Welcome from Luke (Buchanan‘s handsome lead guitarist) and my own track-by-track breakdown of our band’s debut album. We started writing this album while on tour, stopping en route to Sydney (albeit slightly off course) in Lorne around June 2011. That weekend we wrote Run Faster. A little over 18 months later, and a few days after NYE 2013 we finished mixing our album at 4am one morning at Gigantic Studios (Melbourne) with Andy Baldwin in charge, behind the analogue desk. The album was co-produced by Catherine Marks (Foals, Interpol, The Killers) and myself (Josh) with additional production from Tim Cross (Mike Oldfield) in London. It’s inspired by a short story we wrote. Shall we get into it?
Act Natural
“A prison where we felt secure, we had the focus of a mob…”
Josh: When we finished recording this track it was instantly clear that we had written the introduction to our debut album, and in some ways, the introduction of Buchanan to the world. I obsess about tracklistings; how to start an album; how to end it; how to establish the pace of your story. I knew that we absolutely had to have a “cold open” to the record. When this song came along, I knew we could finally put to rest any talk of making another EP and get on with making an album.
Luke: For me, the first time I heard the string ‘overture’ that starts the song (courtesy of Tim Cross) it was the first time I thought of this little grab bag of songs we’d begun to collect as a fully functioning record. All of a sudden a song Josh had written became a title sequence, an almighty crash to earth preceding, easily, one of my favorite songs to play live. A definitive statement that opens proceedings fittingly and paves the way for the album that follows.
Par Avion
“On five acres of land, and still she never felt free…”
Josh: I’m proud of the concept of this song, although I can’t take full credit for it. Someone suggested to me writing a song about a soldier struggling with writing a postcard back home. I had never really flirted with the idea of writing from another person’s perspective but I’m supremely happy with the result.
Luke: This was the first song I heard from Josh’s initial sessions with Catherine. Josh came in buzzing like a neon light about having written what he thought was his best pop song ever and the next sentence that followed was “you should come in and help out!” It all kinda snowballed from there. Tidy, succinct and shimmering, the song is almost exactly the opposite in stature to the album opener but just as necessary.
Josh: Actually, this is probably my favourite song on the album. Catherine and I were both in a shitty headspace when we wrote this, and as a result it’s a fairly emotionally charged song. It’s also my favourite mix from Andy.
The Punch
“As we took to the streets with our hands, in a standing of love…”
Luke: This was the last song we wrote in the final Catherine sessions and probably the hardest nut to crack on the record. For me at least, a song this traditionally poppy was unexplored territory. We’d tried and tried to crack it open and do something oblique and arty with it but in the end it was begging us to let it be what it wanted to be. The moment when all guitar tracks were done and all three of us started dancing around the tiny studio like apes is a moment where I’m really glad no one was there to film!
Temptation
“It’s time we hit the fence, prowl…”
Josh: For days after we finished our first proper ‘stint’ in a big recording studio I was still in that amazing creative space you get into when you’re under pressure to finish because you lose studio time or another deadline looms. I got back into my own studio and cranked this out in a day. It’s also one of the first songs where the lyrics came at the exact same time as the music. It was a bit of a turning point for myself as a writer. For that reason alone, and the fact that it is probably the rockiest song on the album, we absolutely had to include it in the tracklist.
Luke: Josh sent me this track fully formed in an email one day around Christmas. All we really needed to do was re-track some vocals and lay down guitar. Why can’t they all be that easy?!
For Tonight We Rest (Leaves)
“And I know I’ve gotta leave you, but tonight we rest…”
Josh: This song was probably one of the most A&R’d songs on the record – and it benefitted so much because of it. It had existed for years as this 2 minute fairly restrained piece and everyone kept pushing for me to extend it, which I really resisted. A couple of days before we finished recording the album I finally worked out how to extend it and I’m now extremely happy that everyone persisted!
Luke: Another one of my favorite tracks to play live. There’s almost nothing to the damn thing but so effective as a result. It’s always been my opinion that for an album to really strike a chord with a listener you need to have that moment of calm and reflection to allow the bigger songs to soar. A soft shining eye of a magnificent storm, as it were.
Josh: It’s basically a pre-emptive breakup song!
