approach making new music? Is it to challenge the boundaries?
Liam: Yeah that’s one of the main objectives when we did our first 12″, and kind of inadvertently started the band. It was to go a new way, something different to bands we’ve played with in the past or still play with. Physically, I guess I come up with some music and send it over to Jarrad and Ella to write the melodies, lyrics and take it in a new direction. It’s really that collaboration which starts it off before we take it to the band and then record it. To be honest though, it really changes at every stage along the way.
Jarrad: The framework of DF is a little different to some bands. Having multiple songwriters and a larger ensemble of musicians to work with. I guess those things have dictated the process of how we have done things, like how often you can rehearse, can you record it all live, how many instruments need to be on the track.
What has been the song you’ve released that you were most unsure of how the public would react?
Liam: Probably this song Jacqueline from the last album which features our friend Fraser pretty much speaking stream of conscious over the band. It’s a great one though.
This band was originally meant as a studio project, what was the thing that tipped you into performing live?
Liam: It’s really just because it’s so fun – playing music live is great.
How did the nine piece dynamic on stage come together? That must be a tricky beast to manoeuvre!
Liam: It came together reasonably organically. It was most of the people that really worked on Mind Renovation. It kind of evolved through our first 10-20 gigs and seemed to gel, so we’ve kind of stuck with it where possible.
Lastly, you’re set for Kennedys Creek in a few weeks time, are you familiar with the festival? What have you heard about it?
Liam: I’ve heard last year’s festival was pretty wild – looking forward to a wild time this year.
Thanks for chatting with us, any last words of wisdom you’d like to share with our readers?
Liam: You’ve gotta be in it to win it!
When & Where: Kennedys Creek Music Festival – October 21-23