WCB brought his dark-pop vibes to the NT as part of the Darwin Fringe Festival and took the audience away with his spell-casting escapism and imagery. Futuremag Music Editor Brooklyn Gibbs sat down with WCB to find out what goes into a show like this!

FMM: It’s so good to see you here in the Top End as part of the Darwin Fringe Festival. Welcome to this beautiful part of the country! How are you finding Darwin so far?

WCB: I’m loving it, honestly. Coming from a month’s worth of rain in four days in Sydney, it’s so nice to be here and be able to wear shorts and less clothing to bed. Everyone is super lovely here. There’s so much yum food and so much to see, especially with Fringe because everyone is out and about and feeling the vibes, so I’m really loving it so far.

FMM: Speaking of Fringe, how has that experience been? I saw you perform at the opening night, and then you performed two solo shows as well.

WCB: Yeah, so the opening night was really cool! The organisation has been pretty good as well. Obviously, it’s Fringe, so I told everyone that I would be here for a long period of time as you have to move everything around, but it’s been super smooth sailing. Hannah, who runs the Fringe Festival, has been super easy to work with and super committed and so has Jo, who has been doing all the work behind Fringe. But, the opening night was really fun. I think it’s always going to be scary because you make your own individual music and so do the other artists and you never really know how it’s going to go down, especially when the music I make is a little bit darker, and I guess a bit sexy, and queer, so I guess, I was a little bit worried. But, looking out into the crowd, I could see they were getting into it and it was really fun.

FMM: Yeah, I think that’s one of the beauties about Darwin. Everyone here is pretty open and accepting to things that might come across as different. It’s funny you mention the ‘sexy’ element of your music because I remember the MC at opening night compared you to a sexy Severus Snape from Harry Potter (laughs). It’s funny because it’s something I didn’t think about straight away, but as soon as someone mentioned it, I was like ‘Oh, yeah, I can kinda see that’ haha!

WCB: That was so funny because one of my friends back in New Zealand literally has called me young Snape for a very long time.

FMM: I think it’s the hair!

WCB: Yeah, I think it’s because I’ve got dark hair and I’m pale, so I guess that is what I fall into (laughs). But yeah, I mean, opening night was very cool and the two shows I played… again - it’s always comes down to if people know who you really are and the music you make and if they’re going to like it. But, both of my audiences were super accepting and made some beautiful comments online. So many people reached out to us and wanted to collaborate, your magazine as well. It’s cool when you get the opportunity to do what you love to do and be on stage. Especially when people respond pretty well to it.

FMM: I was lucky enough to have the chance to see both of your Sigil shows at Fringe and I really enjoyed it. I think what you do is very unique, to the point where it’s hard to find the words to describe what I witnessed at those shows. As it was such a small venue, therefore an intimate show, I think that made the show more haunting. Especially with your dark-sounding vocals, imagery, and the looping effects. The smaller venue really made those echoes from the effects stand out that so much more. It’s so different. How would you describe your process and your art behind these shows?

WCB: I think my main ethos when it comes to making a live show, is to take people out of their bay. I listen to any kind of music, but I love to go to a show where I can get taken away, and not feel anything else than what I’m feeling during that show. I feel that’s something that can be a bit tough sometimes when I’m writing or performing music. I want it to feel beautiful, sound beautiful and look beautiful, but I also want it to evoke the same kind of emotive reaction to the energy in the room and take people away somewhere. So, I think that’s my main sort of inspiration overall for a show, especially in an intimate setting. I actually quite like seated audiences for this reason, which is what I liked about Brown’s Mart. I think when people are seated, you get more of an opportunity to lock in.

FMM: I can definitely understand that, because I feel like seated audiences aren’t focusing as much on their dancing, and are focusing solely on who is on stage and the art.

WCB: Yeah, and we obviously didn’t have all that projection for the opening night. In the show, Sigil, we have all that visual aspect as well, so I think escapism is my main ethos. Especially when it comes from the music first, and the music from me is from lived experience and what I see going on in the world around me through my friends, partner and objects.

FMM: So this Sigil show - was this a special performance for Fringe? Or is this a show that you take and perform elsewhere as well?

