San Cisco aren't your ordinary gaggle of teens.
When I catch up with frontman Jordi Davieson, the indie-pop foursome from WA have just returned from New York (where they're not even of legal drinking age yet), having rocked the massive CMJ music festival. Ahead of that, they smashed out a month-long European tour. Now they're getting ready to drop their self-titled debut album, and frontman Davieson says they're feeling the pressure.
"It is pretty nerve-wracking. I hope people don't buy the album thinking that it's gonna be an album full of ‘Awkward’ and that sort of thing, ‘cause it's not really... I don't really know what it's gonna do, because you know when you work on something for so long and then you listen to it for so long, your ideas of what it is actually like are kind of distorted and I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks."
The band's last EP, Awkward, launched the youngsters from relative popularity to full-fledged notoriety on Australian radio. Triple J gave the title track a solid flogging and it even made it to #7 in last year's Hottest 100 polls. Jordi says the band's sound has developed since then.
"I guess I'd like to think that its matured a little bit. Not too much, but just kind of like, you know, there's something a bit different from what ‘Awkward’ was, as we're growing and trying to do different things... And maybe just a little bit more depth in the song writing. I think a lot more thought and time has gone into this and we've really sent it into a direction that we want to go down."
The 11-track debut album, though a step up from previous San Cisco offerings, stays true to their upbeat, lo-fi pop vibes. But the songs are deceivingly serious — Jordi says shit got philosophical this time around.
"Listening to the music, some of it's kind of all pretty light and fluffy and poppy. And then the other day I was writing down what all the songs are about for track-by-track stuff and there's not one light, fluffy song, lyrically. It's all heavy, deep shit... I think it's because I'm a pretty light, fluffy guy, and it's just my way of venting all the heavy shit."
It's difficult to fathom where Jordi finds inspiration for his lyrical creations; he's only one year out of high school. Jordi was studying for his grade 12 exams when the band was launched into the Australian music scene last year. He says it's just day-to-day things that provide the fodder for his songs.
"I like watching movies. I watched The Deer Hunter and wrote a song after that. And just experiences – I worked on a cattle station for a couple of weeks and wrote a song about that. Sometimes I like to adopt another person's persona and write a song from their point of view. Because you run out of things to write about eventually if you're writing from yourself. And it makes it a lot easier to just open up and make it as personal as possible if it's not about you."
Channeling emotion into song is something Jordi does often; he says it can be a form of catharsis for him. ‘Toast’ is a track on the new album that's aimed at someone who really shits him. Writing it was a way to get everything off his chest without hurting anybody's feelings.
"Sometimes I'll just sit down with a guitar or piano and just take a deep breath in and then just breathe out and words will come out, and I'll just sing this whole song for the first time and I feel better about that."
The track ‘Wild Things’ provides the title for the upcoming tour, and the lead singer says it's also his personal favourite.
"’Wild Things’ is about ideas. Something I've noticed a lot is that people have ideas in their head, negative ones like someone's out to get them – and the more they think about it and feed that idea the bigger it grows and soon it just ends up controlling them and everything they do and everywhere they look that negative view is there and that's the Wild Things."
San Cisco are, of course, known for their quirky, catchy beats. ‘Awkward’ is a cute back-and-forth between Jordi and drummer Scarlett about hooking up and fresh relationship stalkery. But Jordi says the songs are written quickest when he accesses his more intense emotions.
"I'll write a whole song and not really know what it means and then it'll all kind of make sense... I'll be like, 'These words sound right but I don't know what they mean'. And then I'll look back on it and be like, 'Wow, that really does make sense'."
As well as brandishing their musical maturity, the gang played around with some new production techniques on the album. The band grew fond of reverse sounds during the making of San Cisco, and they’re strung throughout the record.
“I think we just liked the sound of it. It's on the song where we do it the most, ‘No Friends’, and we kind of had this lick that we did and at the end of that we were like, ‘that's just kind of boring’, so we reversed it and it just sounds kind of weird. There’s a backing vocal in the chorus, and then we just reversed that as well and it just sounded way cooler. We were just like, ‘all right!’”
San Cisco will hit Homebake as well as the Southbound and Falls Festival later this year, adding to the impressively long list of festival appearances that they already boast.
“They’re all tied into our next national tour which we're pretty excited for, the ‘Wild Things’ tour. Because that'll be just after the album drops and we'll be playing all the songs and it'll just be good to suss out how the Australian fan base is going... see if anyone still likes us.”
They’re not exactly superstars just yet — Jordi says they’re mostly recognised by 13-year-old girls and little hipster kids — but they’re certainly on the way. When asked how he feels about impending fame, he seemed most concerned about one thing.
"It just means that you can't let your own shit get in the way of things. Because if you're a dickhead to one person, they'll just tell everyone that you're a dickhead... you can't be a dickhead."
That would be the worst part about fame, I agreed.
"I know. You've just gotta be nice to everyone."
San Cisco Tour Dates
Fri Nov 30 — Bended Elbow (Geelong)Sat Dec 1 — Corner Hotel (Melbourne)
Sun Dec 2 — Corner Hotel (Melbourne) *U18 Matinee Show*
Thu Dec 6 — The Gov (Adelaide) *All Ages*
Sat Dec 8 — Homebake (Sydney)
Sun Dec 9 — Alhambra (Brisbane) *U18 Matinee Show*
Sun Dec 9 — The Rev @ The Church (Brisbane)
Sat Dec 29 — Falls Festival (Lorne)
Sun Dec 30 — Falls Festival (Marion Bay)
Fri Jan 4 — Southbound (Busselton)
