A QUICK CHAT WITH ROYAL EAST

What themes does your new song ‘Get With Me’ explore?

Get With Me is a summer romance introspective.

The song begins as a sentimental morning serenade: ‘watch us rise, our hungry lungs take in the breath’. The verses are dream-like and bashful, revealing affection and nostalgia: 'what a time we had, you took me on and swept me off my feet'.

That romance, however, is in constant tension with the chorus, which reveals that this song is actually an unrequited love-song. The instruments drop, leaving room for the realisation and accusation to ring out starkly: 'you only want to get with me tonight'. On the one hand, 'Get With Me' is all about falling head over heels and getting carried away. But on the other hand, it’s a cautionary tale about getting burned. Hard.

 How did Royal East come about?

Royal East was unofficially born the day Pat and Fraser’s parents shoved the (then) teenagers into the same room with two guitars, having identified their shared love of Muse. After exhausting the neighbourhood’s patience with endless renditions of ‘Knights of Cydonia’, they turned their attention to writing some tracks of their own.

The band was formally inaugurated after welcoming the irresistibly English Tom, who supplies one-half of the essential rhythm section. Tom’s better half, Nick, was last but certainly not least to join Royal East. He'd been writing and performing in a solo electro act ever since studying music performance and brought an injection of production ability to set off the Royal East sound.

Do you guys write songs as a band, or individually?

We like to have it both ways.

Our writing process is constantly developing, and all members play a role in the writing process. To keep things creative, we often find ourselves shaking up the process. More often than not, one of us will have had riff, beat, or vocal hook running circles on their mind, which forms the ignition for the song. This can be the most challenging part of the process: too many ideas can become more of a curse than a blessing in the initial creative phases.

The song undergoes its Royal East transformation in the band room. We each add our own interpretation and flair to the initial idea. We often like to form little break out groups to put ideas together before bringing it to the full band.

What’s the biggest highlight of your careers so far?

We’ve played some pretty incredible gigs by our standards, from playing a sold-out support gig for Jack River at Northcote Social Club, to our own sold out gig at the Grace Darling Hotel to launch our last release. Our biggest highlight however is playing a summer house party gig to a few hundred of our nearest and dearest fans and friends. We don’t believe that the Royal East experience should start and end with us on stage. We don’t just pride ourselves on playing great music, but also giving our audience a great night, and making sure everyone feels included as it’s the audience’s contribution that results in a great show. The energy and intimacy of this particular house party gig was off the charts and gave us the creative opportunity to share in the full Royal East experience.

How do you hope to send off 2019?

We’re getting overexcited about our Get With Me launch party on Saturday 23 November @ The Toff in Melbourne. Following that, we're supporting Melbourne synth legends Art vs. Science on their 10-year anniversary tour in December.

After that, it’s high time to get back into the studio. We're locking in recording time and a producer to get our next work underway. We’re looking forward to our biggest year yet in 2020.

ROYAL EAST
'GET WITH ME' LAUNCH PARTIES

SAT 23 NOV | THE TOFF, MELBOURNE VIC
SAT 14 DEC | HOWLER, MELBOURNE VIC *

* Supporting Art vs Science

Click to stream 'Get With Me'