A Quick Chat with Double Happiness

Where did the name Double Happiness come from?

That was Will’s (Bass) idea. The name comes from the cigarette brand of course. They’re the cheapest and filthiest ones you can get. They’re not exactly something you have when things are going well in your life, so the name “Double Happiness” has this kind of grim irony to it.

That seemed to fit really well with the kind of songwriting I was doing at the time. I wanted the songs to be dark, but not down-the-line “crypts and death and misery”. More realistic. And in real life, painful things often have a tinge of humour or absurdity to them, so the name fit.

Your last band, PLEBS, was rooted in garage punk, quite a different sound and style to the music of Double Happiness. What drew you towards the new music you are making now?

During the winter of the last lockdown, I guess that kind of rowdy and expressive music started to make less sense compared to something like Molchat Doma. And just in general, the world was starting to seem like not such a fun place. Punk is so social and interactive - you’re really inviting people to share in your energy and emotions. But for me anyway, the world seemed to have turned hostile. I felt more like reflecting and withdrawing, rather than reaching out.

Another big part of it was that I think we all just wanted a bigger challenge musically, and to be able to say a bit more than that kind of music allowed us to. 

Tell us a bit about the new singles.

Electric Sheep is about the Lambda AI from a few years ago that people were saying was sentient, because it was acting so convincingly human.

I never really believed that, but it was definitely uncanny to read those chat logs where it’s saying it’s afraid to die and that it wants to feel emotions.

I think it also mentioned wanting to visit places and try out different activities and experiences, and in those moments, it didn’t seem to know that it wasn’t a person with a body that could actually do these things.

So I was kind of imagining this horrifying scenario where your mind is wired to think you need to eat, sleep and go out in the world, but it isn’t possible, because physically, you don’t even exist.

I thought about calling it “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” after the Harlan Ellison short story, which would have been a bit clearer, but I thought it sounded too dramatic. “Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep” is pretty well-known because of the Blade Runner movies, and that had a better ring to it.

If that’s all a bit much, you wouldn’t be wrong to just say it’s just a song about a depressed robot.

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With Staring At The Walls, the more I think about it, the more obscure it becomes, almost like it was written by a complete stranger. At the core of it, it’s about being imprisoned for your own safety. A kind of smothering, over-protective form of love, even. The lyrics are kind of a dialogue between someone who’s terrified of the outside world, and someone who’s longing to go out into it. As they remain trapped and the years pass, they both descend into paranoia and insanity from the tedium of it. 

I guess if you want to take it literally, you could say it’s about the fear of ever leaving the safety of a nuclear fallout shelter, or the difficulty prisoners face returning to the world after a long sentence, or just agoraphobia in general.

Are there any inspirations you look to beyond music when writing or performing?

This is going to sound painfully cliched since this collection of interests has more or less become a pre-packaged substitute for a personality, but things like Yume Nikki, early Silent Hill games, liminal spaces, Skinamarink, Lost Highway etc. 

All these things have a strained relationship with reality which is so addictive for whatever reason. It doesn’t necessarily translate to a band very well, because there’s something inherently cheerful about songs in general, but I always try to pull things a bit towards the surreal feeling of those things if I can make it work.

I think it’s also healthy for anyone working on something creative to watch Von Trier once in a while. It would be fair to say that he’s openly hostile towards his audience, so if you’re ever feeling tempted to pander to what’s popular at the expense of your work, watching The House That Jack Built will quickly set your priorities back in order. I wouldn’t say I’m recommending that anyone watch it though; it’s a harrowing movie.

Who would Double Happiness love to share a stage with?

Opening for Buzz Kull would be incredible, and it always gives us a bit of a motivational push to see an Australian doing so well with this kind of music. I think we’d all really like to see how his set-up works as well. 

Another big one is Flyying Colours. Their live sound is so massive. Perfected shoegaze.

There’s a new artist called Blake Harley who’s just released a few singles. She’s doing a solid take on the 80s synthpop sound. A bit of a Siouxsie And The Banshees vibe but also really different at the same time. It’s always exciting to see someone new doing something you like and seeing where they go with it.

I have to mention Jake Robertson as well. He’s such a monster of Australian music. His output is just incredible. We must have seen Ausmuteants over a dozen times back when that was his main project. His creative output is just unreal.

And then of course Boy Harsher, Molchat Doma, Lebanon Hanover, Protomartyr.. All of them are just no-brainers. 

Do you have any shows coming up in support of the singles?

We’ve got The Tote coming up on February 17th with RQTBL, but to be honest, I think the holiday break kind of took it out of us and we’re still regrouping a bit. I’m really focussed on getting the next set of recordings mixed, mastered and perfected, because they show a completely different side to our sound that I don’t want to keep hidden for too long. We’re also working on getting more sequencer-based darkwave into the live set, which requires a whole different set-up, but it’s sounding amazing in rehearsals so far.

We had a great run after forming in late 2023. In particular, Town Ace, who are a criminally underrated Melbourne band, seemed to have a voracious appetite for gigs, so we just kept hitting each other up and kept doing shows. Actually the whole Melbourne scene has been incredibly welcoming and given us more opportunities than we know what to do with. But after we’ve all had a bit of a breather, we’ll be hitting the gigs pretty hard again with lots of very different material, so expect to hear back soon.