The fellas from The Lazy Eyes and Teenage Dads had a yarn about what’s on the cards for these two up and coming acts.
With the release of their newest single Piano Girl and their recent killer EP Club Echo, the chaotic and loveable boys from Teenage Dads got together (virtually) with old friends The Lazy Eyes to catch up for a good old fashioned shit talk.
Harvey, Itay, Leon and Noah of The Lazy Eyes joined Angus, Vinnie and briefly Jordy from Teenage Dads to discuss their influences, dream gigs and how they met.
VINNIE: Hey Leon… Sup. We actually haven’t met yet!
LEON: Yep hey hey, have not met.
VINNIE: And is Noah there, can’t see him.
NOAH: Oh you can’t see me?
ANGUS: Oh there we go haha.
ITAY: He’s omnipresent.
*Laughs*
ANGUS: Thank you guys for coming on and joining us. For those who don’t know, who are you and what do you do?
HARVEY: Thanks very much for having us guys. I’m Harvey, and under me, we have Itay, under him is Noah and to the left of that is Leon. And we’re The Lazy Eyes from Sydney, Australia.
ANGUS: And how do we know each other?
ITAY: Well wasn’t the first gig we played together in Sydney at The Chippo? Like yeeeears ago. Like 3-4, I don’t know, Noah’s good with dates.
NOAH: Yeah 2018, coz I had longer hair.
HARVEY: The question is for you guys. How did you find us?
VINNIE: Ohhh far out umm. I dunno if you had unearthed back then? Maybe that was the only place you had music, or maybe you had Instagram or something. I was going hard looking for bands and yeah, found you somehow haha. And it was good!
HARVEY: Yeah I was confused when we rocked up because you were like “oh you guys did the drum cover”.
VINNIE: Oh yeah!
ITAY: It blew my mind haha.
*all laugh*
HARVEY: Was it through that?
VINNIE: No it wasn’t, but I remember when we met, I realised haha.
ITAY: That must’ve been so confusing.
VINNIE: It was!
ANGUS: Is that cover still up?
ITAY: No, it got taken down!
LEON: Yeah copyright.
ITAY: It’s on my Facebook though, if ya dig deep.
VINNIE: So, Angus has a few questions to start off with.
ANGUS: Ok so, in honour of your new song, Fuzz Face that was released-
VINNIE (Interrupting): Fuzz Jam!
ANGUS: Fuzz Jam!! Hahaha sorry FUZZ JAM!
*Everyone laughs*
ANGUS: In honour of Fuzz Jam, not fuzz face, I want you to give me a worst to best in terms of fuzz pedals. We have the Fuzz Face, Behringer SF300, Big Muff, Earthquaker tentacle.
ITAY: Ooo I reckon we’ll all have different opinions.
ITAY: I use the Fuzz Face. So I’m biased. So that’s the best. Earthquaker is always good, so that’s second. I’m not that big on the big muff tones. So that’s 4 and Behringer is 3.
ANGUS: Yeah I learnt recently that Behringer have their own city haha.
LEON: Yeah they do! Where they manufacture all their stuff.
ITAY: Whhaaaat? Haha, dude that’s awesome.
ANGUS: Ok so another one. Harvey, if Itay could have written any song, what would it have been?
HARVEY:….. Tangerine?
*Zoom erupts in laughter*
ITAY: think he means like any song, in general.
HARVEY: Well it would definitely be Tangerine coz he wrote that one. What is that question haha???
*Laughing continues*
LEON: It’s like the, “I wish I wrote this song” but someone else.
HARVEY: Oh you mean a song of another artist that he could’ve written.
HARVEY: Hot Potato haha
HARVEY: First thing that comes to mind would be Playground Love by Air.
ANGUS: Alright, Leon, what song would Noah have liked to have written?
LEON: Well it has to be groove-based I reckon.
HARVEY: Maybe that Gotye song.
LEON: Oh yeah I’d say… that upbeat one.
NOAH: I feel better?
LEON: Yeah that one.
NOAH: Great song. I was actually listening to that album today.
ANGUS: You have an album coming up, next year. Songbook.
