“It was honestly just a really wholesome experience,” Garage Noise said of the genesis behind their new EP Innocent Scenes.
Earlier this month, Garage Noise treated audiences to their stellar EP, Innocent Scenes.
A six-track collection flitting from revelrous pop punk to head-thrashing noise, the Sydney four-piece paired their eclectic ear with tender ruminations on childhood, nostalgia and coming-of-age.
Thankfully for those of us who simply can’t get enough, Garage Noise are set to perform Innocent Scenes at a string of headline shows later this year.
The band will bring their signature sound to stages at Bucketty’s (November 19), Burdekin Hotel (November 30th) and Oxford Art Factory (December 7).
In anticipation of those shows, and amid the glow of their debut EP, we caught up with Garage Noise to chat all things Innocent Scenes, the turning point that changed their sound, and their favourite teen movies.
Catch our full interview with Garage Noise below, and scroll down to listen to their new EP Innocent Scenes.
HAPPY: What are you up to today?
ZAC: Currently in the motions of finalising my bachelors degree in conservation whilst adding to some new song ideas here and there to show the rest of the band soon
BELLA: I’m at uni or work most days a week (sometimes both on the same day!) and fitting in practice and everything else around that. Very excited today though with the release finally upon us!
FLYNN: I’m actually in the middle of the HSC! But not much today though, pretty chill.
SAM: Just trying to work as much as possible to fund for the whole music thing and put as much into it as possible.
HAPPY: What’s the music scene like in your neck of the woods?
ZAC: The North West isn’t as booming of a live music scene compared to other areas in Sydney. There’s a lot of great talent that comes out of here though.
BELLA: There are a couple of venues that offer live music like the Ettamogah Pub, or the Bull and Bush Inn.
But it’s very difficult to get gigs there if you’re not a very well known or well established band, which is why we’ve had to look to other places like Newtown or Marrickville.
SAM: Our friends in Acacia Bloom are from out here too and we’ve seen some great bigger bands come from here.
FLYNN: Yeah Mortal Sin and 5 Seconds of Summer are from the west too! Michael Clifford from 5SOS literally lived in Quakers Hill before he made it big, and that’s the same suburb as where Sam is from.
HAPPY: How did Garage Noise come into existence as a band?
ZAC: We were all in our high schools after school rock band program but in different bands. Eventually we started jamming together as a side project and decided us four gelled incredibly well together so we kept going.
BELLA: I’m not even actually a bassist by trade, I’m a classically trained violinist, so when we figured we needed a bassist I went “how hard can it be?” and that’s how I ended up playing bass.
SAM: The band was formed by Zac, Bella and Flynn and they would perform around school with a bunch of different singers.
So I felt very privileged that they asked me to be the one singer to stick around and that we’ve continued this journey as far as we have and I’m excited to see how far we take it.
HAPPY: What does a typical day look like when recording a project like Innocent Scenes?
FLYNN: Honestly it was pretty chill & loads of fun! Massey kept us on our toes by suggesting parts and letting us express as much as we could in 5 days.
SAM: We would stay in the studio for four nights and five days just going in and out of the live rooms and spending about 13 hours a day to try and get the best takes we could possibly get.
ZAC: I drank way too much coffee during our sessions. Maybe that’s why some of my parts are so fast, but we kept it very casual and I think that’s incredibly important.
BELLA: We focussed on something different everyday which was great because it kept us a) on track and b) not bored with what we were doing.
Flynn and I were done recording drums and bass by the first day so we had a lot of time to get the guitar and vocal parts just right.
SAM: After finishing recording for the day we would make ourselves dinner and just chill as friends and celebrate the opportunity that we had been given.
Some nights we would watch youtube and others we would just sit and talk. It was honestly just a really wholesome experience that made us feel very comfortable and made everything feel so real.
HAPPY: It’s always intriguing to hear about single selection. Is there certain criteria that Edgewood Drive had to meet to become the single?
BELLA: There were definitely some songs on the EP that we just didn’t want to spoil, so that eliminated a few for us, and there were some that we’d already released demos of.
It was really between Scars and Edgewood Drive, so when we considered what each song sounded like, Edgewood Drive came out on top.
FLYNN: It was definitely just the energy of it, it’s the most fun to play live for sure.
ZAC: It definitely had an ear catching energy that was way more prominent than our other songs.
SAM: We all love this track and it felt very natural to be able to release it as a single. It’s one of our crowd pleasers at gigs too so it was great to release something that we know everyone loves.
HAPPY: You’ve said that Edgewood Drive was a turning point in finding your sound. Why is this the case?
FLYNN: Edgewood Drive lets us tap into a bit of the Blink-182 or “pop-punk” kinda vibe. Despite it not being the first thing we came up with, it’s still important for us to have that sound as a part of our arsenal.
SAM: There are a couple songs that really have a similar genre to Edgewood Drive on the EP, but after writing this track we went back and added to the other songs to improve them and change their sound for the better to make this full body of work that flows really smoothly.
ZAC: Innocent Scenes in general is our sonic representation of exploring all aspects of our sound so far. But Edgewood Drive was the big one in terms of finding what we wanted the root of our sound to be: hard, fast and melodic pop-punk.
