The Electorate Skeleton

"One of the finest albums of 2020, and one of the strongest debuts to date."
Rolling Stone - 4.5/5

The release of their 2020 debut album You Don't Have Time to Stay Lost saw Sydney skewed indie-rock trio The Electorate garner rave reviews from the likes of Rolling Stone Australia, BernardZuel.net, Backseat Mafia (UK), The Big Takeover (US) and more...   Their knack for writing tight power-pop pearlers, as heard in singles If I Knew, Enormous Glorious Girl and Decades in A Day, had the band secure Album of the Week features (2ser, 2BOB) and extensive radio airplay across the country.

Now The Electorate return with another single from their critically acclaimed release in the melodic chiming beauty, Skeleton.  Taking hold of vocals on this soaring number is Eliot Fish, whose lyrics touch on an important subject - says Eliot, "It's a song about alcoholism.  Not a learned experience but an observed one.  This is the only song on the album where Josh plays bass and I play guitar, and it helped us arrive at somewhere strange.  I like how it starts kind of dishevelled and ends in quite a glorious harmonic reprise.  I get nervous every time we play this song, still.  I think it's pretty common for songwriters to sometimes have an ideal version of a song in their head, so it can feel like you need to take a deep breath and give it everything you've got each time you step off the springboard.

I was trying to come up with a guitar solo of sorts for this song, just before we went into the studio to put it down, and I ended up sort of humming it into my phone's voice recorder before later picking up a guitar to find the notes.  We're the sort of band that tends to shy away from any sort of guitar solos, but this album somehow has a few of them.  I think they've snuck through because they're more melodic than histrionic, so they get a pass from the rest of us."

On the recording of the track, Josh says "Skeleton was one of two songs we hadn't played live when we went in to record.  Eliot has always been an adventurous and inspirational guitarist and songwriter, despite mostly playing bass in the bands he's been in, and allowing others to shine in a light that could have been his.  It was a real joy to kick back and watch him layer the guitar and vocal parts with precision and passion and to encourage me onto an instrument I'm still finding my way around.  I probably play bass like a guitarist.  I love the chiming solo, the chemistry in this recording, and the possibilities it's allowed us to explore."   With Eliot & Josh changing things up, Nick found himself adapting also, "Since the others swapped instruments, I had to challenge myself in a similar way to leading with my left hand.  Can I really get away with this batshit beat?  The answer in this band is always "absolutely"."