We’re big fans of The Pretty Littles over here at Beat Mag. That’s why we’re thrilled to premiere their killer new album, Skeleton Run. If we had to guess, we reckon you’re going to love it too.
Across 13 tracks, The Pretty Littles have crafted their most cohesive record yet — spearheaded by the already banging singles ‘Don Dale’, ‘Sober’ and ‘Hills Hoist’.
To celebrate the release, we’ve asked The Pretty Littles to take us through the album track by track. Check out their responses below.
Hills Hoist: ‘Hills Hoist’ is about a helpless old man who feels like he is out of options so he wanders around his house doing really mundane things like looking in the fridge and at old photos. I pictured my Nanna and Grandpas house in Ocean Grove. They were classic Grand Parents with a well-stocked lolly jar, custard and diet lemonade in the fridge and draws full of nic-nacks to fossick through. It was kinda dark picturing that wonderful house in this setting, but empty houses are always kind of dark. Especially if they used to have more people in it.
Sober: ‘Sober’ was one of the first songs we wrote for the album. One of our members was away when we started writing this track and it was sounding very different to how it finished up. Writing songs without one member can be pretty tough and I think by the time Goolsa came back everything just started getting heavier, ‘Sober’ included. I think you can work out what it’s about. I don’t like going into specifics too much because specifics can kill the nice things songs can make you feel when you’re driving along or going for a walk or whatever.
Don Dale: ‘Don Dale’ is a song written in response to a tele-doco on the ABC about the juvie up in Darwin. It is a shocking place where the kids are treated like shit by macho racist guards. They’d get flogged and tortured. Truly fucked up. Just head-on systematic failure and abuse. Dylan Voller heard the song and got in contact and introduced the song when we played it in Brisbane which was really nice. We recorded it in one go, vocals and all, everything live.
Flags and Stones: The words are an excerpt from a book called A Long Weekend In Alice. It is a graphic novel where a fella called Joshua Santospirito illustrated a piece written by Craig San Roque. It is about things that happen in Alice Springs over the course of a long weekend and it is really, really moving. It fell into my lap and I was transfixed. It is a real heartbreaker. The music portion of this song was kicking around for a bit but it didn’t have any words. Then a narration felt right, and these words felt perfect. Kinda a fair way off what we would normally do, so that was a bit exhilarating. They turned the graphic novel into a short film and you can find that online easily enough.
Serve Yourself: One of the first. Changed just a little bit. I don’t think it had lyrics for ages, or it just repeated hard. I liked the line serve yourself as everyone else does and for the first few months, I just sang that over and over again. I thought that was kinda powerful but I think I was also being lazy and in the end I worked on words and a little angsty political number came out. Fuck the man, man. I don’t know. It’s fun yelling Barnaby!
Overtime: I am so hot and cold with this track. Right now very hot on it. Its poppy and a bit slower. I like the song. Has a fair slice of meaning to me. Probably mostly about not looking after yourself and then finding yourself in a position where people are dependent on you. I don’t think we have played it live yet. We were playing it really soft and refrained when we recorded it and then Greg just stopped us and his like, this sounds pox play louder and quicker and we did and that seemed to fix it.
Back Gate: Just a little acoustic number that felt like it went with the album. That back vocal is Seattle from Dumb Punts. She rocks. Such a sweet-hearted fucking hardarse. She sings on ‘Skeleton Run’ too and also at the end of ‘Serve Yourself’ now I think about it.
7 Devils: From a fucking early session. Would have been written in early 2017, I reckon. Goolsa was away and between writing songs Booza started playing that really simple and nice guitar line, and Boydy was screwing around on bass, I was playing drums and ‘7 Devils’ kinda just popped out of nowhere. Jujjed it up a little when we recorded it. I made Booza let me record the drums which was hard for him to allow as I have no timing. I had full faith in his guitar playing. Always.
Monday Mourning: Wowee, got in by the skin of her teeth! Was off for ages. Flashed late and now here we are. Can’t really remember anything about this one. Bit of a funny little guitar moment in the middle. Nearly broke the band up.
Runnin Outta Steam: Emo as fark, lots of yelling, fun to play live.
School: Also nearly missed out. Earned its spot in the starting 13. Plenty of solid games in the 2’s and ultimately just hard at it. You’d put it in the back pocket, maybe a flank. It’ll do what you want, no more, no less. Sorta Stuart Maxfield areas.
Wading Through The Mud: Little different again. ‘Lil ballad. I kept thinking of this Chelsea Wolfe gig I saw and this one song that stuck out and I wanted to recreate that. She is goth as shit and genuinely terrifying but totally captivating. Got a bit of a goth crush tbh. Think the song was called ‘Simple Death’. Couldn’t be more different but that’s where it came from I think. Chelsea Wolfe is so grouse.
Skeleton Run: Funnily enough, not the title track for the album.
