Grand Pine have dropped the ambient, hauntingly beautiful single ‘Heart’
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Grand Pine have dropped the ambient, hauntingly beautiful single ‘Heart’

If you’re a fan of slow and enigmatic indie-folk and you are yet to discover Grand Pine, you are missing out. Starting out as a solo project for the group’s vocalist Guy Perkins, Grand Pine has since grown into a five-piece, drawing inspiration from the likes of Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, Andy Shauf, and The Paper Kites, and earning a reputation as one of Australia’s most promising up and coming Indie Folk bands.

They’ve just released their fourth single, ‘Heart’, recorded and mixed by band member Connor Black-Harry (Greta Ray, Nancie Schipper, Annelise Rose) and mastered by Adam Dempsey (Angie McMahon, Didirri, Courtney Barnett) which boasts hauntingly beautiful vocals with ambient guitar swells and deeply echoing synth chords. We sit down with frontman Guy.

Congrats on the release of your new single, ‘Heart’. With hauntingly beautiful vocals with ambient guitar swells and deeply echoing synth chords, it’s quite an emotional track. What’s the writing process like?
I do all the writing at the moment, but ‘Heart’ was actually written by the whole band. For this one, we basically wrote most of it in the studio as we were going. The band didn’t even know the song prior to us making it in the studio which was a bit of a weird process for us; it was more of an ‘All right, I’ve got a chorus, let’s build it’.

That’s an interesting approach for sure! Would you do that process again moving forward?
I think we probably will do that process again, just because it’s a bit more exciting, and it keeps it fresh for all of us. We’re not sick of the single yet, which can sometimes be the case when you’ve been playing it for months beforehand, and then you’re playing it for several months afterwards as well. I think it’s a good way to go about it, and it’s good to have everyone’s opinions and input.

In saying that is there many clashes in opinions, or is everyone pretty much on board with the same sort of idea?
Not, really lucky. Everybody’s on the same page usually. We all just love experimenting and something’s work, something’s don’t. No one gets offended or hurt when one of their parts doesn’t work. We just keep on trying and keep on experimenting.

We believe ‘Heart’ was recorded and mixed by band member Connor Black-Harry (Greta Ray, Nancie Schipper, Annelise Rose)?
Yeah, Connor has a little studio! We’ve done our last three singles there which has been good; keeps it cost-effective for us, and it sounds good, so we’re going to be keeping with it. The whole album that’s coming out next year has been recorded at his house so keeps it all in one spot, and doesn’t sound like we’ve gone to different places, and recorded at different places. Hopefully, it’ll be done and ready to go very soon.

Oh perfect, we can’t wait to hear the album! Will ‘Heart’ features on the album, or was that released as a stand-alone single?
‘Heart’ will be on that album, as well as the last two singles that we put out before that, ‘Feel Alone’ and ‘Back in Town’. It’s just going to be a nice little collection of songs. Some of them, a few of them actually, we created through the same process as ‘Heart’, writing it in the studio rather than having a finished song, which I think keeps it fresh for us. Sound-wise, ‘Heart’ is as distant as it gets. It’s probably the outlier of the album in that it’s a bit more rocky and driven, but collectively, it’s got a really nice flow.

Why did you decide to release ‘Heart’ as the current single ahead of the album?
We just felt like doing something new. We had three different singles that we were deciding between, but we ended up going with this one, which wasn’t even a song at that stage. I think it was a bit more exciting for everyone playing it. With the other songs, we’ve been working on them for a year now, so it was just a kind of morale booster. It’s taking us a lot longer than we thought it would for this album, but I think it’ll be worth it once it’s out.

Are you more at home with music on the stage or in the studio?
I think we’re more into the live shows right now. We’ve got a bigger sound, I think we’re tighter, and everyone’s really feeling it at the moment. We’ve just booked a show at Analogue Academy actually in November. It feels like we’ve got a bit of momentum now so pretty eager to see what the future holds.

We’re pretty eager too! You can listen to Grand Pine’s single ‘Heart’ now. Keep up to date with all the news via www.facebook.com/GrandPineBand