CREATIVE CONVERSATIONS 147: TWO LAST NAMES ON JUST WINGING IT AND BEING CHAOTIC

Interview by Brooke Gibbs.

Punky, indie oversharers Two Last Names has been yelling, cracking silly jokes and jumping around on stages since 2019.

Their latest release, Wing It has three tracks to get around. Wing It is a chaotic upbeat anthem that was written by Amber before she was diagnosed with ADHD. The chorus ‘if you say c’mon let’s just wing it one more time, I’m gonna strangle you’ refers to her friends that have put up with her constantly being late, losing her thing, and make no plans at any given time. Instead, simply suggesting to just ‘wing it’ no matter how dicey and unorganised the situation may be.

Futuremag Music sat down with Amber to talk all things chaos!

FMM: I'm so excited to have you here and congratulations, because you released three songs yesterday. How did you celebrate?

Amber: Well, I don't know. Release days are weird. I find them a strange day because I get most excited when I write a song and share it with my mum and my mates, so it’s never really a huge day. It's like, sure, do this thing, but it’s so good having your mates get onto you and be like, “it's out. Oh, my God.” And asking you about parts of the song and whatnot, but I'm in my slightly mellow era. It's literally been, like, three weeks, but I’ve been calm and not drinking much, focusing on work and having nights to myself, which is unusual.

If you listen to Wing It, you'll understand that. You'll get it. That’s very opposite of what I usually am, so I didn't do anything crazy, but I’m stoked to get it out in the world, for sure.

FMM: Yeah, I love that for you. You mentioned Wing It, and that's my favourite because I have ADHD too, so it’s obviously very relatable, and I feel like winging it is how I get through my life. How did your experience with ADHD influence the song's creation and lyrics?

Amber: Well, it's weird because that song was written before I knew I had ADHD, but I've been diagnosed this year. Obviously, that song is massively about being chaotic and having ADHD 100%. It's really weird. Like, even other songs. Heaps the songs, like, the next song on that release, Galaxy, the first lines about being half-an-hour late, which is ADHD-related as well, and Fake Mustache is about spilling beer all the time and chasing dopamine hits. It's so funny now that I know I have ADHD. Listening back to old songs, I'm like, crap. It was there all along, hey? I just didn't realise. It’s like a fictional story, but very much about a typical thing of me just, like, flopping around life.

And I guess this idea of being like, hey, how come it works out for me, though? I always feel like this stuff has worked out really well for me, even though I'm like, really chaotic and unorganised. I guess there’s a bit of guilt there, too about, you know, sort of not having your life together but somehow getting all these lucky, great things happening to you.

I'm big on plot twists at the end of songs, so at the end, it’s kind of like, oh, but if I stop winging it and I be more serious, then maybe people won't… I'm not myself and then bad things might happen to me. I might lose my job, or I might lose my partner, or I might not be myself anymore. I'll be miserable and serious,

FMM: I love that you wrote them before you got that official diagnosis. It's like the signs were there the whole time.

Amber: Yeah, for sure. I've since wrote another song about ADHD as well, which now that I know I have it, it's very much like, “Okay, here’s the thing,” and my journey with taking medication and whatnot. But, I can tell you if anyone's worried about taking medication and having your meds stop you being creative if you're a muso or an artist, it absolutely doesn't. You can still be a creative, red-hot mess, from my experience anyway. I just do more stuff. I'm more productive. Yeah. There's not enough medication in the world to stop my nonsense, creative, chaos brain. It helps, but it's not… There's still lyrics all over the plot. Every day, there's ideas for songs and whatnot.

FMM: Yeah, but I love that your lyrics are all over the place and chaotic because, it's relatable. I guess it kind of plays into recording process too, because you’ve mentioned Fake Moustache was a step away from being perfect and you recorded it in one take. So, how does that also play into how you actually record your music?

