CREATIVE CONVERSATIONS 131: INFINITIES TAKES US ON A COSMIC JOURNEY WITH 'PARTICLES'

Interview by Brooke Gibbs.

Futuremag Music’s Brooke Gibbs caught up with INFINITIES to delve into the cosmic journey behind their latest release, Particlcles.

FMM: Well, thank you so much for joining me today. It's really exciting to have you here.

INFINITIES: I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

FMM: Of course, and we're here because you've recently released a new single, and it's your first release of the year. How does it feel to have it out there?

INFINITIES: For sure. Thank you. It feels so good because it's finally out, especially being in the second half of the year. I released it in the eigth month of the year. I took my time, but I really needed to get it right.

And my first year, last year, I released four singles pretty quickly because I think I just wanted to get things out and have a bit of a catalogue up. I think now, I've taken my time to work on a few songs, so now I think I'm ready to start releasing again. But, it feels good to be back, for sure.

FMM: Of course. Well, welcome back to the releases.

INFINTIES: Yeah, it's always fun. A bit stressful, of course.

FMM: Does it feel less stressful now that you're pacing yourself more with the releases?

INFINITIES: A little bit. Sometimes it's a bit more stressful in the sense I'm thinking people are probably wondering where I've gone or what I'm doing. But, I've been really grateful to have been playing shows this whole time, and I've been performing those unreleased songs at shows, so I think I’ve just got to stop overthinking it and just chill a bit. I think at the moment, I'm in a pretty good spot with it. Yeah, I'm feeling really good.

FMM: Yes, I think that comes across, too, because Particles, your latest release, is incredible, and I'm really enjoying it.

INFINITIES: Thank you. It's my favorite one so far, so that says a lot.

FMM: What makes it your favorite one? I think, like, sonically. It's just where I want to be. I think the first few songs I released… don't get me wrong, I really like them, too, but I think they were the first songs that I've ever created. I've never not made a song and not released it, if that makes sense. So, I think I just wanted to put out an appetiser of what I can do with my music.

I think for Particles, it's definitely heading more in the direction of where I want to be and what I want to be doing. I think that's what makes it my favorite release so far.

FMM: Of course, that makes sense, and if that's the direction where you're heading, I feel like we're in for a good ride.

INFINTIES: Thank you. That's really sweet.

FMM: And I like that you've described Particles it as a cosmic journey. Can you tell me more about that and where you hope to take your listeners with this?

Infinities: For sure. 100%. So, I guess I described it as the cosmic journey because to me, the way I see it is when I was creating the song, I was looking at space and the universe as a whole. That's, I guess, where the cosmic journey comes from. I see the universe as so big, just the galaxy we live in, it's giant.

Comparing ourselves as humans and eight billion people in this world to the galaxy, we're so tiny. I see all of us humans as just our own little particles. In a way, I guess the cosmic journey of the song was just like that. There's so many particles floating around the world and I see them as people connecting.

I feel like when two souls connect, they seem to become one. That's what the song is really about, just connecting with someone and becoming whole. But, not every love is built to last, which is absolutely okay. It's just like disconnecting again, becoming two stray particles. I think that's where the whole cosmic journey comes from. Definitely influenced by space.

FMM: Yeah. That's so cool, and I feel like that explanation ties into your stage name as well, being Infinities that's a common theme in your music.

INFINTIES: Yeah, it definitely does. I guess I could touch base a little bit on the stage name if you'd like me to?

FMM: That'd be good because I'm definitely interested in that.

INFINITIES: Yeah, cool. So, I guess that does tie back again to love and space. I feel like a lot of the times… I don't know if you've ever been in a relationship and said to someone, “I'll love you forever,” but I feel like most of us have done that before. I found that I've done that multiple times with multiple people saying that I love you forever, where it turns out that you break up and in fact, you don't love them forever.

I feel like in my songs, because I write songs about people and experiences and situations, and so I can put that forever into a song and seal it, so it really does live on forever. That's why I created the name Infinities, because these songs are all of my little infinities of love and so they're all like my forever.

FMM: Yeah, I love that and look, I've been there too. I feel that given you release music about those experiences, you kind of are keeping it in a forever way because that music is still there regardless of what happens in that certain relationship anyway.

INFINITIES: That's right. The music gets to live on and keep its memory, in a sense.

FMM: Yeah, I love it. I'd love to hear more about your creative process. Do you do a lot of it yourself or do you have a team behind you?

INFINITIES: For sure. I write all the lyrics and melodies myself. Writing is something that I think since I was like an early teenager… early teen [laughs]. That's such a funny way of putting it, early teen. I should have just said preteen, writing songs since I was pretty young. Whenever I'm writing lyrics, I can hear the melodies in my head already, so I already know how I want the song to go.