WCB: I use a lot of projection in my live shows generally, but with Sigil, I wrote the music over a number of years, but I curated the show to be a playlist of written ideas and fashion ideas specifically for that project. Sigil essentially means a symbol and a spell, and so I wanted it to feel succinct and like we were casting a spell in that moment together.

FMM: Speaking of fashion ideas, you had two really sick outfits for the Fringe opening night as well as your solo shows! A lot of your songs are about finding yourself and coming across people who accept you as who you are. So, tell me more about those outfits and finding yourself through your music and presentation. I feel like they definitely go hand-in-hand!

WCB: I would like to think I have found myself, or at least am on the path to continuing to find myself. Being a queer person, that is essentially the biggest form of healing - finding who you are and who you want to be. I think fashion for me, is also a huge part of that. I’ve always been inspired by clothing and art, so those two things meld together. With the white outfit I had for the Sigil shows, I wanted it to blend in with what we were projecting. So, essentially, I became another beast, but I wanted texture so that’s where the chains, the mesh and the PVC came into it. The main thing I was inspired by, was the textual element and creating different elements to catch the light while performing.

FMM: I must say, that outfit sort of reminded me of an astronaut in a way!

WCB: I love that, because a lot of my shows are about escapism and finding yourself somewhere else and that kind of alien aspect.

FMM: I love that take on it, especially as a first impression! Before I saw you at opening night, I hadn’t come across your music before, so your outfits and imagery were a first impression for me. So, in saying that, for anyone else recently discovering the beauty of your music, how would you describe yourself to someone who’s not sure what WCB is all about yet?

WCB: This is always a tough question when it comes to music, but I have landed on alternate dark-pop, with a soul vocal. I made this music out of a place that I wasn’t hearing. It gave me a challenge, and that’s what I wanted to make, so it’s probably not the type of music you would put on when hanging out with your mates, but I think it’s something dark and evocative. That’s probably the best way to describe it.

FMM: It’s so great to see this dark-pop music taking a rise in the Australian music scene at the moment, especially coming out of Sydney like yourself! Also from Sydney, we have Sammi Constantine and Aya Yves who both also deliver those cool, dark-pop sounds and visuals in their art. I love to see this take over!

WCB: Yeah, exactly - I know Sammi! A lot of my inspiration comes from Deftones and music like that which have come in, so that’s the kind of music I was listening to a while back and was inspired by, with the addition of some darker things. That’s where I sit more comfortably. I think pop nowadays is very different to what it has been over the last 10 years. People now aren’t as afraid to sing about those more darker experiences. It’s definitely opened up a lot for me.

FMM: Yeah, that’s great, because I feel like with these changes, more people are relating to the deeper music being released during this time, but that’s what music is essentially all about, right? That level of relatedness?

WCB: Yeah, I think it makes the story more available.

FMM: Speaking of making music people can relate to, I hear you’re working on an album? That’s exciting! Tell me more about that!

WCB: Yeah, so the working title is The Tower, named after the tarot card, The Tower. That’s also the inspiration for a lot of my imagery. I’m about half way through the album. Some of the songs from Sigil will be on the album, but so many new songs are coming through that I’m very proud of, but have been sitting on, not knowing if I was going to be able to release them during Covid. My manager and I decided we would hold off and make a bigger body of work. Originally, I was thinking of releasing it as two EPs, but at the moment, I’m really set on the album. The aim is to have something else out by the end of the year.

FMM: So what would be the difference or benefits in releasing a full-length album as opposed to releasing the two EPs as you originally had in mind?

WCB: I think time-constraints would be a big factor as I don’t like to sit on anything for too long. As an artist, you can go over things a hundred times and never find a solution to it. You can leave it for a month and come back to it and think, ‘actually, this was great all along, I was just being a bit of an asshole to myself.’ (laughs). I think that would be a hard challenge for me to say, ‘This is it - it’s done. I like it. Let’s move on to the next thing, and make room for the next track to come through.’ So, I think time, but also whether I feel like doing a smaller body of work and then doing an accompanying album four months later or something.

FMM: Valid points for sure, and I think it builds up that hype as well if people are digging the smaller body of work, and then know they have something else to look forward too so soon, as well?

WCB: Yeah, but all the same, it’s actually so exciting to create a larger body of work and bring together all these sounds. I would really love to have at least another single out by the end of the year, maybe even two. Then next year, push out a bigger body of work.