Q: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how your childhood impacted your musical direction?
A: The band originates from Geelong in the south east of Australia. Locally a lot of people call it ‘Geetroit’ because if its industrial heritage and similarities music wise to Detroit USA. It has changed a great deal now is a destination city for tourists and day-trippers because of the way it has been excellently developed to enhance the waterfront and as a gateway to the Great Ocean Road. It wasn’t always pretty. It had been a low socio-economic region and a pretty ugly boring place…worthy of the derision that was sometimes aimed at it. We grew up in that “grey” Geelong and were trying to find a way of making something that kind of transcended the bleak stereo type. Instead of reflecting the struggle town image we set out to fly in the face of it. We formed to make music that was beautiful and melodic and powerful. That was our way of escaping the reality of a really negative vibe.
Q: How are you planning on growing your fan base and sharing your music with the world? What message do you have for anyone who is about to discover “Greenhouse”?
A: greenhouse is a band that has always put melody first. We like to layer melodies, vocal and guitar, to create dense waves of emotion. We deal with powerful and complex emotions so these waves themselves need to be complex and powerful. I guess we are always trying to get our songs to be a force of emotion that hit viscerally as well as cerebrally. We dropped our Debut Album this year, toured Australia with Happy Mondays and went on tour in the UK to get out amongst the good people. Streaming the record got us to an audience outside Victoria, touring took us a long way and introduced us to a lot of new audiences this year. We hope to tour more this year to meet more people and certainly to get back to the UK. Seeing greenhouse live is where it’s at. Always has been.
Q: Who is the most inspiring artist for you right now? And where do you find inspiration for making music?
A: I’ve been really inspired by DMA’s this past year. They seem to be able to cut through genre and expectation and deliver really cool songs. Songs are where it’s at as far as I’m concerned. The vibe and sound need to serve the song and they (DMA’s) seem to really understand that. Great live too. I’ll tell you what doesn’t inspire me that I see a lot…I have a real negative physical reaction to artists that appear to be all style over substance. Artists that put themselves at the centre of their art just don’t do it for for me. On the flip side of that there’s someone like Aurora …. she lets the song take her over. It’s wonderful. She allows the song to have it’s life and she’s the complete embodiment of it when she performs it. She gets that the performer’s job is to give the song to the audience. To relay the emotion by inhabiting it. A song isn’t something that’s put on like an affectation or an accessory as an excuse to ponce about. A lot of artists write and perform in a way that puts themselves and how they themselves feel, at the centre of what they do. It’s really about how the audience feels, not how the artist feels, that counts. The artist can feel away all they want but if the audience don’t feel it… it just ain’t theatre bruh.
Q: Can you tell us about the story or message behind the album, “Centre Of The Universe.”?
A: I guess it’s a bit of an ironic title, given what I’ve just written above. It does acknowledge that we are all the centre of our own universe….but we are, all of us, together on a tiny rock in the centre of THE Universe. Kinda makes the centre of our own personal universe totally insignifiant. I think that’s what message is behind the title. The album itself is about how we can be more than that insignificance if we get out of ourselves a bit more and be part of the bigger picture. Connect with the real world around us all. We have a lot in common and that seems to be forgotten. The cult of the individual has a lot to answer for. The album is conscious of that and as such, has a conscience and is trying to express and relate that as honestly as we can.
Q: How would you describe your sound in one word for potential listeners?
A: Multilayered
Q: Did you face any challenges while writing or recording the tracks of the album, “Centre Of The Universe”?
A: We faced a lot of difficulty with the album. All the band members live about 100 km or more away from each other and we were recording during the very strict lock downs we had here during the Pandemic. We recorded everything remotely into my studio in the wombat forest. We had the opportunity for Johnny to record his guitars at the studio but those sessions had to be meticulously timed so we weren’t breaking any laws. The drums were recorded in the USA by Nik Hughes (from Bush) and the files then transferred to me back in Aus to edit and lay into the sessions. Nik recorded the drum tracks as we lost our drummer to cancer just before the Pandemic struck. It was tough. Apart from the emotional difficulties I had to convert my small off grid voice over studio into a full blown music studio capable of handling the album we wanted to record. That and I had to get up to speed on how I was going to produce it!! The record was mixed in the UK by Barny Barnicott (Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian, Sam Fender) and then mastered in London. It was a logistical and technological pinball effort.
Q: What is the message of your music? And what are your goals as an artist?
A: I’m always looking for connection. To a time, to a place, to a person, to an audience. I think lyrically it’s about identifying my place in the world and by extension, our place in the world and what that means.…I seem to explore that through how I connect with everything even if it’s just with an idea… I fully believe no one is an island no matter how isolated or individual one may feel. I think the connections we make or discover reveal the meaning most of us are looking for. Conveying meaning is what all art’s about. I think we like to connect different and layered melodies within our songs to convey the notion that there’s power and real meaning in connection.
Q: Who is your dream artist to collaborate with? (dead or alive)
A: I think I’d like to work with Jacknife Lee. I think he does a great job of getting to the core of songs and looks at things with a great bent. I think we’d get each other.
Q: What is your advice for people interested in pursuing music as a career or for those trying to enter the industry?
A: It’s not called the music industry for nothing….It’s in the business of manufacturing a product for a consumer. It’s no different to any other industry. Know your product.
Q: If you could go back in time and give a younger you some words of wisdom, what would they be?
A: Don t try to please others. Don’t try to write what you think an audience will like. It always ends in disaster…..that and bad art. If you are good at what you do, an audience will come to you.
