“It’s a real throwback to things like old INXS and Crowded House and a lot of my influences – the real Australiana rock feel,” says frontman Tobias Atkins. “Our fanbase comes from a prog rock/ metal kind of background. The first EP [last year’s self-titled effort] had a production style that matched those styles of music, but with this EP I really wanted to do the opposite thing, that didn’t even sound like the first one. I’m not sure how the old fanbase is going to take it, but I feel like we’ll get a new market of people who’ll really like it for what it is.”
Atkins started Glass Ocean roughly three years ago, initially as a solo project. He’d previously played guitar in the math-metal band Maze, but with Glass Ocean, he was intent on turning a new leaf.
“I was in London in 2012 and I started writing some music there,” he says. “I was like ‘I want to figure out what I want to say and go from there’, because I’d spent years in musical limbo once Maze broke up called. So, long story short, in London I started it, then I came home in 2013 and said to Nic, ‘We’ve got to write some music together.’ Ever since year 10 he’s been my best friend and I wouldn’t want to write music with anybody else.”
Judging by the stylistic variety featured on II, Atkins still hasn’t pinned down exactly what he wants to say. “It’s the weirdest EP,” he agrees. “It’s got a Chili Peppers funk track at the end [What Plato Said]; it’s got Ghost, which is quieter, almost like a Jeff Buckley kind of thing; and then we’ve got Voice of Fire, which should be the A Current Affair theme song – we wanted to do mandolin, seven-string, acoustic guitar, synth, you name it, it’s all on there.
“Rather than over-thinking things and being super-precise, we wanted to just go on feel and make it a bit looser,” he adds. “And that’s how it turned out – it’s much more organic. It’s a very real representation of what the band can do. This one’s like a blueprint of maybe where we’re going to go next.”
It’s worth noting that II is actually the first release under the Glass Ocean banner to feature the band’s complete four-piece live lineup. In addition to Petterson, who’s a non-playing, co-writing member, Atkins is joined by bass player Joshua Haworth-Webb, guitarist Curtis Martin and drummer Patrick Smith. In order to distance themselves from the stylistic connotations of last year’s self-titled EP, II was recorded with producer Lachlan Mitchell (The Jezabels, Something With Numbers).
“Lachlan really know his shit,” says Atkins. “He really puts things in perspective and he’s the most un-superficial engineer/ person I’ve ever met, so if you don’t capture it when you play it and it doesn’t sound right, then you shouldn’t be there. He makes you play the guitar track all the way through. He really wants to make you work for it. So the whole thing is very honest.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