I'm pretty quick with it, too. I can write the lyrics or whole song down in just like five minutes. I just jot them out and the melodies, and then I'll usually just find some beats on YouTube and try to sing along to them to get some sound inspiration. Then, I'll just come up with a demo. Then what I'll do is, I'll send it to one of my producers who lives in Los Angeles, Scotty Lamarge Leo. He's in a duo with his sister called Nicole and Scotty. He lays down a really sick bass beat for me and then he will send it to me. I'll take it to my studio here in Adelaide for one of my best friends, Ben Smith, and he'll finish off the production and then I'll record the vocals at home in my bedroom and take them to him and he'll mix everything for me.

Then, we send off to mastering and I usually have visuals, set visuals for each release. So Jack Timberlake takes photos for me, but I usually direct everything myself. I guess I know what I'm going for visually and Jack really helped me execute that, so, yeah, it's really fun.

FMM: Yeah, cool. Sounds like incredible team, but also sounds like you'd always be on the go and very busy.

INFINTIES: Yeah, for sure, definitely.

FMM: Because as well as being an artist, you also own Renegade Records, where you also work with an incredible team of artists. How do you find that balance between being a musician yourself, but also helping other people on their journey?

INFINTIES: For sure, yeah, look, I'm pretty much on the go nonstop and I'm glad that I didn't actually start releasing my music until I had that knowledge of how to market music, how to brand everything, how to brand myself as an artist, how to do PR, digital streaming stuff. I'm really glad I have that knowledge because I feel like I could apply that to myself, what I do for other people and the balance, I find that running Renegade Records, that is my number one priority. I'm always focused on that first. Making the music is just like an outlet for me to still let my creative side come out.

Because yes, someone told me if I don't pursue my creative side and bring the songs that I wrote to life, then one day I'll regret it and I could get sick of working on other people's songs because I want to work on my own. So, I think it's definitely good thing that I am using my Infinities as a creative outlet, but in saying that, I guess Renegade is my number one priority. A lot of the times I have to put aside my own music for my work, but that's absolutely fine with me. I'm just really grateful to be able to do both.

FMM: And I’m sure you’d share knowledge with others and I'm sure in that role, you learn a lot from the artists that you work with as well.

INFINITIES: That's right, 100%. Yeah, and I mean, I sometimes get to play shows with the artists I work with as well, which is really fun.

FMM: Yeah, I see that. You do the Renegade Live showcases as well, which have been incredible to see.

INFINITIES: Yeah, they've been amazing. It's been good to put the showcases on, especially because a few of the artists that go on these showcases have never performed before, so being able to get them a platform to perform live and to a crowd of usually at least 100 people is really nice.

FMM: That's incredible that you're able to give them that opportunity as well. For some of them, you're giving them their first live experience.

INFINITIES: Yeah, that makes me super happy.

FMM: Speaking of live shows, I know you did Groovin the Moo earlier this year and you've done some other incredible shows. What were some of your highlights from all that experience?

INFINITIES: For sure. I think Groovin the Moo was so surreal because I always had this dream of… so this was my dream. It was, I don't want to go to a festival until I perform at a festival. That was my mindset. In March, I did get to do a little 15 minutes performance at the Northern Sound System area at WOMAD in Adelaide. I guess that was my first festival, but the Groovin the Moo was my first major festival appearance and the first time I actually went to a festival. It's surreal that I got to make that dream come true and just having the experience of being an artist at such a massive festival, it was really like that superstar treatment, which was really nice, but I don't know, it was just so cool to be up there. Even though it was the local stage, it was just so fun to perform and no matter how many people are watching, I always give my best effort.

I'm just really grateful for Groovin the Moo that everyone that was working there, the promoters, the crew, they were all just so lovely and made each artist feel so special, even though we were local supports. That was really nice and that's how I want to treat artists that do live shows with us at Renegade. It just felt really good and wholesome.

FMM: Yeah, that's lovely to hear and obviously, unfortunately I didn't get to see it, but I saw some of the clips that you shared on your social media and it looks like you were having so much fun and you were really in your space.

INFINITIES: Yeah, for sure. Thank you.

FMM: That's okay. Do you have any more live shows coming up or how can people come and support you as an artist?

INFINITIES: For sure. Yeah. So coming up, actually, I've got one that I haven't announced yet, but will be this week on September 29 at the Golden Waddle in Adelaide. It's four days after my birthday, so I reckon I will be inviting my friends to that one to come celebrate. It's also my guitarist's birthday on that night, so I think we'll turn it into a bit of a birthday bash. But yeah, that's in the works. I'm looking at doing something interstate soon. It's a couple of months away, but yeah, hopefully be able to announce soon.

Sometimes I just randomly get these really cool opportunities. Like, I just played Scouted last month, which was a really big deal for me because it was like just this absolutely stacked lineup of emerging artists from Adelaide and some really cool people that work in the industry attended that. I was really grateful to be a part of that lineup I'm just looking forward and open to whatever comes my way.

