Today Oh Pep! drop their sophomore album I Wasn’t Thinking Of You, an album we’ve been waiting quite some time for. Now that it’s finally in our laps, we can’t stop listening.
To celebrate the release, we asked Liv and Pepi to run us through each track on the LP.
Been spinning I Wasn’t Only Thinking Of You, the brand new album from Oh Pep!? Hear what the band themselves have to say about each track.
What’s The Deal With David?
David is written from friend to friend, with that excited energy of talking about their love lives, but also an underlying tone of real talk, and maybe a couple more years under their belt.
Hurt Nobody
This was written during a bomb cyclone in New York last winter by myself and Doug Schadt. I was traveling from Manhattan to Brooklyn for the session, wondering if they were going to keep the subways and bridges open and if I’d be able to get back.
There was an eerie, but thrilling feeling in the air that day, kind of apocalyptic; writing in a warm studio with a bomb cyclone outside.
Your Nail and Your Hammer
This was my perceived story of someone I met in line for my social security number. I am often curious about other people’s stories, about how they got to where they are right now… but this was of a fleeting encounter where my imagination flared, prompted weeks later by some song titles I had written on my wall.
Truths
Truths stared years ago. I remember listening to the first take, traveling in Indonesia before Stadium Cake came out, and then a second take during CMJ in 2016. We sat with it for a while.
It wasn’t finished until we were in the studio with Joel Quartermain recording the album, this past Australian summer. It was written as a letter from child to parent, when you’re trying to navigate the upgrade from kid to grown person.
Up Against The World
Like Doctor Doctor off our first record, I felt there was enough room in the the melody to shine on the lyrics. It’s about being involved with someone who battles with themselves. That melody had been following me around for a minute, but poured out as this song in one sitting at my house in Melbourne.
25
I feel like this is a sister song to Up Against The World. The middle section was written after the first day that we recorded Stadium Cake in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The power went out and there was a storm happening and I decided to take a bath, as it says.
It was then patched together with different sections that were floating around. This was one of my favourite songs to track in the studio.
Parallel
I wanted to capture the feeling of two people who never line up at the same time, but are in each others’ orbit. On the way to the studio I was humming the melody to the chorus “I’m always leaving when you come around…” and it was a real joy to work with Daniel James to flesh it out.
Bleeding Hearts
This was written with Tony Buchen in LA. I loved working with Tony because we sorted out the fundamentals of the song and he went to lay it down and said “come back in two hours with the melody and lyrics” and so I did.
I wasn’t quite happy with it and kept working overnight… and didn’t land something until five minutes before the session the next day.
Asking For
This one is a modern love song, in the sense that we’re always looking for more, but it might be that what you really want has been right in front of you all along.
There Would Be A Riot
I think I have a thing for songs in three at the moment, like Up Against. Like Your Nail and Your Hammer, this was patched together from words on my wall as some kind of therapy. Another letter from friend to friend.
Oh Pep!’s new album I Wasn’t Only Thinking Of You is out now.
Australian Tour
Nov 24th – Queenscliff Festival, Queenscliff, VIC
Nov 30 – Fairgrounds Festival – Berry, NSW
Dec 1 – The Corner Hotel, Melbourne, VIC
Dec 8 – The Old Museum, Brisbane, QLD
Dec 14 – The Wheatsheaf Hotel, Adelaide, SA
Dec 15 – Mojo’s Bar, Fremantle, WA
Dec 16 – Four5Nine Bar, Perth, WA
Jan 11 – The Lansdowne Hotel, Sydney, NSW
Jan 19 – Ocean Sounds Festival, Churchill Island, VIC