VINNIE: Song Face.
*Laughs*
ANGUS: How did that come about?
ITAY: We wrote the songs back in high school, a couple years ago. During high school we didn’t have time to record them, so we were just playing live a lot. Even when we played our first show with you guys, we were playing songs off of the album. Since then, we’ve just been really slowly recording them and learning how to do it ourselves and now it’s done haha.
VINNIE: I was gonna ask if there were any more songs from back then. I remember a bunch from your EP were played at that Chippo show.
HARVEY: Do you remember Fuzz Face?
*Laughs*
JORDY (just joins the zoom): I remember you playing Fuzz Face at The Temper Trap show.
*laughing intensifies*
VINNIE: I don’t think Jordy knows haha!
HARVEY: Haha I thought he was going along with it.
VINNIE: Jordy, Angus messed up before you were here and called it Fuzz Face
JORDY: Haha my bad I was meant to say Fuzz Jam, not Fuzz Face.
NOAH: I have a question. Can you talk us through the process of your new ep?
ITAY: And how you guys work as a band when you record?
VINNIE: This one was a little different to the past. Normally it’s all done at Jordan’s with his gear but during lockdown, Angus and Connor set up some home studios, so the demos were made during that time from each other’s places, but we recorded it all in the breaks in lockdown when we were allowed to. This was the first time we really took a breath with our songs, and tried other things with it, and same with the mixing, we made heaps of changes.
ITAY: Do you guys mix yourselves?
ANGUS: This was the first time we had someone else.
VINNIE: Yeah Jordy had mixed the demos really well to get them to a point where we wanted, then we recorded it as we normally do and sent it off to Schrammy to mix.
VINNIE: on the topic of lockdown how was it for you guys? Looked like you guys pushed through, kept active.
NOAH: It was still really tough. We were really lucky to get the last recordings done off the album right before it hit. I think over a few weeks Harvey would go to Itay’s and smashed out the mixes in a few weeks.
ITAY: It was the first time that we had done recordings as a band. HARVEY TLE and I used to just track everything ourselves over some drums. We really wanted to start recording as a band for the album and for future as well. It also made the mixing so much faster too. All the bleed made it sound natural. Is that what you guys do too?
VINNIE: Nah. We’ve tried a few different things. On this EP we sampled the whole drum kit.
HARVEY: Oh did you actually?
VINNIE: Yeah and we just punched it in and then tracked the cymbals and stuff live over it.
ITAY: Do you guys usually start with drums and then do everything else.
VINNIE: yeah track drums, then bass, then guitars etc. Always keen to try new things though. We’ve been recording live as a band recently when we rehearse which has been fun now that we have the gear for it.
JORDY: Yeah and it’s easier to blame each other for making mistakes haha
*laughs*
HARVEY: Who makes the most mistakes? Haha
LEON: Ooo heated question.
JORDY: Nah its Connor, coz he isn’t here.
LEON: I think it’d be me haha.
HARVEY: That will start some beef that question.
NOAH: So, is the management stuff new for you guys?
VINNIE: Yeah the management and the label stuff happened at the same time. We were in talks with Andrew and Chugg for over a year before we signed, getting help here and there. It was great but also this period where we weren’t sure what was happening haha. We had an album ready, but Andrew was like, who wants to hear a Teenage Dads album right now haha, just made us re-evaluate everything, which was good for us to do.
ANGUS: Having that extra person to run through is really helpful because normally you’re just running off the hype of finishing the song and then wanting to release it.
ITAY: Yeah a buffer.
NOAH: We have a similar story. For the first EP, right at the end of 2018, we were like “yep we’re gonna drop EP 1 next month or something” and then our manager, (not our manager at the time) came to the studio to listen to songs and check out the space since he hadn’t been over before and then we were telling him about our plan. Then like a week after we were in a band meeting or something and Harvey gets a call out of the blue and he’s (manager) like “Harvey, we wanna manage the band. Don’t release anything, we’ll do it properly.”
HARVEY: It was like a movie scene, we were all like “ohhhhhhhyyyyyy” *hands in the air* hahaha.
