The band are back with their unique RnB meets Pop-Punk rendition of Positions.
East Capri is an alt-punk group from Brisbane, QLD. Its members, Jackson Deasy on Guitar, Eden Cartwright on Vocals and Jamal Irlam on Guitar, are laid back and cheerful when hanging out together in Jackson’s home studio. When discussing their music and the future of their band, however, the boys are focused, with long-term goals in place, working hard to see their projects come to light.
Although we won’t see the band tour anytime soon, East Capri is hard at work with several new releases ready to go and a stack more in the making. “We don’t have any tour dates booked at this stage,” says Jackson, “But we will be putting tracks out and it’s a mixed bag of stuff that we are working on this year”.
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In the meantime, the band hopes to get their fans talking with their cover of Ariana Grande’s song Positions, premiering on Friday, 17th February.
“This cover is the first release for what a lot of our new stuff is going to sound like,” Eden explains. “If you’ve followed us for a while, you will be taken on a big journey. All of our stuff is going to be pretty different. Same style and sound, but we are pushing ourselves and want to exceed people’s expectations on what we have.”
“Don’t get comfortable,” Jackson adds, “But also don’t worry,” puts in Jamal. “The songs are all still East Capri which is pretty important for us.”
Released back in 2020, Positions is the title track of American singer Ariana Grande’s sixth studio album. The pop RnB track could have been renamed Love Language to the same effect. Lyrically, Ariana is stating all the ways she’s willing to dedicate herself to her lover whilst alluding to sex. She focuses on sharing herself with a lover in ways that love makes us vulnerable to.
In East Capri’s cover of the song, however, the band haven’t shied away from a more literal sexual interpretation of the term “Positions” both with their delivery and the video clip itself. In addition, the band agreed that their intention was to push their own boundaries musically and in how they express themselves in this cover.
“I wanted it to be a few different things,” Eden explains. “I wanted myself to switch gender roles as a male to more of a submissive role and express more sexual openness as well. These concepts are visually provocative and work well in a video clip. It’s good to show stuff that’s a little bit more out there but in a tasteful way.”
The band is enjoying playing around with their sounds on this cover. The song starts off with Eden demonstrating a solid first attempt at RnB vocals. His voice sits comfortably behind the beat giving the band space to play with this new sound. The change from an RnB-pop track to a heavier punk song begins to build at the 20-second mark. The music gains momentum with Eden’s emotional delivery of Ariana’s catchy repetitive lyrics.
To all the long-term East Capri fans out there wondering how far off the track the band have gone from their previous release, fear not. The band’s alt-punk-pop roots are 100% still present and displayed in Jamal and Jackson’s guitar work and Eden’s ability to work his voice back and forth from croony RnB to his more distinct sound.
Jackson Deasy produced the cover entirely on his own from his apartment studio in Brisbane. “We began working on this late last year, so it’s come together in a couple of months,” says Jackson. With no mention of further collaborators on future releases, it appears the band have settled into their own lane. A productive one at that, as Eden says, “We have at least one release coming out every two months or so this year”.
Melding their alternative roots with a pop sensibility, the band craft a unique punk-goes-pop rendition of a classic. You can stream it here!