BELLA: Zac plays these sparkling lead lines, myself and Flynn have what can almost be considered rhythmic duets in the verses, and Sam as always just nails the vocals and the runs.
We also really started playing around with gang backing vocals and realised that this is something that we could really use in our songs, and really defines a lot of the work in the EP.
HAPPY: You’ve cited acts like Harry Styles, Blink-182 and 5 Seconds Of Summer as influences. How do you go about infusing these influences in your work?
FLYNN: I think they just come out instinctually when we play, you’re not always thinking about it but it’s always there.
SAM: The influences for every song are different in their own ways. Personally, I was listening to a lot of 5SOS when I was writing Make It All Better and one of their tracks called Older was very much an ode to 50’s love songs.
That 5SOS track really helped dive into the importance of lyrics and how we wanted to have the song sound melodically
ZAC: Often the more upbeat lead guitar lines, or pounding root note centric bass lines, like that in Edgewood Drive, or These Days will draw on Blink.
A lot of the vocal work and nuances comes from Sam’s love of Luke Hemmings from 5SOS and Harry Styles.
ZAC: We also have fairly out there chord structures, like in Silhouettes and Scars, where we don’t just use the I V IV progression, but use the sixths and sevenths a lot.
This comes from Zac’s love of The Goo Goo Dolls as they use some crazy progressions and it just makes our music all the more interesting..
HAPPY: Pop-punk often recalls the soundtracks of our favourite aughties teen movies. Are there any favourite movies you could imagine Innocent Scenes playing in?
ZAC: Oh for sure it’s gotta be American Pie. That movie’s soundtrack had so many of my biggest 90’s punk influences on it so I feel like it’d blend well there.
But maybe that’s a bit ambitious thinking our song would be amongst Blink-182 and The Offspring hahah.
BELLA: From the minute my Mum listened to the EP she said “I can just imagine hearing these songs in a movie,” so when I saw this question I had a big laugh to myself.
For me for Edgewood Drive, Jamie, or Scars, it’d have to be something like 10 Things I Hate About you or Clueless, but Silhouettes, These Days and Make It All Better, I just don’t know, they’re sort of what I feel personally are the most raw songs, so it’d have to be something really really special.
SAM: Certain songs on the EP feel like movie tracks and even though they are still very important to us and have something to say, they feel like songs that you can just have in the background to feel good.
The slower songs on the EP really feel like songs that you have to sit and listen to in order to build an opinion on which feel like very reflectant songs.
FLYNN: I’m with Zac it’s definitely gotta be American Pie haha. Or maybe something stupid like Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
HAPPY: Is there a certain level of anxiety that comes with sharing a debut release like Innocent Scenes?
ZAC: I think the huge time between finishing recording and release day kind of builds anxiety purely over just wanting to share our songs as soon as we can to our fans.
BELLA: Absolutely. We put our hearts on our sleeves with this record and poured so much of ourselves into it so there is definitely a level of anxiety that comes with it. We just want everyone to love it as much as we do.
SAM: The anxiety very much comes from the feeling of releasing something that you have built yourself up to say.
Whether that’s an emotion that you wanted to tell someone or just something going on in your life, you fear that people won’t understand how you felt and not like it, making you feel like what you had to say was kind of pointless.
In saying that, I’ve never been more excited to show anything to anyone and that anxiety and excitement blend in together.
FLYNN: There is a bit of anxiety, but more excitement I think. There’s a lot of time between writing, recording & releasing so it’s good to see it coming out now.
HAPPY: What do you hope listeners gain from listening to your EP?
ZAC: Lyrically we explore a lot of personal experiences that I’m sure a lot of listeners can heavily relate to as young adults.
So personally I hope we allow listeners to reminisce on the feelings of the good times, but also remind listener’s that they aren’t alone in the not so great times.
BELLA: I really hope that everyone can see how much we love music, and love playing together.
I hope that our listeners get to experience our pain, and heartbreak, and love, and happiness with us and like Zac said so well, realise that they are not alone, and maybe listening to and singing along with our tracks can be an outlet for them.
SAM: I really home that listeners can just use these songs in their own lives and not understand what they mean to us, but find out what the tracks mean to them as their own people.
I hope that they can like the tracks and that they make them feel a certain way that makes them want to come back and keep listening to more.
FLYNN: I hope they enjoy the songs, however they choose. If you like them because you sing along or if you relate to the lyrics or you don’t really give a f**k that’s okay too
HAPPY: What makes you happy?
ZAC: This band is my biggest source of happiness. But of course I find that in my family and friends too. And little things like nature, reading and skateboarding (with tunes of course).
BELLA: Music in general always has, and I hope always will be the thing that makes me happy.
My family makes me so happy too and I have two sisters who I am very proud of, and because of this band, the boys are like three brothers I never had, so they are part of my family now.
SAM: My family and partner have always made me happy, and its really cathartic to be able to turn to music in any really good or really bad moments, to just write down how I feel and make me stabilise my emotions and get myself under control.
This band has and will always be a sense of pride and happiness that I will ever experience and I am so lucky and fortunate to share that feeling with my best friends.
FLYNN: Music, food and my partner make me happy, most things creative or expressive as well really. Travel does it for me too, just going on a drive or spending time with people I cherish.
