CREATIVE CONVERSATIONS 126: LAZY GHOST ON THEIR LATEST RELEASE, SARAH-TONIN
Interview by Zac Farr.
Cavanbah/Byron Bay-based surf rock quartet Lazy Ghost have released their latest EP, SARAH-TONIN. We caught up with lead singer, Kyle to talk about the EP and formation of the band.
FMM: How did you guys all meet? What's the story of Lazy Ghost?
Kyle: I went for a working holiday in Canada in like 2015 and I’d ever been in a band before. Always played a bit of guitar, never really sang. I bought my first guitar and ended up being in this band with the Canadian lineup. We started recording songs in a shitty little shed, and one day, the drummer turned to me was just like, you want to go record this in a proper studio in Vancouver? I was like, what does that mean? He's like, we're in a band now, we're going to be playing shows, and we're going to be like, shit. All right, okay. So, we've kind of just played the circuit in Whistler in British Columbia in Canada for a few years, gaining a bit of an audience over there. Then through Covid and stuff, some shit went down, so moved back home and reformed the band in 2021.
Now, the current lineup is Sam, the drummer, one of my mates from high school, Archer, the bass player, is one of my brother's friends, and Chris is an American fella. I found him on the Internet, on Facebook, like, Byron musicians page. I reformed the band in quarantine. My partner and I flew into Sydney from Canada during COVID, got locked down for 14 days. I was like, shit, there’s no better time than the present to reform the band. So, I was just, like, on the phone and by the end of the day, I just had this band. And that's who Lazy Ghost is now. Since then, we've played a stage at Splendour in the Grass. We've toured New Zealand, sold out a few shows there and toured Australia a couple of times, supported people, like, Daily J and we’re supporting DICE soon. We sold out our EP release boat party in Brisbane. It's looking pretty good for us at the moment, where we're stoked.
FMM: Dude, what a story. From Canada back to Australia in quarantine. Shivers.
Kyle: Yeah, it's pretty wild.
FMM: Pretty wild stuff. Yeah, I love it. Where did the love of music come from? In your blood?
Kyle: Yeah, I think my dad making fun of himself, like making a fool of himself at family dinners and different barbecues when we were younger. I was just always like, ‘nah, never me.' I’m never doing that.’ Like, that's crazy. He's such a character. And I don't know, I think at one point in my life, I just wanted to do something that wasn’t working. Give it a shot for a bit. You may as well try. That was it, really. I just kind of really, really liked performing, putting on a show, and meeting a bunch of people. It's great.
FMM: I love it, man. I love it. That's fantastic. Well, SARAH-TONIN, firstly, fantastic title. I love it. It's quite a beautiful EP. Where did the heart behind the EP come from? It's more like a soundscape; you take us on a really awesome journey.nTell me a bit of the story behind the EP.
Kyle: Yeah, I think the heart of the EP is just all of the experiences we've had together as a band as the current form lineup whether that's from locations, to people we’ve met along the way, to a bunch of inspiration of songs that we've liked. Instead of doing the regular thing in some songs, just kind of doing, like, a quick 180. If you've heard the song, WEEKEND, from our EP, it just has that triplet feel, instrumental part. We come up with the structure of the song and then think, how can we make this 180? Or how can we make the lyrics just about absolutely dumb shit or, you know, just to keep it interesting that way, because otherwise it's a bit boring, we find.
FMM: You bring such a beautiful kind of juxtaposition of serious things, but then you've got that Australian humour, but then you back it up where the music just makes sense like a displacement that all comes together. I love it. Very good job. It's a fantastic EP. Do you write to perform, or do you just love writing? What's that writing process for you guys?
Kyle: I think now, we're leaning into more performance. We performed the EP on our boat party in Brisbane and I think it really came through what we were trying to achieve with getting the audience involved and its peaks and its valleys. We definitely started writing like that, to perform, and it really went off. There's sing along moments, there's heavier moments, there's instrumental moments. I think we'll follow the same procedure from now on.
FMM: So do you guys all live in Byron?
Kyle: Chris and I live in Byron. Archer lives in a little town called Yamba, and Sam lives up in Wallabar, so within like an hour, hour and a half of each other.
FMM: How does that writing work? Do you guys use a studio or your own house?
