A QUICK CHAT WITH BLOKBSTR
Can you tell us about the meaning behind your new track “July”?
July was probably the quickest song we’ve ever written / produced. We were painfully working away on a mix of some song that I can’t remember and just feeling pretty flat / grinding through it in the studio. We were doing a day with our mate Oscar Sharah and I remember him saying….. Wanna mix it up and just have an hour of fun?
Within 5 minutes we had the main synth line and I was in the live room playing every percussive instrument I could see, probably annoying lol., We had made this smorgasbord loop of a nostalgic synth line and lots of boppy little bits.
The lyrics flowed out literally like a conversation you have with your old best mate you haven't ran into in 5 years. It was like it was already there, somewhere.. So weird. I would say like 5 minutes and I had the lyrics.
The music reminded me of a world when I was young and didn’t care about literally anything besides where we were going out on the weekend. That crazy time of being freshly 18, Kings Cross is going NUTS, there's festivals every week and you and your friends are just spending all of your time listening to music, dancing and living amongst some beautiful nighttime chaos. Everything feels fun and you're just discovering new music and making new friends every weekend.
The lyrics are about having nostalgia for that feeling. Missing not caring about anything besides partying with your friends haha….. I wish that life could always be like that. Rent? Jobs? Career? WTF is this….. Can't we just go back to drunken nights out when we were broke and couldn’t care less? What happened to this city?
You guys are fresh on the scene. How do you all meet? Have you been playing together for years or only as of late?
Sam and I (Jimmy) have been very close friends since meeting as young surfers at the beach after school way back when! Sam was in a high school band with Oscar Sharah (who we write and produce with a lot) and another legend - Myles, (who was my housemate). Sam and I were at Beyond the Valley about 10 years ago and I remember us playing Foals- INHALER as loud as humanly possible, screaming at each other - LET'S MAKE A BAND ONE DAY… haha.. That day didn't come for a long time as we were both busy with different projects. It was around Covid time that we had nothing else to do and just started making music together for fun. We had no real vision or direction, we were just loving learning how to use studios and produce the kinda music we like.
Lewis had been around for years too. He was in this youngen band called Run Marlowe and they would always bring an army of 50 drunken friends to every gig so we would always book them on our old band’s shows!! Oscar and I ran a festival once at Oxford Arts and all of our projects were on the line up. Hiaground, Mel Blue, Run Marlowe, Mesmeriser…
BLOKBSTR is basically a love child from that world of all of us all being in different bands, playing a million shows at every pub that sells schnitzel on the East Coast, and eventually coming together purely for a - cheesy i know - but love of music. COVID stopped everything so we all just started hanging and making tunes.
Lewis was making some content for us, he's a crazy film director, and we eventually started begging him to join BLOKBSTR. He was pretty tentative at first but agreed to one gig and to see how it goes, and we’ve had him locked down ever since. Most talented freak in Sydney,
What’s your creative process like? What inspires you to write music?
Life. BLOKBSTR is purely an expression of satire and tongue n cheek about our lives, and the world around us. Especially being musicians in Sydney. It’s a bizarre inspiration as we’ve seen so many things change and affect the nightlife and creative hubs that we grew up on. It’s led to us kind of angling our writing towards how seriously backwards some of the decisions around youth, culture and the environment really is. But at the same time, we can’t help ourselves and kind of take the piss.
There has really only ever been one rule in BLOKBSTR: If it’s fun, it’s worth doing.
Who are your biggest musical inspirations?
For BLOKBSTR we always seem to land in this world of like an LCD SOUNDSYSTEM tribute band covering TALKING HEADS that ends up just sounding like an indie band Hahaha.
We love the classics like Bowie and The Beatles of course, but to be honest our friendship group is our biggest inspiration. We’re surrounded by some really talented people working out of projects like Mel Blue, Lola Scott, Beso Palma and Lost Casual to name a few. Gigging, writing and producing with them always reminds of what this whole music thing should be; pure fun, joy and out-there creativity.
What’s your dream support slot?
LCD Soundsystem in Madison Square Garden just to live out our ‘Shut Up And Play The Hits’ dreams. Otherwise let’s go with Tame Impala at Red Rocks, it’s about time the BLOK got up in the mountains.
What artist can you not get enough of lately?
LE SHIV, YARD ACT, FONTAINES DC AND ROYEL OTIS.
What has been the most memorable moment of your musical career so far?
We’re currently on a regional tour and have seen some different parts of the country for the first time and have been blown away by how receptive and energetic the crowds have been. Just last week after we finished a gig in Torquay, the rowdy crowd wouldn’t stop yelling our ridiculous lyrics back at us even as the next band was about to start. That will stick with us for a while, you don’t see that at an average gig.
What’s next for BLOKBSTR? What can people expect for the rest of the year?
A lot more music! We’ve had a decent amount of tunes floating in the background for a while and we have been itching to let the world hear them. To be honest we can’t stop making music (we’re writing this from the studio right now). And with that music comes all the gigs we can possibly fit in. We’re just wrapping up our first tour with The Terry’s and it’s given us a taste for the road so we’re going to hit the East Coast again in Aug/Sept and even jumping up to Bigsound fest in Brissy.