Run Faster
“Feel like I got purpose, fighting for my purpose now…”
Luke: This song was written at the most exciting point in a band’s life, when somebody tells you definitively that you’re allowed to make a record that people will hear and you think “amazing, where do we start?!” I think that comes across in the vibe here – it’s all optimism and quite playful but there’s also an allusion to the trepidation that comes with knowing there’s a big ride ahead.
Josh: This was our first single from the album and another song that came along fairly complete in a day. When we test-drove the album tracks on a small tour in December last year it was incredible to hear people in the crowd singing along!
Human Spring
“Aint got no violent heart, still we will make our mark…”
Josh: I remember for a month or so this song was actually played in half time. Something wasn’t working so I jumped on the drum machine and just hit the crash cymbal on every beat and suddenly the song jumped chaotic as hell into life!
Luke: This was the first song from the album that I sunk my teeth into from a writing perspective. I came into the studio late in the day where Josh and Catherine were picking over some demos, trying to decide what to work on next. They came across this little synth sample that opens the song and together we built a verse and chorus around that. Then came the age old, “what the fuck happens at the middle 8?” Which was where my old hardcore tricks came out and I suggested a giant thumping breakdown. I really feel like that moment opens up the song and, although it’s simple and kinda rock n roll, I like the way it turned into one of the more epic landmarks of the record. A particularly proud moment for me.
Josh: The video clip really sums up the spirit of the song for me. It’s about embracing the good in all people, no matter their story, and standing up for what you believe in.
Temperamentally
“Painted in silhouette, in a glass house, surrounded by stones…”
Josh: This was another song where I felt I turned a page as a writer. Songs with a bizarre structure or interesting chord progression you can write and think you’re being clever, but it can also be a result of your own insecurities as a writer. It’s incredibly hard to write a simple four-chord pop song that’s original and memorable, so it’s easy to shy away from that challenge and not try at all. This was my attempt!
Luke: In which yours truly gets to rock a screeching solo! Another killer live moment for myself and a moment where Josh and I really gelled as a songwriting team. Josh and another Luke (from Kylie Minogue’s band) had written a fragment of a song that was begging to be finished, and in one evening of frenzied blocking and re-blocking we basically finished another piece of the puzzle. Months later during our final recording sessions in Northcote, this would become a really fun, rainy afternoon of tone finding.
Sit It Out
“Can we start afresh?”
Luke: I like to think of this as the dramatic denouement in the story. This was another instance of the two of us really clicking as a team. A particularly drunken, late night of the two of us just chewing out a song. We spent hours trying to figure out what, if anything, the song was or was going to be. It became one of those classic moments where you throw a song around so many ways, exhausting every trick and seeing what you could do with it in 3.5 minutes, and then the song itself ends up telling you how things are going to be! “Just repeat to fade guys, it’s that easy!” A master-class in leaving well enough alone.
Josh: I wanted an acoustic song on the album and also a song with a 6/8 time signature to help break up the pace of the record. We got lucky when this song came along and kind of ticked both those boxes!
The Few
“We’re not going nowhere…”
Josh: This song and The Punch were probably the equally hardest songs to get right. It was always on the verge of being axed but ultimately we got it in the right place and into shape. It definitely has this ‘penultimate track’ feel to it which I really love. I’m not sure why, but I feel like this is our Peter Gabriel song!
Luke: It originally had this really naff string sample on it so Josh called in a friend from school (Andy Aronowicz) who is a very much accomplished violinist, and he double upped the sample, which really brought the song to life.
Josh: Andy Baldwin definitely gave it some balls during the mix and turned it into a bit of a Flaming Lips track.
An All Clear?
“I don’t wanna fight if there’s an all clear…”
Josh: Have we really come to the end of this?!
Luke: In hindsight, I find it really interesting that this is the place the record ends up. A generous nod to The Beatles in the verses and a song structure that itself turns into a lilting bookend and reflection of the album as a whole. The song is surprising, and really helped me to understand the album as a thing unto itself – it ebbs and flows like a novel, it has it’s dramatic moments but in the end it’s not a tragedy; it’s achingly sunny and poppy at points and devastatingly sad and terse at others. Ultimately it is as bittersweet as the world in which it was formed and the lives it will now (hopefully) become an important part of.
Human Spring is available now.
