Sydney band Dear Seattle release their sophomore EP earlier this month, a self-titled six-track record exploring themes of regret, reinvention, love and coming to terms with loss.
“Basically this whole EP is pretty much focussed around the one break-up, a certain period of time in my life that was pretty tough, I'll put it lightly,” vocalist and songwriter Brae Fisher explains.
“It was a pretty shit period of my life and the EP tracks my whole journey through it from the start where it was me having to realise I was the one that fucked up the relationship, all the way to the end where I realised that I shouldn’t let that relationship define me and say who I am. I should enjoy being myself for a bit and enjoy the fact that I can now just do that.”
Brae confesses the EP has been “a long time coming”, with the bulk of it having been written close to two years ago when the band holed up for a week on a Mittagong farm in NSW. “We had a farm stay-house that had a big art space on the outside where we could set up all our practice amps and jam all day every day,” Brae recalls.
“We spent the whole time watching shitty '90s movies like ‘Beavis & Butthead’ and ‘Ace Ventura’ and drinking beer all day and jamming whenever we felt like we could get something out. I don’t think any of us expected to get the whole EP done then and there, but we pretty much wrote the guts of that whole EP in one week.”
With their debut EP 'Words Are Often Useless' released back in 2013, Dear Seattle have spent their time since grappling with change on every level within the band, from member line-up to a shift in creative direction from their first release. “I feel like with the new style we're all definitely much more comfortable with it and it is honestly just us,” Brae says.
“It's not us trying to push a certain sound, which I feel like that older style – the more melodic hardcore stuff on 'Words Are Often Useless' – that was very much just what we were all into at the time and I feel like it may have been a bit of a phase.
“We were writing songs that we liked hearing and we wanted to replicate bands we liked. Whereas this new one I feel like having done it at the farm in seven days where we were just jamming together… if you’re jamming as a band live you can't help but play how you want to, so I feel like it's a lot more honest and a lot more true to what it is we want to sound like.”
Dear Seattle's self-titled EP is available now.
Dear Seattle Shows
Fri 28 Jul - Home Tavern (Wagga Wagga)Sat 29 Jul - SS&A (Albury)
Fri 4 Aug - Brighton Up Bar (Sydney)
Sat 5 Aug - Yah Yah’s (Melbourne)
Thu 17 Aug - Moonshine Bar (Sydney)
Fri 18 Aug - Black Bear Lodge (Brisbane)
Sat 19 Aug - Shakafest (Gold Coast)