FMM: Yeah, and that's incredible too that you mentioned the Adelaide opportunities because I feel like Adelaide sometimes so often goes under the radar, but there's incredible artists. You're doing incredible things yourself. and you've got other artists in Adelaide.

INFINTIES: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I feel like we do go under the radar a lot, but so much good music's coming out of Adelaide. I mean, even if you look at Triple J for example, I reckon it was two years in a row, we had George Alice and Teenage Joans win and they're both from Adelaide and yeah, there's just so much amazing talent that's emerging out of Adelaide and going beyond. I guess I'm really proud to be from Adelaide, to be honest.

FMM: Hopefully it gets more attention too, because there’s some incredible artists. What are some things that people in bigger cities can do to support these incredible Adelaide artists?

INFINITIES: Yeah, that's a good question. I think just give us the time of day, check us out if you're in Adelaide, come to show, follow us on social media.

FMM: Of course. I mean, that's we're all about - supporting those up and coming artists and giving them the attention they deserve. As an artist, but also the owner of Renegade Records, what are some interesting changes you've seen in the Australian music industry this year and where do you think it might be going?

INFINITIES: That's a fantastic question. I think.. oh, God, I don't know if I'm going to stir the pot or something by saying this, but I think that Triple J is not as important as it used to be, so I see, that switching up.

I think to me, it looked like, in order to get success in Australia, you used to have to be played on Triple J. I think it's not like that anymore, especially with the way social media is going with TikTok, YouTube shorts, Instagram reels, and people are really carving their own paths and they're not waiting to be picked up by someone. I think independent is absolutely the future and yeah, I think as an independent label, I'm really proud of that and I think it's really strong of artists to really push themselves and create success for themselves without expecting that it's going to come from somewhere, waiting for it to come from somewhere.

FMM: I agree with what you're saying too, because some of my favorite artists that I listen to at the moment, I found through TikTok or Instagram or someone else has recommended them to me. Rarely am I getting music from Triple J.

INFINTIES: Yeah, definitely. Same here. That's how we found… you've interviewed Bri Carter, who's under our label. I literally found her on TikTok and she's amazing. I feel like that's the way to go as well and that's how people are getting out there, which is incredible.

FMM: Yeah, good, and it also saves some money because as you'd know yourself, being an independent artist can be quite expensive when you're starting out in the industry.

INFINTIES: Definitely it can be. It all adds up. It's so much money, even just to get a song recorded and get some production done, it all costs so much. So, I think being able to save on marketing spend by marketing yourself with vertical content is the way to go now.

FMM: I feel it's like it works for you as well because you're always active on socials and I love seeing what you're up to musically and I encourage anyone to go check you out on social media because you're always up to really cool stuff in your music career, which I love.

INFINTIES: Thank you. Yeah, I love just sharing what I'm doing as well. Just to even just help out and inspire other people because I used to see what other people were doing online and be like, I want to do that and go get some inspiration to do that.

FMM: And what are you up to for the rest of the year? It sounds like you said Particles was a preview for some bigger project stuff?

INFINITIES: Yeah, so I thought I was going to release an EP this year, but I think I've decided against it because I think I just want to keep dropping some really good singles for a while and see where that takes me and keep working on building a fan base before I drop a project. I'm actually in the studio again tomorrow recording a brand new song and I'm hoping to release that before the year ends. I think there's definitely one more single, but I really just want to push Particles and give it some love for the next couple of months, and then I'll probably release another single before the end of the year.

Then next year, I really want to drop a few singles every couple of months, like one every two months or something, and then see where I'm at and then look at working towards an EP.

FMM: Yeah, sounds exciting. I'm really looking forward to hearing the new songs down the track as well.

INFINITIES: I just want to take my time because I think there’s a big stigma around age as well because I'm about to be 27 in three weeks and so I think I used to really stress myself out about that. Then I look at my favorite band, Lany. The singer in Lany, when he was 27, he was a door boy at a clothing shop in LA and now they're touring the world. They've toured the world multiple times. Stories like that just really give you hope and it's like, okay, just chill out, don't worry about how old you are. That does not matter.

FMM: It's never too late and your ideal audience will love you no matter what age. If it's people that are going to be concerned about your age, then that's not your ideal audience anyway.

INFINITIES: Yeah, exactly right.

FMM: Hopefully I get to see you live one day. Hopefully I'm down in Adelaide one day or you're up hitting up all the stages in Darwin.

INFINTIIES: 100%. Yeah, you'll definitely see me live one day.

FMM: Were there any other comments you wanted to add about yourself as an artist or this particular release?

INFINITIES: It's just really fun. I tried to take a shit situation and make a fun song with it, basically. Thank you to everyone that's been streaming it and listening and supporting me and thank you for interviewing me. I really appreciate it.