Their female fronted pop/rock is full of upbeat melodies and just the right amount of popiness; all of which makes it a perfect soundtrack for summer. On the eve of the launch for their debut self titled EP, guitarist and main songwriter Alexa Nania is counting down the days to when the band officially get to release the Ep out into the world. “Yeah we’re really excited,” she says down the phone line from work. “We took a while. Like we recorded the EP back in the end of May but we took ages to get it pressed and get the covers done and all that so finally, we’re just excited to have it all done and to actually get to do the launch. We had a fair bit of money from when Maddie and I used to do cover acoustic gigs back in the day so we just used all that towards it. But we paid for it all ourselves.”
Taking their cues and influences mainly from Brit pop but also from bands such as The Arctic Monkeys, The Killers and Oasis, The Modern Age’s self titled EP has an upbeat, summery vibe to it; making it a perfect companion to a nice, balmy, sunny afternoon and the December release is a rather neat piece of timing. “Well when I wrote the songs I mainly try and do things that I like in songs that I listen to,” explains Nania. “I don’t really like depressing slower kind of music so everything’s fairly upbeat except the last song – it’s more mellow, but it’s not a slow sort of song. It still moves along and builds up and that kind of thing.”
When it came to writing the songs for the EP, Nania had a pretty clear vision of what she and her band mates were aiming for. “For me personally, when I listen to music I get bored quite easily so I just had to keep everything upbeat,” she muses. “They’re not extremely long songs or anything like that, just more catchy with good melodies and more fun than anything.”
Although Nania is the chief songwriter in the band, its only when she takes the songs into the rehearsal room and shows them to the other three members, that they transform and evolve into the tracks that are on display on the EP.”Maddie writes some of the lyrics and sometimes I’ll either have a song written and show it to her and we’ll work on it and then take it to the rest of the band,” explains Nania. “Or we will write it together or she’ll have lyrics and give them to me; that sort of thing. But usually Maddie and I will do all that and then take it to the boys and show them what we have.”
Like any band, The Modern Age’s songwriting process is one of trial and error, but one that eventually benefits and enhances their overall sound. “Sometimes it’s hard – you have ideas in your mind and then they just totally don’t work,” she laughs. “Or things that you don’t think – if someone makes a mistake and it sounds good, things like that.”
With the songs on the EP having been written some time ago, The Modern Age have wasted little time moving forward and are already armed with a new batch of songs keeping them in good shape for the future. In the meantime though, the band’s focus is on getting their music out there as much as possible as well as showcasing their live show. “We’re sort of just taking it as it comes but I guess we just want to really start to get this [EP] out there. We want to go in and record some more songs as well,” she adds. “Since we recorded that [EP] we’ve written all these new songs too, but we’re still happy with these songs so we sort of want to push these a bit. So we’re just going to see what happens and just try and play as much as we can and get it out there as much as we can.”
