Interview by Brooke Gibbs.

After playing their first gig with Elephant Town in March this year, ELUSIVE are set to perform at GENERATION Z tomorrow night, Darwin’s youth music festival, run by youth.

5-piece band ELUSIVE, have performed at the Nightcliff Seabreeze Festival, Daminmin Festival and recently at the NT Music School’s annual BEAT FESTIVAL.

ELUSIVE features Erin De Jager (Vocalist), Detta Cotis (Drummer), Milo Van Haeften (Bass, Saxophone), Jake Bowering (Lead Guitarist), and Lionel Ortega (Rhythm Guitarist, Vocals).

Futuremag Music sat down with ELUSIVE ahead of their GENERATION Z performance.

FMM: What are you most looking forward to about GENERATION X?

Jake: The costumes. 

Detta: I really like the organisation with the sponsors and having a new crowd as well. You see the same crowd at HAPPY YESS, so to have a new venue is exciting.

Erin: Yeah, there’s a lot of debuting acts. 

FMM: You mentioned costumes. Are you guys dressing up? Can you give some hints away or are you planning a surprise?

Lionel: I’m going as Shaun of the Dead, Blood, tie and cricket bat.

Erin: I’m going as Coraline. 

Detta: I’m doing a duo with one of my friends. I’ll leave that as a surprise. 

Milo: I’m going as a wiggle. 

Jake: I’m going as a pirate.

FMM: I love it! A great mix and very different tastes. We’ll go around the table now, because I’d love to hear how each of you got into music.

Erin: Well, I've always loved to listen to music and dance around in my room. I loved singing as a kid as well. In primary school, we had talent shows and I used to sing. My dream would be to be in a band. I just found Detta and I was like, ‘Detta, do you want to start a band?’ Then Detta got other band mates and now I just do the band and it’s the most fun thing ever.

Detta: Because of my dad. He was always into music, so I kind of got it through him. When the music school started doing enrollments, I originally signed up to the clarinet, but then I got percussion, so drumming. It was just kind of always there.

Milo: Just listening to music in general. My parents often put Triple J on in the car and they a lot of CDs as well. I started saxophone lessons I was 10 and I’ve enjoyed playing music since.

Jake: I grew up on a lot of rock and grunge because of my dad, so I’ve always wanted to play electric guitar. Especially, after seeing famous guitarists like David Gilmour, Jimmy page, and Slash at that age. So yeah, been playing ever since.

Lionel: I am into 90’s Grunge, Metal, Hip-Hop, and older Pop rock like The Beatles and Pink Floyd. I have great memories of my Dad introducing me to AC/DC and Creedence Clearwater Revival when I was four or something. Then, punk rock with the sex pistols, which blew my mind, showed me I could do anything. I have got a bunch of guitars (I have a problem) in my house and I do love playing guitar. 

FMM: You guys are still in school, so I’m sure you have many exams and assessments. How do you do it, and balance the rockstar life with educational commitments? I can see that I’m getting a few thumbs down as a response to me asking this question. Are we not balancing it?

Erin: We’re just really understandable with each other if someone has an assignment that they need to get done. Sometimes we prioritise. We can't do all the gigs that we've been asked to play. We've had too many gigs going on and too many assignments, so just minimising it. 

Detta: I think it’s also just personal time management for everyone.

Erin: It’s your responsibility to get your work done, but also learn your parts of the band. 

FMM: What was your first gig in Darwin as a band and what was your experience like?

Erin: It was at HAPPY YESS. We got asked by Elephant Town to play with them and they trusted us to open their gig without ever hearing us.

Lionel: One the best nights of my life. All my friends and family were there. Just a great experience.

Detta: Yeah, they were lovely. It was my favourite gig by far.

Erin: Yeah, I remember we were on stage, and they opened the shed door and this crowd swung in and we all looked at each other and were like, “Oh, my God, this is really happening!” We had spent months and months just rehearsing with no gigs coming up, just playing in my room. Then, we had this gig and an opportunity to perform and it was really cool.

FMM: For people who don’t know you, can you share what genre you play or what your songs are about?

Jake: We have about three originals.