Amber: Yeah, I just usually try not to overthink recording. Our band is a three-piece, so that second guitar line you hear in all of our songs, it's literally something that I've just noodled around with on the day and our sound engineer Kyle, does a really good job of using that and piecing it all together. Same with backing vocals and whatnot, so I very much just wing it with recording, too.

I'm trying to fight back against this thing of making the songs super perfect. Sometimes I find the sound engineers themselves and different people I've worked with over the years, prefer it more perfect even than I do, which is super interesting. I guess they're more technically minded with trying to get the best tone and sound and mix, which is great, but I just don't… Like, I get really excited by the ideas of and the creation, and I think it loses it for me when there's too much attention to detail and the minor stuff.

So, with both Wing It and Galaxy, they were recorded so long ago, do you know what I mean? And Fake Moustache was recorded this year. You could have done so much more to that song to make it, I guess, better, but I just didn't care. I'm losing the enjoyment of going to the studio a million times to record the same song. If I'm not enjoying it, then no one else will. They'll be able to tell in the music, so I've got to enjoy it, too. It was nice, liberating, I guess to be like, yeah, sweet. Let's just do it, and she'll be right, and just release it.

FMM: It's art, so I guess it's not meant to be perfect, and it also saves you so much money and time because having to go to the studio and constantly record, it's very expensive, especially if you've got a day job you’re trying to balance.

Amber: Yeah, I think this is too much. I don't know. It is daunting to put yourself out there all the time, but heaps of musos I know, including me, you sit on all these songs forever and you never release them, and I'd rather just get it out there, even if it's not the perfect time. We're not doing a launch for this or anything. It's kind of a weird time to do it, but in my mind, it's like, these songs are already too old. There’s a backlog. I'd rather be focusing on the songs I'm writing right now, and these lyrics are actually current in my life rather than doing a big release party for songs I wrote, like, five years ago. There's no perfect time to release. I'd rather just get it out there and have a crack and release something that's 70% pretty good rather than perfecting it and putting all this effort into it.

FMM: I hear you. Some people spend ages waiting for the right time, and sometimes that right time comes, sometimes it doesn't. At least, without having that schedule, you make it the right time for what you're going through in that moment.

Amber: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. For sure.

FMM: When you wing the recording process, do you find it hard to replicate when performing live?

Amber: We basically never played with a second guitarist. I would love that to happen. I always daydream of getting mates to at least for a couple of songs. Interstate Growing Pains is one where, to be honest, that guitar line is my favourite part of the whole thing, and I never get to play it or no one else gets to play it live, so that's a bit of a shame,

I would just love to play with more mates in general. It's just hard logistically to get everyone on board, but I like this idea. For ages, I've been thinking about this idea of just getting more people to jump on if they want to and if they can, and not having this thing of, you know, there's three or four of you in the band and you are the band and you must play all the gigs because people have their jobs as well. It's hard to say yes to every single gig.

I like the idea of having a crack, playing the songs and if you want to jump on for one song and do backing vocals or you've had mates that just jump on with percussion stuff and jump around stage and do gang vocals for fun and if they’ve never done the song before, again, it’s that lack of perfectionism, but just wanting everyone to have a go. The energy and the vibe is more important than getting everything perfect.

If you're in Melbourne and you want to play a shreddy guitar part, message us, because I'd love that.

FMM: It sounds so fun. You guys just sound like the coolest bunch of people to play with. Hopefully people that are in Melbourne hit you up.

Amber: Yeah, hit us up.

FMM: I love your origin story because I saw that you guys started jamming out in abandoned train carriages. I know you explained there's been some changes in your band over time, so for anyone who doesn’t know Two Last Names, can you give us a brief rundown of who’s in your band and what you guys do?

