Coined as three majestic flamingos playing a meld of The Stones, The Strokes, and The Vines, Melbourne three-piece Castilles have been traversing effortlessly through a captivating meld of old-school psych, post-punk, grunge, and desert rock since their beginnings in 2016.
With three singles behind them, Castille’s are now back today with their newest track. Recorded amongst a 3 day stint at Red Door Sounds in Colingwood with Paul ‘Woody’ Annison (Hunting Grounds, Children Collide, DZ Deathrays), ‘Habits’ is bluesy in parts, and garage in others. Somewhat sparkly, and always groovy… and we love it!
We chat to Joshua Dawes about the release and ahead of the single launch next month.
Hi Josh, thanks so much for taking the time to chat to Forte Magazine. Can you give us a little overview of Castilles?
Castilles are the band of 10 years worth of conversations that Jules [Valentine] and I had about starting a band together. A few years ago we finally found ourselves in the same city with no other musical commitments, Sam [Dawes, Josh’s brother] jumped on board and we’ve been writing together since. We play Garage, Blues, Country and everything in between. We proudly wear our influences on our sleeves and play homage to ‘guitar bands’
Describe your music in a sentence.
An ossuary of half baked ideas.
You’ve just released your newest single ‘Habits’. It’s said that the aim going into the recording session (a 3 day stint at Red Door Sounds) was to ‘capture the rawness of the new band, explored free of preconception’. How did you go about doing this?
We had been demoing and rehearsing for what seemed like forever. We were going too far and questioning everything, re-write after re-write. We decided the best way forward was to book a studio and let Woody (Producer) deal with it all. We were confident in ourselves as musicians, and just needed to put some nice simple gear in front of us and get a good sound. I’ve always preferred recording this way as I don’t particularly like listening to recordings I’ve played on after the fact.
This marks the band’s fourth single, following Get Along earlier this year and 2017’s Scared and Telephone. Are you working towards an album?
You’re a slave to the money, then you die. I think we are just working towards releasing whatever we can as quickly as possible. ‘Scared’ was a demo that we put up to get gigs and ‘Telephone’ kind of stood alone after that. ‘Habits’ will work cohesively with ‘Get Along’ and possibly our future music. We’re writing really well at the moment, and are in the studio again in a couple of weeks. Onwards and upwards, y’know? Habits is a cracker though, we’re really proud of it.
Being brothers in this band (as well previous band Flyying Colours), can you talk us through the band dynamics, was music something you were brought up around?
Our parents are not musical. We were all lucky that within the isolation of our home town, Wagga Wagga, there was a thriving youth arts scene. Along with bands like The Ocean Party, Flyying Colours, High Tails, Pat Chow, and many others, we cut our teeth playing youth shows around town. In the library, by the lagoon, at school, the PCYC, even a few venues used to put under-age shows on. We were incredibly lucky for those opportunities at that time. As for dynamics, everything is pretty easy. Sam and I have always been close and Jules had been coming around to our place since we were kids. We communicate well musically through these old ties, and nothing else has seemed to matter enough to ever shake that.
You’ve been busy this year, playing a bunch of successful shows across Melbourne (including the Oh! Jean records showcase at the Pinnacle in North Fitzroy, headline shows at Fitzroy staple, The Old Bar, and ‘Get Along’ single launch at The Grace Darling in Collingwood). Are you guys more at home with your music live on stage or tucked away in the studio creating?
I’d like to say live but we seem to spend more time in our studio than playing shows. We have loads of music to release however so maybe now we’ll be playing more. I think we’ve just been tucked away trying to fine tune ourselves. We wrote our initial set, and then we had to take a look at what we’d produced, what we had in the works, our strengths, our weaknesses. We just wanted to be a good band. A group of people playing well together, it’s what get us off. It doesn’t matter the genre if it’s good, and that’s the kind of band we want to be.
You’ll also be launching this single in November at The Labour In Vain in Fitzroy. What can punters expect from this gig?
We love a front bar show, it’s where we thrive best. On the ground with the punters having a crack. It’ll be high energy with loads of pub banter and someone will without a doubt fall over.. Five bucks says it’s Jules.
What’s next for you guys into the new year?
More music. We are just going to keep pushing out new tracks, possibly compile an EP of sorts and hopefully get out of Melbourne, to the country and interstate.
Thanks for chatting to us. To finish off, if your band was a drink, what would it be?
Solo.
When & Where: The Labour In Vain, Fitzroy – November 2.
Check them out on Spotify.