“I think it comes from a question, and motivation,” singer Ian Kenney says thoughtfully. “We were asking ourselves why, purely in a positive way, because it was just this big question. Why are we writing music again? Why are we in this band and how do we get to album number four? And this is a very healthy discussion that we had the whole way through writing this album, and leading up to committing recording in LA.”
It wasn’t an urgent thing born out of lassitude, either: the Birds just wanted to ensure they were present in their minds and were making decisions in a decidedly firm, united way. “Sometimes you have to pause for a bit and ask yourself [why], and sit with it. Don’t answer straight away, let it sink in, and let it sink into the group and the band.”
The answer the guys came up with revolved around a wish for a “very basic human-to-human connection”, and a desire to see how widely they could reach with their message of community. Stand out track This Fire includes a rousing chorus containing the primary line ‘This fire, we lit it’, which instantly reminded me of Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start The Fire, although of course there’s more ownership in the Birds’ lyrics. “Yes, and that’s what the base, the premise of the songwriting and the approach was,” Kenney explains. “To come from us, and just to see what sort of conversation [we can begin], and how softly or how loudly we need to speak just to make sure it comes from us: our little group, our little community. This Fire is basically about, ‘Let’s burn this thing down for the sake of it to see what remains, see who’s left’.”
Lead single Lanterns has already been released to very heavy airplay. Kenney says that choosing a first single can be either quite difficult or very simple. “This time around it was a little more obvious when it came to Lanterns,” he says. “In the early stages of writing that piece of music, even in its most embryotic state… there was something about it. We were like, ‘Fuck, there’s something about this piece here; we’re got to pay attention to this. Let’s just keep our eye and our heart on this one and let’s see where this goes.’ Because every time we worked on it, and it got a little further, it just kept saying more.”
There’s a real sense of space among March Fires’ tracks, but also the suggestion that people can come together and fill it (see: opening track Liquid Arms). Living in separate cities can increase a group’s awareness of bridging space, and Kenney agrees the concept is core to the Birds’ situation. “The band always seems to operate the way we do; if we need to work or get together we just kind of jump on a plane,” he says (bandmembers are variously living in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne at the moment).
“It’s funny because space is so important. We do live in different cities, but when we’re working we live in the same house, and we work together for like, weeks in a row. All we do is get up each morning, everyone says, ‘What’s up’, has some coffee and we’re into writing. So they’re our extremes. So yes, at periods we’re living on top of each other, and then when we’re not we’re in separate states and cities. Space… fuck,” he says quietly, thinking a moment. “So it comes back to what’s always been important in music, because there are so many ways to play with real estate in music, to play with space. You can just sort of fill it with distorted guitars and really heavy-played drums and kind of fill things in, or you can find other ways to carry gravity and carry weight in the same amount of space. But you just make it really wide, and use different textures. And that’s what we were going for,” Kenney concludes simply. “This record still carries a weight to it but we just discovered another way to dress what this band can do.”
BY ZOË RADAS
