LUKE: Nick and I have been involved in several long-form (think multi-year) art projects of late, with a bevy of collaborators, including a full-length Babyfreeze album. This has been fun and rewarding stuff, but I grew to miss the immediacy of our earlier projects.  Working quick and dirty is our preferred mode, and one that we both excel at. With that in mind, I suggested to Nick we do a short and sharp challenge – write and record an EP and shoot videos* for it over the course of a single weekend. Of course, this isn’t exactly what transpired, but it gave us the framework and impetus to create Life’s The Best.

For my part, I envisioned something guitar-heavy – the instrument we both have the most experience playing – and for it to be an opportunity to finally record my drum kit. Again, it didn’t go down exactly as planned! SONGWRITING TIP #1: follow the muse and do what you have to in service of the song.

We set aside the first weekend and then both struggled not to write anything ahead of time. The plan was simple – we would set the timer for 45 minutes, go to opposite ends of the house, and write. After the timer went off, we’d then play for each other what we had written. Rinse and repeat.

The first couple of times went almost identically for me: 10-20 minutes of utter panic, followed by landing on an idea and then chasing it down for the remaining time. 45 minutes is a koan – both a lot of time and not a lot of time!

The first song I wrote became Learn To Love You. By our self-imposed rules, I failed on this first attempt – I only came up with the bassline, drums, and vocal melody, running out of time to bed down any lyrics (apart from the opening line, ‘gotta sweat it all out’, and the ‘I could learn to love you’ refrain). Nick offered to take a crack at the remaining lyrics overnight and show me when he returned the next day. I gratefully accepted! SONGWRITING TIP #2: Always break the rules before ruining a song.

The second song I wrote became Night Off From Love. After writing a fast-paced up-tempo number, I decided to go in the opposite direction and craft a ballad. I started with the chords and what I thought was a 5/4 rhythm – turns out I was just playing a janky 6/8. My time management fared better but was still a little off – I managed to wrote the chords and a vocal melody for both sections… but only the lyrics to the first verse. Again, I handed it over to Nick to finalise overnight – what a good system for me!

We had so much fun on these first two sessions, we decided to throw caution to the wind and round out the day with a third. I finally cracked the code on finishing a song in the time limit – Blubbering Mess was the result, a no-nonsense garage rock belter. SONGWRITING TIP #3: Sometimes (most times?) simplest is best.

One of the other album cover mock-ups

The remainder of this weekend was spent testing and tweaking arrangements. It became apparent quickly that if we were going to record live drums especially we were going to need longer than one weekend to get everything done. We booked in a second weekend to record as much as we could.O

At the start of the second weekend, with six songs in hand, Nick suggested we do one more 45 minute session, to give us eight songs – closer to an album than an EP. For this final session, I started with the lyrics first – which is typically how I write, at least starting with a title or hook – and smashed out the entirety of It Don’t Work Like That No More, even including a bridge! We then got down Nick’s vocals and some other bits and pieces – basically enough for me to continue on my own to add instruments and build out the arrangements.

It took a few weeks to finalise the songs – some of this was spent writing drum parts and then recording my drums for the first time. The drum sound is pretty muddy but I learnt a lot and have already developed methods for a cleaner sound next time. SONGWRITING TIP #4: Treat everything as a draft.  

The ‘live instrument’ aesthetic I’d envisioned remained for some songs, but we mostly ditched guitars for synth, and by the end, I was back programming midi and drums – full circle back to Babyfreeze J

This is the first time I’ve sung lead since Faux Faux Amis broke up in late 2018 – in that band, I’d leant on a very gruff ‘rock’n’roll’ bark when singing, almost like adding a distortion pedal to my voice. Part of that approach was to mask some of my vocal insecurities (I actually love the sound of my voice but struggle with pitch). For this project, and others going forward, I consciously decided to ditch that and sing in more of my natural register. Frightening – but fun – stuff!

So, what are my highlights?

