Adelaide trio Donnarumma will release their debut EP ‘Billy Billy’ this Friday (30 June), having spent the past year developing and refining their sound.
Titular bandleader Louis Donnarumma says the time invested in crafting the record was well-spent. “We feel absolutely amazing,’ Louis says.
“We're feeling excited that we've had this record for the past year done and we've been trying to make sure it’s released in the right way. We're just really excited it's coming out now.
“I wanted a scene where I was actually getting beaten up by a professional boxer.”
“I’ve been playing and writing my own music for so long and one thing we did in the studio was make sure we're not hesitant on anything that we hear. We really wanted to make sure we'd done everything right. There will be a point we have to stop because nothing can be perfect, but it did help us and we had the time to really be certain.”
The group's debut single, ‘Love Your Man’, is a hard and heavy-hitting introduction to the record and Louis recounts how the song came about in the wake of a break-up. “It was months after a relationship I was in ended and I was blocked from the world online as well as day-to-day things.
“I had the beginning guitar riff in my music bank of ideas and I wasn't sure about it, but then those three words – 'love your man' – came out and that idea got expanded. It was one of those songs where by the end of the day it was all done and written. Reflecting on the relationship was the inspirational part of it all.”
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‘Love Your Man’ is also accompanied by a dark and deeply disturbing video, directed by Lewis Brideson. In the clip, a man (played by Louis) is kidnapped and brutally beaten by his ex-girlfriend who we find out he’s been cheating on. “It's funny because we'd just recorded the song and it felt like that was going to be the single we were going to release,” he says.
“I was on tour with a friend of mine, Mane, and I was listening back to the track and I could just see a clip of me getting beaten up. I could totally see it and that was the spark.
“I wanted a scene where I was actually getting beaten up by a professional boxer and Anthony [Costanzo, bass] was the one who said 'calm down, I don’t think you can do that because you'll get hurt'. So he helped me really hone in on an idea; he was a big part of the storyline and he really understood what I wanted to create visually.”
Donnarumma take the ‘Billy Billy’ EP on the road for their first national tour next month. “One of the things we feel makes us ‘us’ is the fact that we feed off each other,” he says.
“There's a really full-on energy when we're playing, so we captured that in the studio by recording just in one room with everything in there. So we feel like we're very much a live band.”
'Billy Billy' is available 30 June.
Donnarumma Tour Dates
Sat 1 Jul - Grace Emily Hotel (Adelaide)Fri 7 Jul - Whole Lotta Love (Melbourne)
Thu 13 Jul - Rad Bar (Wollongong)
Fri 14 Jul - The Townie (Sydney)
