Blue Velvet It's All Gravy Interview

Joyful Indie-Pop Track

Blue Velvet have quickly made a name for themselves by channelling their inner goof to shape a unique, cacophonous sound. Triple J's Declan Byrne has described it as "the type of punk that gives you a big blast of life".

However, after making huge waves in the local scene the band's progression saw a transition from the elements of their emo roots, into a brighter sound which leans into indie-pop more than rock. Following this evolution in 2018, Music Feeds dubbed the band "a well-fed pokemon" after releasing EP "A Lesson In Regression". The EP saw the band supporting the likes of Luca Brasi, Dear Seattle, Turnover (US), West Thebarton & Press Club.

Bounding into 2019 with a newfound optimism and the loose energy of single "Soggy Cereal", the three piece won a triple j Unearthed competition to produce a music video with the National Institute of Dramatic Arts to be aired on RAGE. This honour saw the creation of the music video for "It's All Gravy", which is set to be premiered in October.

"'It's All Gravy' is a reflection of my weird, morbid curiosity around conspiracy theorists and alien hunters who live inside their own bubble," said Samuel Bauermeister. "I've always been fascinated about what goes on in their heads and wanted to try and live vicariously through them. It's a song about living inside your own thoughts and filtering out all the other noise around you and being so adamant you've been right all along. We really wanted to create the personification of an extreme conspiracy theory in song form which gave the song so much character and ended in me realising I have a scary amount in common with them."

Interview with Blue Velvet

Question: How would you describe your music?

Blue Velvet: We like to think it's a dash of Indie Rock, a pinch of Pop and a sprinkle of being cheeky. We want our music to be infectiously catchy and that happens with all of us adding our own flair to when we write our music. It's really important for us to each display our own personalities and I think that's really how we come up with our sound for each song we write.


Question: What inspired the track, It's All Gravy?

Blue Velvet: At the time we were writing it, we were all totally fascinated around conspiracy theorists and their personalities. They're so fixated on their believes and are insanely passionate about getting their thoughts and ideas out into the public. We wanted to write a song that kind of celebrated that bizarro world that they surround themselves in and translate their whacky personalities into a song. Writing about an individual who's so adamant that they'd been abducted by aliens was some of the most fun we've had.


Question: What motivates you most when writing music?

Blue Velvet: I think it's just the fact that all three of us can get together, hang out and just totally be ourselves when it comes to writing everything down. We're perfectionists when it comes to the whole writing process but we want to make sure everything feels right. Our biggest motivation in that sense is just all of us getting everything off our chests that's currently going on and just having a laugh about it.

Question: Do you prefer performing live or recording?

Blue Velvet: It's really hard to say! I feel like both of them have such different highs and lows. Playing live is always such a fun time and it's always so exciting seeing people sing to our lyrics and getting a little crazy. In the meantime, it's always really fascinating watching everything fit together when we're in the studio tracking songs, the whole process is really fun to watch and be a part of and also seeing how the song shapes out from when we started writing it to when it's all finished and mastered. I think playing live is an insanely action packed half hour process while recording is a much more methodical, thought out process.


Question: What is the story behind the band name?

Blue Velvet: We've always been massive fans of David Lynch, spending hours and hours just talking about our favourite movies together. Blue Velvet was the one movie that we all agreed was our favourite and we just thought it had an insanely nice ring to it.


Question: How did the band come together?

Blue Velvet: Individually, the whole band were sort of at a crossroads in terms of where we wanted to take our music. Blue Velvet is sort of a reflection of that and the music that we wanted to make, something where we don't overthink the entire writing process and just get it all onto paper. Lewis and Brendan at the time were both in a Hardcore band together based in Newcastle and I was still unsure exactly where I wanted my music to go. Brendan moved down to Sydney and we just started writing together to make a sound we were all stoked with. Lewis joined in while he was still living up north and we felt that we all had massive similarities in terms of our musical tastes and what sort of music we wanted to make. Later on, Lewis moved down to Sydney as well and the rest is history.


Question: Which music/artists are you currently listening to?

Blue Velvet: A whole range of stuff! My big thing right now is 70's and 80's Pop and Rock so I'm listening to a heap of ABBA, Madonna, Aerosmith and Billy Idol. Meanwhile Lewis loves British Rock so bands like Idles and Fontaines DC are regular tour van hits. Brendan also mixes things up with local bands we love like Stumps, Georgia June, Clews and The Buoys. Overall we have a huge mix of taste which makes things pretty exciting.


Question: What or who was your inspiration to go into the music industry?

Blue Velvet: I think it really had a lot to do with what our friends were doing. We always loved watching our friend's bands play around the city and the country and we really wanted to do that too. Even to today, we're always blown away by how far they've taken things and it's exciting to think about the directions they're all heading into.

Question: If you could collaborate with another artist, who would it be?

Blue Velvet: This is such a hard question! Can we choose two? First up, I'd say dream collaborator would be Ezra Koenig, it would be absolutely insane to lock ourselves in a studio with him and just watching his genius at work. Every song he writes is so different to the last and it'd be awesome to learn all his secrets as a musical sensei. Next up in the dream collaboration would be to work with Clairo. It'd be awesome to pick her brain on how to master Indie Pop/Lo-Fi sound and to see what kind of ideas would come out of that entire process!


Question: What is the biggest challenge you have faced along the way to your musical success?

Blue Velvet: I think one of the biggest challenges that we had was the physical distance that we used to have. There was a period back there when Lewis was living and working full time over in Newcastle and Brendan was going to-and-from Newcastle to Sydney each couple weeks. We found that we were always working at our highest potential when we were all in the same room just constantly working through ideas. Now that we're all based 10 minutes from each other, everything has smoothed out and I feel like our relationship with each other from a personal and musical standpoint has never been stronger.


Question: What's a typical day like?

Blue Velvet: It'll probably start out with all three of us sleeping in way too late (either from a crippling hangover or staying up watching movies way too late), agreeing to all meet up and having a solid 4-5 hours of writing that day and then pushing the time to meet up slightly as we're taking a while to fully recover. From there we'll all get together, drink a beer outside and have a chat about the whacky shenanigans from the night before, forgetting that we actually got together to write and then remembering that. From there we'll work our butts off to get 3-5 new song ideas that we're all really happy with and then celebrate with a well-deserved beer. Then we'll go out or watch a movie and the cycle repeats.


Question: What has been your favourite part of becoming a music artist?

Blue Velvet: Definitely having the ability to drive across the country and go to cities and states we've never been too before. It's always so exciting to explore new surroundings and meeting all sorts of new personalities that we never would've had the chance to if we didn't play music together. Oh! Also the free beers are always a great time.


Question: Can you share your socials?
Blue Velvet: No worries! Our Facebook can be found over here, our Instagram is here, our Twitter is over here and finally our Spotify is at here. 


Interview by Brooke Hunter