Damon Langley moved to Melbourne from Adelaide four years ago, and in that time he has been grinding away at what would eventually be his debut EP.
Langley’s “sad white boy” music, which he describes as a mixture between indie folk and alt-country, stems from his angsty teen years where he would write songs. He never grew out of that phase.
Four years might seem like a lot of time to put out a debut EP, but for Langley he has also spent the time constantly overcome by massive amounts of self-doubt and a constant worry that his work wasn’t good enough. Luckily he finally accepted the songs for what they were and decided it was time to release them.
“I’d rather have them out in the world as they are now, as opposed to no one ever hearing them and they’ll be locked away in a vault somewhere,” he says. “The songs are still mostly relevant to me as well, so it’s okay that they’re coming out now. They were written about weird turbulent times in my life but I think the most recent one was recorded maybe two or three months ago. The tracklist is the order that they were written and recorded, which I find weird as well because it wasn’t planned like that at all.”
The songs on his EP, titled Love Letter are inspired by Langley’s tendency to be a hopeless romantic and to fall for people too easily. He says most of the songs are about letting go of depression, anger, love, or sadness and regret and moving forward. Most of the songs were written in front of piano, as Langley finds it easier to write with a piano instead of a guitar.
“A lot of it was just sitting down for hours at a time and playing and playing until I finally found something,” he says. “There was a lot of writing down single lines and then going from there. I think with ‘Love Letter’ I had the very first line and the last line and everything else came out in between in random bursts.
“That’s the reason why my turnouts are like three songs a year because I don’t really have the structure,” he continues. “If it comes, it comes, and I stop whatever I’m doing and run home or run wherever I can and figure out what it is. Probably not the best way to do things but it works.”
Langley will be holding an EP launch at Red Betty in Brunswick – an intimate back alley bar that he says he fell in love with last year when he performed there. He’s looking forward to having a fun, close-knit night as his girlfriend and close friends are opening for him.
When it comes to performing live, Langley says it’s weird for him because he’s naturally a very introverted person, but becomes a different person when he gets up on stage and the lights are in his face. “The adrenaline rush that comes with performing on stage is the best and it’s a good way of shaking all the cobwebs out and getting everything out of me that I needed to get out,” he says.
“With these songs it’s going to be like a celebration that I’ve finally done it. Here are these songs that I’ve been working on for such a long time, here they are and this is it and this is what it’s going to be.”
After his EP release and launch, Langley says that apart from playing a gig here and there his main focus is on getting a band together. After playing solo for as long as he can remember, Langley wants a band so he can work with other people and challenge himself more.
“I’ve played in bands and with bands, but never had an actual strict band, which I’d love to have more than anything in the world. It seems like I’m a cop out in the sense of it’s easier for me to do it but there’s not really a challenge in me doing it myself anymore. I want to see what else I can do.”
