Slowly Slowly revive punk with Race Car Blues
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Slowly Slowly revive punk with Race Car Blues

2019 was a huge year for Slowly Slowly. A national tour, four singles, a Like A Version, and countless festival appearances. You’d think at the end of that, they’d be ready to take it easy for a while, right? Wrong! Ben Stewart (vocals, guitar), Albert Doan (guitar), Alex Quayle (bass) and Patrick Murphy (drums) are back with an explosive third album, Race Car Blues.

Race Car Blues is a milestone for front-man and songwriter Ben Stewart. While 2018’s St. Leonards was a reflective album, looking back at painful moments with a wish to rectify, this captured a different process. Stewart explained: “The last 18 months has been about changing my thought processes and my habits to allow myself to enjoy the journey of [making music].

“I’d say I really started trusting myself a lot more,” Stewart continued. “I think because we really honed in on our live performance; when I’d get home from a leg of touring I felt really inspired to write things that I felt would work in a live setting as well.

“There are some heavier moments on this record because I feel like I was coming off the back of a lot of touring. We were lucky enough to play a lot of big stages, and it’s hard not to write for that scenario in the back of your head. That sort of shifted, for me, writing for the stage, as opposed to writing in my bedroom and then figuring out how we were going to take that to the stage. I had total trust from the other band members as well; the boys were so supportive.”

Three singles from RCB were released throughout 2019; ‘Jellyfish’, ‘Creature of Habit Pt. 2’, and ‘Safety Switch’. ‘Jellyfish’ gained a huge following, placing at #57 in Triple Js Hottest 100 of 2019, the group’s first time appearing in the countdown.

RCB will be the first time fans get a taste of the first part to ‘Creature of Habit Pt. 2’. Softer and slightly slower than its sequel, it was written second. Each track has its own beauty: the first has a smooth lyrical flow, carried by a soft electric guitar that is joined by a steady drumbeat, while the second is fast-paced, heavy and electric.

“During the writing process for Part 1 I built a guitar loop, the phrase that you hear at the very beginning of the song, it was one of those ones where it all kind of just flowed out.” Stewart continued “I was feeling very nostalgic and that all tied together pretty quickly. And then Part 2 was obviously a bit more high energy and so I was kind of bouncing off the walls of my writing room at home, just trying to keep up with my brain. So that’s how those two came together.”

‘Michael Angelo’ stands out as a milestone is Stewart’s songwriting. A ‘triumphant pinnacle of letting go’, we hear Stewart step back from self-doubt and accept his talent. The lyrics say it all: “Tell the status quo/ That I’ll be letting go/ Of everything I ever said/ I’m Michael Angelo”. He signals an embrace of his own ability.

“I just happened to be reading up about his life at that time and how he was this incredibly dedicated artist, a lot of the people he worked with left or refused to work with him because he lived in squalor and was obsessed with his art. He had no partner his whole life, died alone, and I remember just being like, “I’m like Michelangelo, I was born to do this” and it was my first moment of true confidence.”

Slowly Slowly have also announced a national headline tour to support the release of Race Car Blues, across April and May this year, with the first Melbourne show selling out in less than two days. The guys will be joined by New Zealand punk rockers Bakers Eddy and alt-rock/emo four-piece Colourblind as support acts for all shows.

“Live is like a real release for me, I absolutely love it. It’s always been quite easy for me to tap into that performance mindset, where you’re just kind of thrashing around and stuff like that. It comes so naturally, it’s a bit innate for me; I don’t know what it is. All the boys always say, before [a gig], “Oh no, you have that twinkle in your eye”, and it always means that I’m going to jump on Pat when he’s playing drums and knock over the drum kit or kick over Quayle while he’s bent over trying to tune his bass or something. I just love it.”

For any musicians interested in the recording of the album, two main electric guitars were used; “Albert used his [Fender] Jazzmaster, that was a huge staple on our record for the more gnarly tones and making a real rock record.” Stewart explained.

“My main guitar was a Rickenbacker 330; I got new one mid-last year which is a white one with these high-gauge pickups. For some reason, the strange marriage between that and Albert’s Jazzmaster just worked. And even Malcolm [Besley, producer] commented, he said: “My favourite thing about the record was the guitar production.”

The album is a celebration of a lot of things, most importantly of Stewart backing himself, and his song-writing ability. This is Slowly Slowly at their best yet. Each time you listen to it again you can dissect pieces that stand out, whether its Quayle’s bass track on ‘CoH Pt. 2’, Murphy’s beat on ‘YABTTT’, the ‘Michael Angelo’ solo or simply the whispered “…fuck” heard before the second chorus of ‘How it Feels’.

Punk isn’t dead, and you can hear it in Race Car Blues.

Race Car Blues is out now via UNFD.

Catch Slowly Slowly at 170 Russell in Melbourne on Friday May 15 (sold out) and Sunday May 17. Tickets via slowlyslowlyband.com

Written by Thom Devereux