1.       Nick’s fantastic chorus for Night Off From Love, which tied the rest of the song together and elevated it to Classic Songbook status.

2.       The solo on Teenage Atlantis – I wrote it on guitar and then played it using Massive’s default sound (I agree with Louis Cole, it sounds great).

3.       My drumming on I Am Your Child – we digitally sped this up drastically to see how it might sound. When we liked it, I then had to learn to drum it at that speed! Very proud of this single take.

4.       Rifle Through My Clothes – perfect song meets the most effortless arrangement of the album.

*Making videos quickly fell off the list of things to do, but I reckon we will do at least one before putting the album to bed!

More mock-ups!

NICK: It’s funny seeing Luke write that I made his life easier, writing chunks of lyrics to songs that he started. This is yet another project where I mostly just write a vocal and chords and then Luke has to do almost all the hands-on producing and arranging. Don’t get me wrong, I provide strong briefs and takes such as ‘the drums should sound too fast for the rest of the track’ or ‘this is feeling like those backing tracks that guitar students use to solo over and I like that and we should make it even more that’. 

I was more than happy for the production and arrangements to end in a mid-fi kitchen sink space, and particularly glad we got to have some nicely scuzzy drums before Luke works out how to record them cleaner. We blew out the single-weekend idea to the equivalent I guess three weekend’s work, knowing that that’s all it takes for Luke and I to make a record that we like is almost scary. 

The first thing I came up with in the first 45 was the main hook for Teenage Atlantis. ‘Love and death destruction on the sea floor’ with a melody and chords. If I had longer to work I would probably change those words to something less restrictively specific, so it’s good that I didn’t have time. The melody had 50s rock vibes so I built out a lyric about being an Atlantean prince who is fated to prevent an apocalypse, but blows that off to take his girlfriend on a date. 

I Am Your Child is me trying to emulate my favourites songwriter Johnathan Richman, his lyrics have a warmth and openess but also an off-ness, the sense of a brain that is tacking in a slightly dangerous direction. The line ‘I Am Your Child’ felt very in that pocket and then I just leaned into hectoring second person, which I just love as a way to do pop lyrics. Cracking how to make this one work (the guitar chords were pretty bland on their own) was probably what showed us that the record was gonna have plenty of synths. 

Mock-up #3

The Slow Collapse is a repetitive shanty which Luke brought necessary wonkiness to, it’s basically a Magnetic Fields song now and look that’s a favourite band of mine. My friend Max describes it as ‘quasi-futuristic military love cult guru’ which makes me feel pretty seen. Writing these up I realise I’ve gone HARD on the second person actually, I clearly love an Instructional voice. 

Rifle Through My Clothes is the one I wrote on the second weekend after suggesting we do one more each. It tumbled out really quickly and it’s the best one I wrote for the record, one of my favourite songs I’ve ever done actually. A lot of that is Luke taking it from the jaunty country swing that I wrote it to a synth lighter-swayer, I never would have imagined it like this and it’s perfect. Lyrically it’s the latest in my endless procession of Mortal Dread songs, that will keep coming until one of you sorts out immortality once and for all. 

For years I’ve wanted to call a band Life’s The Best, I was always imagining a sort of Australiana post-hardcore thing with that name but it actually works better as a name that celebrates Luke and I and our 20-plus years of making songs together. Because irony’s for cowards and Life actually is The Best (that’s why I don’t want to die ever). 

I think the idea for the cover shoot (Luke and I standing soaking wet) was mine, but it was Lou and Violet McGrath aka Luke’s family who got to enjoy throwing the water on us. Like the cover shot this record is us making something Good with our most available resources, it feels like a consolidation to then work out how next to stretch ourselves. Maybe we will consciously overstretch ourselves with an unhinged music video idea. 

Mock-up #4

Head over to Spotify and check it out!

https://open.spotify.com/embed/artist/0BXBvKhA6EPR0U1tim6mqi?utm_source=generator