Melbourne garage darlings Baby Blue talk their EP, tour vans & digging deeper
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Melbourne garage darlings Baby Blue talk their EP, tour vans & digging deeper

Catapulting to the forefront of Melbourne’s indie-garage scene with an impressive catalogue of stand-out singles, fledging Melbourne four-piece Baby Blue have well and truly cemented their place with their EP Do What You Like. With their frank confessions and unabashed tales of intimate moments atop a distinct surf-garage-pop sound, we chat to the endearingly honest Rhea Caldwell ahead of their Do What You Like EP Tour.
Hey thanks for chatting to Forte! Congratulations on your sophomore EP Do What You Like! Can you give us a bit of an overview of the EP, how was the recording process?
We recorded it with Paul Maybury at A Secret Sound Location studio in Fairfield. It was really fun. Paul is a mad scientist with a lot of analogue gear.
Your music is very 60s surf rock infused, where do the majority of the influences come from?
I listen to a lot of music from the 60’s and 70’s and grew up with it so I think it’s fairly ingrained in my way of thinking about songs and Fabian, who played lead on the recordings leans towards that style of guitar playing so together we put a lot of that flavour on the EP.
This EP comes a year on from your first EP In My Mind which has back to back hits which is an impressive effort. What do you feel has changed with the second EP?
Oh thanks so much! I think I’m starting to dig a bit deeper into my psyche and discover the direction I want to go in with our sound. I’m starting to trust my opinions and intuitions a lot more. We recorded this EP with Paul too, and it was so great to have someone external to the band looking after us and having some long dedicated days to get it done. It left a lot more room to think about the sound and finesse everything. We also had our own bass player this time around so we recorded the backing tracks for the instruments live which was super nice.
More on that, were there any challenges in releasing the second EP within a year?
Sure! There’s always challenges. I’ve been really lucky to meet a lot of great people along the way and expand our team though so some of the load has been lifted from my shoulders this time around. I don’t think that any challenges that have come up have been for the worse. Things are definitely changing, I’m getting more comfortable in my own skin and the project is growing which is great news.
You’ve also got a super fun video for ‘Big Picture’ which includes cameos from a whole lot of notable faces in the local music community, what was the idea behind getting all these individuals involved?
We had to get a lot of people involved to make the idea work and I just emailed a bunch of friends and asked if they could lend a hand. The Melbourne Music and Arts community is really good like that. Everyone is happy to help out where they can. I really admire everyone in the clip, I’m really lucky to have such talented mates.


You’ll be taking your music on tour this July and August which is exciting! What are you most looking forward to about the six-date tour?
I just bought a tour van!! So I think we’re all looking forward to stretching our legs a little this time around. We have done our share of squishing into a station wagon. Haha. Other than that I’m really looking forward to the shows, hanging out with the band and catching up with friends in each city as well as meeting new friends.
For Baby Blue, are you most at home in the studio or on the stage?
Stage 100%.

What comes next for Baby Blue?

I’ve been sitting on a bunch of songs and have just started revisiting them so I guess an album?? We might have to work on getting a grant this time though…eeep!
Thanks so much for taking the time to chat! To finish off, if you could share the stage with any artist/band, who would it be?
Oooof! Big question. I reckon we’d all love to share the stage with Courtney Barnett and her band. They’re mates so if we could ever weasel onto stage with them I think it’d just be a whole lot of fun.
When & Where: The Bridge Hotel, Castlemaine – July 13 & The Eastern, Ballarat – August 4