Taking a break from writing new material to catch an episode of The Bachelor amidst prime daytime TV scheduling, Twinsy have been building momentum after the release of their electric debut single Water Bombs in February this year. A four track EP followed, showcasing a varied range of shoegazey balladry and calypso-driven beats, and a full-length album is already on the horizon, with the band having only just celebrated the popping of their proverbial live show cherry last month. It sees the boys behind live instruments, with Belsar on guitar and vocals, and Chappell on drums.
“I think people were kind of expecting a Potbelleez kind of vibe, like just a DJ and a singer,” Chappell laughs. “It’s great. It’s so different with me playing drums rather than DJing, it’s a really different feeling when I get off stage. I think Michael’s been enjoying having a bit of room to roam around, because he’s in a band with six people, so you’re fighting for space on stage with five other people. We had the best time”.
Having shared their first experience with Brisbane natives Last Dinosaurs and quickly being added to other show bills across summer, Twinsy are fast making friends within the broader music circuit outside of their respective bands. With early collaborations with bands such as Gold Fields and Bleeding Knees Club and of course, Ajax, it’s no wonder that their music fell upon pricked-up ears from the get-go. They’ve even been touted as Australia’s very own ‘D-list supergroup’.
“I think if you have a good product, it’s going to get out there. Flume is a really good example of that – he’s number one in iTunes at the moment, and there hasn’t really been all that much press on him, it sort of snuck up on people and now they can’t believe how popular he is. But he’s had a pretty steady build, and if you have a good product like he obviously does, you can get it out there through the internet nowadays and word of mouth. But it does help that Michael and I are also in established bands.”
It’s not the first foray into the production of original material for Chappell, who writes all the music for Twinsy. After incorporating little bits of original work within his Yacht Club sets, the idea to try something completely new transpired, leaving us with sounds of steel drums and tropicana dreams. “I just had this idea to try and do this kind of tropical and upbeat style dance music. It sort of started with me not really knowing what I was doing. I was putting like 30 or 40 tracks of audio in, and when we mixed in Sydney we were just pulling stuff out that we didn’t need, or just hiding it in the mix so it was still interesting to listen to at times. There’s a fair bit going on in the tracks that’s not so immediate when you first listen to them. I thought the more tracks I added, the more exciting and crazy the music was going to be but I’m finding now that’s not actually the case. The less, the better”.
This ‘less is more’ mantra is something that the band are taking on board in the recording process for their full-length album, even after summer has become a distant memory. “I think those sounds will still be there, although I don’t think they’ll be quite so ferociously tropical! Upbeat is more our thing more than anything – good feeling songs. I was trying to kind of do a mix of Armand Van Helden and The Beach Boys when I first started, and I remember reading a great interview with Damon Albarn when he first started doing Gorillaz – he wrote the type of music that he couldn’t tie a genre to straight away. I was like, ‘What an amazing idea, I wonder if I could pull that off’.”
With plans to embark on both a national and international tour in the new year, Chappell is firm that the band’s original projects of Hunting Grounds and Yacht Club DJs will remain their first priority, but there are no plans for the project to fall by the wayside either. “I don’t think I’ll ever have to give it away, and Michael is the same. It’s funny with bands – you’re really only on for a couple of months and then you usually get some time off where you have nothing on. But now I’ve got another avenue that I can focus on with my down time, and I can keep on touring which is what I really love doing.”
BY TEGAN BUTLER