Amber: Yeah, sure. Basically, I started playing open mic nights on my own. I was in a feminist screamo punk band in Adelaide called Sabath and the Knifey Wifies, so that got me interested in original music and just gigging around, but when I moved to Gibson, I just had a crack, and it took me ages to find a drummer to play with, especially that kind of music. I finally found Gary, and Gary's background; he's a funk drummer and never played punk before and he used to play in cover bands and things. He literally googled on the first time he jammed punk beats. And the first time he jammed, he didn't hit the snare drum at all. Like, barely, and I was like, what? This is all I know in drumming is, like, punk drummers smashed the snare drum foot, like, nonstop, so he was a really different kind of drummer, which is really cool because it made our kind of music a bit different, I reckon.

And eventually we found Rach at mic night and they just like bought a bass within a week after meeting. They never played bass before and just learned it. I was just like, ‘you should join our band. You’re awesome.’ I didn’t think it would actually happen. And, they had their natural voice which is like an octave above mine, so it was the perfect range. They added that pretty kind of vocal thing to my rough vocal, so it was really cool, but they have endometriosis, and they had to leave the band.

So since then, we've sort of just been having different lovely faces filling in and doing different stuff and. Like I said, the last two years I've been traveling so much that it's been really funny. In WA, I had people learn all the songs and Two Last Names, and we did some random shows, and I haven’t really been as consistent as I used to be, but it’s kind of cool.

That's another thing, is that you don't have to do music the way everyone else is doing it. You can still release music even if you don't have a huge band ready to go and play a million gigs. Just release a song because that's what you do. If you want to have different bass players, come in and just have you and your drummer solid, that's fine as well. Or, like, we played without a bass for ages and an octave pedal, which is cool. Like, it's not as good, but it's different. At least you get to that freedom of just messing around and then your songs will sound a bit different for a while and that's like a fun experiment.

No one's necessarily fully ready, but it's really interesting playing in Gippsland. There's just not heaps of venue options, and we played at the old pubs and an art gallery launch once, with free champagne and everyone's really fancy and we're just like, what are we doing here? The heat and stuff like that. Once we played at like 2pm to this queer, social club with no booze and they’re doing craft in the background. It actually sticks, but it’s just really funny facing it. We've done some really wholesome gigs like that as well.

We put on our own shows as well, which is really fun because there's not that many original music gigs like that in Gippsland, so that's rewarding, but now we're kind of selling out and doing the Melbourne thing, I guess.

FMM: Well done. That's huge. And, you mentioned being different and I guess that's what's great because that's what makes you unique, and people want to come out and see you guys and you guys seem so wholesome. I'm so bummed I didn't get to see you in Darwin because, you know, we were in the same part of the world and I didn't even get to see you perform.

Amber: That's all right. You should. Everyone should. If you're in Darwin, go see Tang play because I played with them for a couple of shows. I love Darwin. I want to do more shows in Darwin and just hanging out with everyone again.

FMM: Yes, Tang are great! I saw them open up for Beddy Rays a couple of weeks ago as part of Darwin Festival. It was my first time seeing them and they were awesome. It’s clear you’ve moved around a lot, so what’s next for you?

Amber: Well, I've been playing music with different people, but I’m not sure. I’m definitely keen to focus on music heaps now that I'm in Melbourne, whether it's going to heaps of gigs, whether it's recording a bunch or playing. I kind of want to start an old girl band for Two Last Names, to be fair. We're sort of in that way, so that would be nice, a non-male band. Different energy, different creative ideas.

But, like, the kind of new thing is my friend has a studio and so I'm keen to spend a lot of time in that studio. I'm a little bit obsessed with messing around, like, electronic drumbeats at the moment and doing little, weird, acoustic-y things. I tried to rap the other day. It wasn't good, but I'm keen to do a bit more experimenting because it's been very, like, as you can tell, I've got lots of, emo-punk, indie kind of influences in my songs. In the last two years, I've been going lots of bush duffs and just listening to different music. I would love to stray away from the usual sound for fun. I don’t really know the answer, but they’ll be something good there for sure.

We have one other song that we haven't released yet as well, which I don't know what to do with, but it's called Hot Bean Juice. And actually, if you lived in a small country town, it's very relatable. It's very Gippsland, this one.