That’s the show Chang and vocalist Jack Milas are bringing to Melbourne and their native Sydney at the end of January as they release their debut LP, Open Season. “If it was up to us we would have released it a while ago but it was a process to finish it. In terms of style, Jack and I feel really strongly that instead of writing something we think will be fashionable at the time at the risk of it going out of fashion later, we should try really hard to write really good songs which will sound good to us in five or ten years. The idea is for it to stand the test of time”, Chang reveals.
When asked about the development of their first LP, Chang reflects that it was an organic, more than a planned development. “We knew we wanted to keep momentum, keep the ball rolling and keep some energy happening around the band but there wasn’t a master plan. The plan we did have was always changing as different opportunities presented themselves and as things came up. As we went from point A to point B to point C, things just kept changing. The only plan we had really was to keep forging ahead.
“There always has been a feeling that something good was going to happen,” Chang says about the success of their previous release, a self-titled EP. “It’s just a funny thing. Jack and I have worked on other things and other projects before and they’ve been really fun, but with this one we really felt like we were approaching it from the right place and for the right reasons. We were approaching it with good sense, and trying to keep the logistics solid. There’s always been a good feeling and a good energy around the band and the music.
“We write the songs together, we turn up and we play them together on one instrument each. It’s very organic, Chang muses. We’re often in a rehearsal space and just start jamming on something or writing something new – the process is very natural. It’s natural and so it feels good. So I am glad that this is the project that seems to be going well. It just feels good to play, it’s not a chore.”
But did the success of their debut EP put Chang and Milas under even greater pressure? “People may go ‘we want to hear another song that’s like this on the album’ – but Jack and I know that you can’t just write another song which is like one of your previous songs,” says Chang. “You’ve got to write what you feel, what you think is good, what feels right. In that respect we got the better of it, and it’s been really exciting. Some of the biggest challenges for us were to stop making things complicated and just really distil the simplest version of the arrangement or song that we could. The minimalist approach for us was always the best. We’d often find ourselves starting to complicate things, but it was always nice to find ourselves naturally just taking things back to basics. It made things exciting. We could just stand back and let the core idea come out and shine a bit.”
Although originally from Sydney, the band now resides in Brooklyn, playing regularly to ever-expanding audiences across New York. “I didn’t know what to think of moving here. I’d been here briefly before, but Brooklyn is a really big place, there’s so many different areas. It’s just so lovely – there’s just amazing restaurants, amazing bars, and this fun, young energy that’s just around. It’s very cosmopolitan. But I can’t wait to come back to Australia, to be around not only my friends and family but to be in the culture as well. I miss the friendly interactions that Aussies have. I miss the culture.”
BY JOSH FERGEUS