VINNIE: That’s so good.
ANGUS: Alright so what are your top 3 venues, like dream venues to play.
NOAH: I was gonna ask the same thing!
HARVEY: I reckon our dream venue is to do Enmore, but our own show at Enmore. Because we grew up so close to it, it’s personal.
NOAH: We were lucky to play it when we opened for Temper Trap. Got a little glimpse of it.
ANGUS: And you’re doing Hordern with The Strokes?
NOAH: Yeah I’d say that would be another dream one of mine.
HARVEY: You’re a high achiever hahaha.
*Laughs*
NOAH: Qudos Bank haha.
HARVEY: Oh the Opera House would be sick.
LEON: Dude I love playing the opera house. Back in primary school choir in year 4. It was the bomb…
*Laughs*
NOAH: Do we have one more?
VINNIE: You’ve said Enmore, Hordern and Opera House. Any special mentions?
HARVEY: The amphitheatre in Perth, that looks so cool.
NOAH: Oh they’re all Sydney. That river stage one looks cool too. Like all those open ones, with Red Rocks vibes. Wait, you guys are doing river stage with Lime Cordiale right?
VINNIE: Yeah that’s gonna be fun.
VINNIE: Venues for us are probably Corner.
ANGUS: Forum.
NOAH: What’s Corner?
ITAY: Corner Hotel right?
VINNIE: Yeah. And same thing as you with Enmore bit of sentimental stuff behind.
HARVEY: Have you played there?
VINNIE: Nah, but we are in December for our show.
ANGUS: *Laughing* Everyone has just picked venues that they’re playing soon. Plugging their next gig haha
VINNIE: Yeah third one?… Somewhere really funny. Can’t think of anything though.
NOAH: I have another question. One final kinda one. What music are you guys listening to at the moment?
ANGUS: The silk sonic album that came out the other day is sick. I’ve been listening to that a lot.
HARVEY: Oh is that out??
ANGUS: Yeah. The new Parcels album too.
VINNIE: I’ve been listening to Holly Humberstone a lot if you know her. She’s popping off a bit.
ITAY: Yeah she’s British right?
ANGUS: Yeah. And Remi Wolf, she’s sick. Mitski’s new song is cool. I feel like there’s so much music coming out at the moment. With the Fuzz Jam release did you guys see what was coming up and think ‘Oh F*ck”? haha.
NOAH: We don’t really look. We tend to try not release on a Friday maybe.
ANGUS: Yeah when we had just scheduled the EP for Nov 5th like the next day it was like, ABBA releasing new album on Nov 5th haha.
VINNIE: Radiohead. Parcels too ahaha.
*Laughs*
NOAH: I feel like if we were dropping a new album and a HUGE act was too, I’d be like yeah let’s maybe not drop it that day.
VINNIE: Yeah ABBA! It has been like 40 years or something haha.
HARVEY: They were waiting for that very moment.
ITAY: They were like “hmmm when’s Teenage Dads gonna release?”
VINNIE: How about you guys>? What have you been listening to?
HARVEY: I was pumping some Kraftwerk today.
NOAH: What was I listening to today?… Oh yeah Gotye.
HARVEY: Yeah that song you wrote.
*laughs*
NOAH: I went back and listened to some D.D Dumbo today.
ITAY: I was actually listening to Radiohead today. Coz I’ve never actually listened to them heaps.
ANGUS: How are you finding it?
ITAY: It’s great. I knew Ok Computer. Their live show is so good.
LEON: The last thing that I listened to that caught my ear was the latest Mac Demarco album that everyone kinda shat on. I revisited it and it’s actually not that bad. It’s stark and weirdly depressing but kinda in the mood for that haha.
VINNIE: Oh shit I think the thing is about to cancel but that’s alright we can call it there. It’s getting pretty late.
NOAH: Yeah let’s call it haha.
ANGUS: Thanks for jumping on.
ITAY: Yeah thanks for having us.
NOAH: Oh when’s your Sydney gig?
VINNIE: End of Jan. Yeah let’s link up then!
Club Echo by Teenage Dads is available to stream now.
Photos supplied
