M: In Jan, you released U & M E. You’ve mentioned how there’s a childishness about it and an immaturity linked to infatuation. Do you link the idea of romantic sentiments to the typical age of a being a teenager?
BLOODS: I think that it doesn’t matter what age you are, infatuation makes you crazy. No one is beyond or above the powers of love and infatuation and that is something I’m really fascinated with. That all consuming feeling that renders you virtually useless to do anything beyond pine after the object of your affection.
It is clear how silly infatuation is seen to be. How do you believe we should jump into and address love instead?
That’s something I’m still learning and I don’t think anyone could truly answer that with certainty. There is a theory that all infatuation/love is a form of delusion. You can convince yourself someone is right for you because they placate your needs at a certain time in your life. I think love is as simple as seeng and accepting a person for who they are, the good and the bad and allowing one another to be individual people.
You describe infatuation as a beautiful delusion. Have you ever been in and experienced that somewhat delusion, as it is from that perspective?
Absolutely! I’ve definitely experienced that nervous infatuation phase and had the butterflies constantly running through my tummy, checking the phone every minute and finding excuses to make contact with that special person. The delusion is real of all first stages of love, because you don’t ever really know who someone is (well in most instances). You fall in love with the version of that person you imagine. That is the delusion and it’s a trap we all fall into at one time or another in our life!
You’ve mentioned how you wrote this songs order, but how do you settle down to write music in general? Is it planned or all over the place?
I usually write songs sitting on my bed and usually they come to me either really early in the morning (like when I first wake up) or when I’m in the shower. U & M E was a combination of the two! I started it on my bed, but it kind of all came together in my head when I was taking a shower.
You’ve spoken about the help from your friend Al Grigg. Do you have many friends or people in the industry that help you during stagnant periods in your song writing and music making?
I am lucky that I have lots of great people around me that help me when I need to! My friend Julian who is an amazing musician also helped me with the song, coming up with cool parts like the voiceover. I am really into asking people outside the band for thoughts as often a fresh pair of ears will pick up things I maybe missed because I’ve been obsessing over just getting the core of the song right.
There are guest vocals by TAD on the tune. Can we expect any more subtle (or non-subtle) colabs in the future?
Not on this album, but I am a huge fan of collaboration so am hopeful lots more will come!
You said that ‘I always saw this song as the centrepiece of the whole EP and the song that set the bar for where the band is now.’' Where is it that you see the band now? What goal do you feel you’ve achieved?
That’s a great question! I guess I see the band as not the scrappy garage band we once were (even though I love that version of Bloods). We are more experienced, better writers and better players now as when we started the band we didn’t know how to play our instruments, really. I think we sound the best we’ve ever sounded and that’s something I wanted us to showcase.
You’ve also described as the EP as a love letter to Seattle. What kind of connection do you have with Seattle and how would you describe it?
Seattle played a huge role in our discovery of music and passion for song-writing. All three of us were kids in the 90s when bands from Seattle were dominating the charts. It was the music that made us fall in love with music and want to write songs and play in a band. We were experiencing the whole musical movement from suburban parts of Australia, so to us, the idea of Seattle was that of an artistic utopia. We’ve since been back to Seattle a couple of times and we have fallen in love with the city and our friends who live there. We recorded the EP in Seattle with Steve Fisk at the iconic Soundhouse Studios so it felt right to dedicate the EP to the city that has inspired us so much.
Your bio on Instagram explains how the band is made of ‘three mates’ who made a band cause they liked hanging out. Was it music that initially connected you?
Yep, it was music and our love of beer and food!
Finally, what can we expect later this year now we’ve had the release of U & M E?
More tunes off the EP that we hope you dig! We are really happy with the collection of songs we’re about to put out and we just hope they make people happy!
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