A Chat With: Pretty City
Melbourne's Pretty City combines the sounds of your favorite Aussie psych rock bands with bits of Britpop and shoegaze influence. Next week, Pretty City will be bringing their unique sound all the way to SXSW to play songs off their upcoming album Cancel The Future. As they gear up to take on Austin, the band took some time to chat with us about their latest single "Flying," their festival and touring survival tips, what's next for them and more. Tune into our chat with Pretty City below!
Photo courtesy of Pretty City
What can you tell us about the writing and recording process behind your new album Cancel The Future?
It's a really interesting journey behind the album. After a great SXSW in 2016 we came home and jumped straight in the studio. What we created we weren't 100 percent happy with. It was a very balls to the wall album and we kind of over-cooked the playing and lost something. We shelved the record for a while and began writing again. After some serious personal upheaval including relationship breakdowns, unemployment, illness, and some serious distress, our lead singer Hugh went into overdrive and basically wrote an entire new album. What we ended up with on this record is some older songs, and some brand new ones living cohesively together. I guess we decided to split the albums into themes rather than chronology. Hopefully people enjoy that aspect of it.
Where do you notice yourselves drawing influence from, both on your sound and on your stage presence?
Our influences are really diverse. Hugh draws a lot of influence from non-musical sources. He's really into architecture and listens to a lot of architecture podcasts. You can hear how well he structures songs, and I think that's a huge part of it. He kind of designs songs around feelings and has a great ear for melody. Johnny loves up-tempo anything. He's our energy machine and is really influenced by Australian bands like You Am I. Ken, our bass player grew up on punk and rock and roll, but is also heavily influenced by the Beatles, so he has a great mix of melody and energy. Myself, (Drew - drums), I'm a Pink Floyd tragic from way back, but also am really into classical music, funk and hard rock. So it's a pretty interesting mix where we kind of meet in the 90s sounds of the Smashing Pumpkins, Brian Jonestown Massacre and explore our influences from there. In terms of stage presence, we just get right into what we're doing and go with that. We don't consciously try and emulate anyone but we all love performers like Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Marc Bolan and David Bowie.
Speaking of stage presence, you’ll soon be over in America playing SXSW. How would you describe your show for anyone who hasn’t seen you?
Yeah, we're really excited to be heading back to Austin for SXSW, can't wait! I guess our shows can be summed up as fun, exciting, energetic, melodic psychedelic rock. Sometimes it gets heavy but there's light and shade. There's heaps of hair and usually cool jackets too.
What are you most looking forward to during your time in the US? Any other bands you’re hoping to see at SXSW?
I just can't wait to get back to Austin. It's such a great city and SXSW is really just like musician heaven. Music and ice cold beers! What's not to love about it?! In terms of bands, I'm really excited to see Girl Skin and Blonde Maze, both of whom are playing the Glamglare showcase with us. I've seen some clips of them and I can't wait check them out.
What are some of your music festival survival tips, or any essentials that you need for touring in general?
I think drinking plenty of water and sunscreen are my tips for surviving any festival. Having said that, it can be pretty hard to get enough sleep at SXSW, so I think there's a bit of an ethos of go hard then go home and collapse - haha.
In addition to SXSW, you also have an upcoming European tour...which cities are you most looking forward to playing in and visiting?
Yeah, we're off to Europe in mid April for our biggest tour yet. We're really excited to be playing all the cities we're headed to, but I think Hamburg, Vienna and Graz are the ones we're most looking forward to. They're wonderful cities and so full of culture and history. Can't wait.
What are some other bands from Melbourne that we should be all be listening to now?
My favourite Melbourne band is called Destrends. They are incredible musicians and put on amazing shows, definitely check them out. A band called Plotz are also another favourite. They're heavily influenced by Radiohead, but make music in a more overtly psychy way. They have some amazing songs. Also a band called Moody Beaches. They're really fun, engaging and hooky psych/surf/punk rock. It's a winning combination.
What else can we expect from Pretty City in 2018?
We're actually recording our 3rd album in Portland in March, so you can probably expect a single or two from that later in the year.