Kyle: No, it's usually just shitty, little garages or dark, little spaces. Sometimes we drag the computer and stuff out in the back in our place in Byron and just have a few beers. It's kind of how we wrote PARK HOTEL, drag my computer outside, drink seven beers, and come up with the song about the pub we were just drinking at. It starts from a few different things. I had a few different demos. I think WEEKEND was one of the demos that I had a while, probably two years, just the melodies and hooks. As for the instruments, Chris just played some chords on a guitar and then I took it and chopped it up and then started singing over it. With ONLY MAN IN TOWN, I think the boys were sitting on our driveway and I was like, manning the station on the computer, and I was like, “Archer, play something, do something, do something.” And he was on the bass and he came up with that doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo and then we kind of wrapped everything around that and turned it into, like, a spaghetti western song to kick off the EP, which is pretty funny.
FMM: It definitely has a new nostalgic sound. It sounds old, but it's new and it just brings that energy. You can definitely feel the pub in that in that track. What would be the dream place to perform, or the ‘I’ve made it moment’ for you?
Kyle: Oh, I mean, I don't think there's like an ‘I've made it moment.’ I think it's more like a place that you dream to perform. I think it’s Red Rock, that crazy venue in America. It's like an amphitheater and there's red rocks everywhere, that place.
FMM: With the Australian music scene at the moment, we've had a couple of festivals canceled recently. What's your perspective on the Australian music scene, festivals and performing? Where are you guys at with that?
Kyle: I think it'll get better. I mean, it's unfortunate that these festivals are cancelling and stuff, and it does look grim at the moment, but I think a lot of startups and a lot of starting from the ground up is going to happen and there's going to be a bit of an absence for a little bit, but I think it'll come back pretty strong at a smaller level.
FMM: Yeah, I back that. I think with bands like you guys, that are just putting in the hard yards and making incredible music.
Kyle: Yeah, just making things interesting for people, I think is a very, very needed thing, you know, because you can go watch every band, and a lot of bands don't follow the simple $15 tickets or $20 tickets. You can see a lower level band for $22 sometimes, and then you see a higher level band for $15, so it's hard to monitor what the value for money is in some places. Some venues have higher venue fees for some performers, so it’s difficult.
FMM: Yeah, it's a tricky market to kind of gauge. What would be some bands that inspire you?
Kyle: Um, no one. No one, really. I do love the surf punk stuff. I used to love a lot of Skegss and I love Hockey Dad's new stuff, but I don't think they really inspire anything. We kind of just take it as it comes when we're standing in a garage looking at each other saying, what next? But as for sounds like, you know, we have this producer that we've worked with once before for Told Ya So. He really liked to take us on a bit of a journey with WEEKEND. He made it really sound like Rolling Stones, like old-school psych, like rock and roll, and I really liked that, so we're very open to that. We're very malleable in that sense, and I think that kind of leaves us open to do whatever, because if you listen to, it's full of good stuff, full of weird shit, full of bad stuff. There's kind of everything there for everyone.
FMM: Yeah, I love it. It's definitely very random, but a very beautiful random. You guys are just you, authentic, raw. I think it's very Australian and very beautiful, and I think it shows a lot of what we're seeing in the pubs, but I think there's still a bit of a higher production level, which is kind of sick. Did you play a lot of pubs when you got back and things started opening up?
Kyle: I think we marked on our first Australian tour and it did pretty well. I think we had to cancel one show in Byron or we had to push it at the northern, but other than that, we embarked on a tour of Australia as our first thing, and it went really well. There was a lot of influx of ticket sales. People got let out eventually, but that was our first shows back, so no pubs. We're playing some pretty good venues, like 300 to 600 hundred cap.
FMM: Well, that’s all my questions. You're a legend, dude. I'm so proud of you guys. You’re doing some awesome stuff for the Australian music scene, and I think there's a lot of guys out there that are pretty inspired. I threw your name out to a bunch of mates that kind of make music like you and they were stoked that you guys are doing this. There's a lot of young, Aussie musicians that are super inspired by you. Another question, just off the bat with marketing and the social media aspect of music now and just creating for the sake of numbers, where are you guys at with that? Because I think from talking to a lot of other Australian artists, we hate it and we don't really like that process. You might love it, who knows?
Kyle: We definitely don't like the idea of it and we definitely don't like scheduling time to do it, but I think as we do it more, like, if you've seen any of our reels on Instagram, I’m wearing swimming goggles and a swimming cap that's for a child that I bought from Vinnie’s. People just seem to like taking the piss, so I think taking the piss out of it is probably our approach. I don’t like trying to be too funny with skits. I don't really get around skits, but I think just promoting the music, if that's all we have to do. Unfortunately, everyone wants to live the dream of being a paid musician that can tour the world. So, if that's what we need to do, we'll have to schedule an hour a month to make some content.
FMM: That's such a lovely perspective to have. I've heard some very negative comments. That's a very nice perspective to have on it. I guess authenticity will always shine here.
