For most of the early stages of his career, the name Fraser A. Gorman was synonymous with Melbourne’s Milk! Records, an independent label founded by Courtney Barnett back in 2012.
For years, Gorman was one of the label’s stars, appearing on their compilations and touring alongside the rest of the roster on the 2015 Good for You tour. With the announcement of his second album, however, news officially broke that Gorman had parted ways with the label. “It wasn’t with any malice or sour grapes,” he clarifies from his Melbourne home, which he is soon to depart in favour of new surrounds in Los Angeles.
“We’re all still really good friends – we’re really close. I think it’s a good thing, though. You’ve got to change it up from time to time, after all.”
Instead, the album – entitled Eazy Dazy – was released last month via Brown Truck Records in the US and Australian indie label Caroline Records. The transition delayed the album a little, but Gorman figures it was worth it so that Eazy Dazy was released on his terms. “It all came together pretty naturally,” he notes.
“Obviously, Caroline worked on [debut album, 2015’s] Slow Gum, and Brown Truck is my new thing that my partner Moorea [Allen] and I are working on together in the US. I was excited to step out and do my own thing. It’s definitely influenced by coming up at a time when there were labels like Milk!, Flightless and Bedroom Suck all making it happen. I feel like people are drawn to that a bit more, the idea of the homemade artist-run label. There’s something very direct and very human about it.”
Eazy Dazy picks up where Slow Gum left off, expanding on the album’s slick charms and adding a few more bells and whistles. Despite the expansion of Gorman’s sonic palette, the Torquay-born singer-songwriter insists that he wasn’t specifically targeting a sound that differed from that of Slow Gum. “I didn’t even go into the making of this record with that much of a plan, really,” he says. “I was really just trying to make some songs that I thought would work, and the ones I ended up with came out that way. It was just a matter of going through the songs I’d written over this period of time and seeing which ones had hung around after the others had fallen away.”
Eazy Dazy is littered with guest appearances from a lot of the bigger names in Gorman’s Rolodex, including You Am I’s Davey Lane, The Drones’ Dan Luscombe, and fellow Torquay native in King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s Stu Mackenzie. All are mentioned in passing, but the one Gorman wants to emphasise the most is his current touring guitarist Anika Ostendorf, who also makes her own music under the moniker of Hachiku. “She had quite a musical impact on this record,” says Gorman.
“I’d say she does about 90% of the lead guitar, and she does a heap of vocals too. I’d never made music with her before I was writing this album, and most of the instruments were recorded before she came in at the end to do her parts. It was like she was throwing magic dust over every song – she totally transformed a lot of them. I’m really grateful for that – she made the songs come to life. She’s such an amazing musician. She’s so unassuming as a person, but when you’re playing in a band with her you realise just how unique she is.”
With Eazy Dazy finally out in the world, Gorman has one last tour of Australia planned before he relocates to the States to focus on building his career over there. Following on from his headlining dates in September, Gorman openly wonders about the next chapter. “I’m kind of going to be splitting between playing solo in America and playing with the band here in Australia,” he says. “I would love to bring everyone over, but they make it so fucking difficult for that to happen.” Ever the optimist, Fraser concludes, “I dunno. See what happens. I’m sure we’ll make something work.”