Milo: We have seven! 

Erin: We have seven in total, but only a few that we'll actually ever play.

Jake: We do mostly indie rock, but sometimes we go into heavier rock. 

FMM: How do you approach songwriting? Is it collaborative, or is there someone that takes on the songwriting role? 

Erin: I write the lyrics, but they do all the instrumental writing. 

FMM: Okay, cool, so what do you write your songs about? What’s inspiring you lately? 

Erin: The first song we wrote is called Jump, and that’s just about jumping around and having fun. Then, we did a song called Yellow Raincoat and it's kind of like a Darwin vibe song like going to Nightcliff and the beach and playing in the rain. Nostalgia is a song about reminiscing about being a teenager, being adolescents and such. 

Lionel wrote a song, Keys, inspired by The Chats and it’s silly. It’s just about him forgetting his keys and silly songs.

FMM: That’s great! So many of us are going to relate to that haha!

Erin: But, an upcoming song that we're making, we're going a bit more emotional. Our lyrics, although they're really fun, I really want to do one that has lots of meaning, so I think we’re going to do a breakup song, which will be nice. 

Jake: Yeah, like a nice rock ballad to move away from that heavier rock sound. 

FMM: It’s nice to experiment and see where your sound goes. But in saying that, we talked off the record earlier about your goals after school, and some of you plan on moving away to attend Uni. How do you see this impacting you as a band?

Erin: We’ve had brief talks about it. It’s complicated because everyone moves away, but I think we would all agree that we would still play our instruments by ourselves.  

Everyone: Oh, yeah!

Detta: We could have like a reunion gig.

Everyone: Yeah. 

FMM: I guess the great thing about technology now is that you could record music remotely and combine them into the one project, even when you’re in different parts of the country.  

It can be very hard for artists, especially young ones, to break into the scene, but it sounds like Darwin has been quite welcoming and supportive of your breakthrough. What has your experience been like trying to get your name out there?

Erin: I think one of my favorite things about Darwin is just how welcoming they are for people. I was talking to my mum about how easy it is for us to have a crowded environment. It’s lovely.

Detta: Yeah, and it was nice to see how fast our names spread through musicians as well. 

FMM: I love that it’s so supportive as opposed to competitive, especially after hearing experiences of some young people trying to book their first gigs in bigger cities such as Sydney or Melbourne. 

Detta: Exactly, because all the other bands like Elephant Town welcomed us in with a warm hug and were like, “Come and play with us!” 

FMM: Let’s talk about future plans. You were telling me earlier that you were being financially smart by not spending the money you’ve earned from playing gigs, with the intention to get in a studio and record some originals. What’s the plan?

Jake: Yeah, we’ve been saving up from all the gigs because we want to get in the studio to record some originals and get them released to draw more of a crowd, and it’ll be a fun experience with the band.

FMM: Amazing! Do you have a song in mind for your first release?

Jake: Probably Jump because it was our first original and it's fun to play.

Erin: Our favourite song from the crowd is probably Yellow Raincoat. We’re sick of it because we hear it all the time, but everyone loves it. 

FMM: Is there anything you want people to know before coming out and seeing you perform at GENERATION X? 

Everyone: We are NOT a school band. We do it all by ourselves. For a lot of the gigs we’ve booked, they’ve advertised us as school band. 

Erin: We don’t like it because we work so hard and we do all the rehearsals in my house. 

Milo: I think it’s because we said we go to high school together, so they’re just like, ‘Yep, school band.’ 

FMM: Yeah, don’t let the school take credit for your hard work!

Detta: I think overall, it’s not easy and we have learned a lot about each other through it. 

Erin: Yeah, we’ve had our arguments and there has been crying, especially with writing music, because everyone’s got their own ideas. 

FMM: How do you manage that as a band when there are five different minds contributing ideas?

Erin: We just communicate. 

Jake: Yeah, we just sit down and talk about things and remind each other that we all love music and are passionate. We understand that it’s coming from a place where we just want to make this as much of a masterpiece as we can. 

Catch ELUSIVE perform tomorrow night at GENERATION Z at Bustard Town.