A QUICK CHAT WITH GOOD LEKKER

Congratulations on the release of ‘Portraits’! What are your plans to celebrate this release?

Honestly, short term plan is to just rest a bit and hopefully watch as the fruits of our labour ripen. But, we’re going on tour in May - that’s the main answer. We’re playing Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in May, then it is probably back to the writing room. 

Can you talk us through the songwriting process behind this EP? Did you have a structure in mind for how you wanted it to flow?

We had a broad structure for how we wanted it to flow, but I think an EP is a bit different to an album in that there’s less of an expectation of it to be a start to finish narrative. We can’t wait to craft that type of album, but for the EP our first focus was on writing good songs. Our focus then was tying the pieces together and making it feel good start to finish. We had our intro track and it flowed nicely into death scroll, we wrote Feed the Feeling - a natural closer, then we chose what would fill the space between.

What are the main stories behind ‘Portraits’ a whole, and specific to tracks?

It all about feeling a bit lot in your twenties, doubting your life decisions, and feeling all sorts of strange. Those concepts are close to the surface in every song. For me, Feed the Feeling bits deep and hard into how I’ve been feeling these past few years. I’m particularly proud of those lyrics and quite fond of their humble start - a poem about the house next to my old place being demolished. 

How was the recording process behind the EP?

It went pretty smoothly if that’ your question. We did a bunch of weekend sessions because we all have day jobs. Not all the songs were recorded concurrently. ‘Pretty Boys’ and ‘Feed the Feeling’ were the first cabs off the rank. Then we recorded ‘Life In Real Time’, ‘Show I Care’, ‘IN2’ and ‘Death Scroll’ a few months later. We recorded it all at Parliament Studios in Leichardt with the help of Dan Wellington, the King.

How does it feel reflecting on your first few singles compared to now? What are aspects of your music and songwriting that have changed?

I think so little has remained that it’s hard to compare. Our first few singles were recorded on a whim almost - we didn’t have demos for them, we didn’t have much of a plan and production was almost non-existent. Now we go into the studio with a much firmer idea of what we’re going to record. We put more thought and effort in beforehand in making songs, putting together demos, jamming them together, revising the demos then finally producing them in the studio. From a lyrical standpoint its very similar for me - I can’t speak for Gray though. My songwriting process consists of tearing pages out of a notebook until I’m happy. Then that’ll inevitably get tumbled around in the studio when we decide that the chorus needs to be catchier and yeah, we probably should have lyrics in the bridge. 

With the incredible growth of you all as a band, what would you attribute that success too – such as live shows, your musical connections, the team behind the band?

Well, you’ve done all the hard work for us in the question - all of the above. We worked hard and played a tonne of gigs in our early years to build our skills and our connections. Now our great team at Good Intent and on the production side of things keep us on task and sounding the best we can. 

You’ve had a couple of live shows so far this year, performing at Love Lanes and at University of Wollongong with Pacific Avenue and Big Twisty. What can fans expect to see from your own headline tour starting in May?  

They can expect the biggest change in our setlist in years thanks to all the new tracks. They can expect the same energy and the same ‘leave everything you have on the stage’ approach that we’ve always taken to live performances and always will. I honestly think we’re still growing, each and every one of us, as musicians. 

What does the rest of 2023 have in store of Good Lekker?

I have no idea right now. Hopefully some festival appearances and a bunch of new fans. I’m not even making plans because we probably won’t keep them.