INTERVIEW: Hannah Joy on the release of Middle Kids' new album 'Today We're The Greatest'
Interview: Jett Tattersall
Image: Daphne Nguyen
Today sees the release of the second album from Sydney pop-rock trio Middle Kids (comprised of lead singer Hannah Joy, Tim Fitz and Harry Day) Today We’re The Greatest. The follow up to their 2018 debut album Lost Friends, the band started work on the album back in 2019 in Los Angeles where the change of scenery and new location inspired them to experiment with their sound. The end result stays true to the fuzzy, warm, indie pop of Lost Friends but brings in a more emotive, eclectic soundscape. First single ‘R U 4 Me'?’ gallops along with a driving beat and a poppy vibe, whilst on ‘Questions’ an unexpected burst into a horn section midway into the previously acoustic track is an absolute joy. There are also plenty of quieter, introspective moments, such as the tender ballad ‘Golden Star’ which features Joy’s gorgeous voice and little more than a guitar background, and the country-bluegrass vibing ‘Lost In Los Angeles’.
While indie-pop-rock at its core, it’s fluid sound ensures Today We’re The Greatest is the type of album that can find a home in most music fan’s heart and is highly recommended. We recently caught up with lead singer and songwriter Hannah Joy to find out more.
Hello Hannah, wonderful to chat to you today and congratulations on one hell of an album Today We’re the Greatest. it is actually a true story because when I was listening to it I was like ‘this is the greatest!’ How have things been with you?
Good, just living that lockdown life essentially. But you know, we are doing pretty well just trying to make things and do our thing whatever in this new place. We can't tour which has clipped our wings a little bit but that's okay.
I must say the album is just so... heat tingly. I want to talk about the lead track ‘Bad Neighbours’, what an opener. The song has that kind of gut purring with that excitement, you're waiting for the chorus and the bridge and the marching band. Plenty of this is all down to your very tear duct activating voice, that feeling that starts from your below and heads up to your heart. There's a very uplifting feel to it. I just wanted to know a little bit more about that track because I just love it.
Aw, thanks. I really love that track too. It's a bit different for us as well. A lot of the music that we make I really want it to hit in the guts. In our first album a lot of the way that we did that was almost just by a lot of energy and a lot of sound and sonically punch in the guts. What's cool about this song, and even this album more so, is it's kind of hitting you in the guts softly. It hits hard but more through the vulnerability or the rawness of it. Even making that track and it is a little different for us, we just thought it’d be kind of cool to put it upfront because it was a marker of how we were going to connect with this album. More in the heart, in the guts and more vulnerable and personal. At first I was a bit scared to put it first because it is different, and even different to the album. But then I thought it actually is kind of a cool way to start this album in a really raw place and then to go from there.
Oh, it's incredible. There’s an almost, and in the loveliest sense, a gentle unease about it. It goes completely from the gut even the lower spine and travels up your back, it's just beautiful. The third single ‘Cellophane (Brain)’ is equally wondrous and again your vocals supported by those deliciously layered and genre bounding instruments that kind of slingshot the listener from a festival back to your bedroom late at night in one song. It's such a great track but also there's a little dark element to it. Can you talk me through the origins of this track?
That song, it's almost a stream of consciousness. Even with the lyrics I just had that strong image of remembering as a child being really uncomfortable with cellophane in a very tactile way. It just made me feel very uncomfortable. I feel like my brain and my thinking can make me very uncomfortable in my own skin. I’m feeling more and more that in order to get your mind in the right thinking kind of place you’ve just got to get out some of the nutso thoughts that are just ticking around. It's so crazy when you take stock of what's going on in your mind. A lot of the time, for me anyway, it can be quite negative and anxious. You’ve just sometimes got to get it out so you can start trying to re-route your brain and I feel with that song it was a cathartic process by just going ‘bleurgh’, but then also a comment on seeing how a big part on our growth and journey in life is actually figuring out how to have like a clear mind and even what we're allowing ourselves to dwell on or believe. I loved making this song. We were in the studio in LA making this record which we'd never done before. We had this room called the B room, which is where like Tim or I would go, just to play instruments and to throw on different sounds once the song had been built. Particularly with this song there's so many delicious moments of guitar lines kind of at war with the vocals. or even complementing, and different little synth sounds that were created in the B room. There are just splashes of beautiful colour that i just really love on that particular song.
Gorgeous. Again, you've got that message of addressing your thoughts and things that come across as comfort and then become discomfort without it being too aggressive. You also touched on that on ‘R U 4 Me?’ There's that great line at the beginning: ‘Join in my crusade shoutin' at everyone ‘Be nice’ / When I'm not even nice myself’. The hook is so delicious again with this kind of ‘60s vibe not to mention the electric punk breakdown in the bridge. But it's a song that's really appropriate for this day and age when everyone is being forced to be grateful and be nice. With regard to your song writing approach, who were your heroes and what do you try and push when you're writing yourself boundaries-wise?
That's interesting. When I think about big artists or song-writers for me, there’s so many musicians that I love but I can also see very clearly that there's been a few artists who have almost been my narrator through different seasons of life. Their voice would have kind of been going around a lot. In my early early even pre-teen years, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke’s voice was such a constant for me. And then as i got a bit older, Surfjan Stevens, and then The National, they're all these wordy men for these examples, interestingly, but angsty and they use really interesting imagery. When I think of different periods of my life, I’m like ahh yes that's when Matt Daniel was speaking through my life very clearly. I’ve probably taken a lot from that as using music as to find my own voice and working things out. With this record because we were doing it in a studio, I felt like I knew what each song was so that when we went to the studio we could add to it but we wouldn't take away the spirit of the song or it wouldn't get lost in a new place or with new ideas. It's already found its identity. It meant that we could be almost liberal with chucking things at it and seeing what stuck, because I knew that what would stick would be only stuff that would align with that song's already quite clear identity.
Absolutely. You've got your track ‘Lost in Los Angeles’ and it opens with a banjo. And then you sing and this song is such a reflective journal entry. The album is so distinctly you but as you mentioned you aimed for the softer side with all those cathartic guitars and your voice. Was that your initial desire when starting this album as a whole, to be getting you in the belly, or did it all just create as you were writing the songs individually?
There was an intention to have it more dynamic than our last album because our last album I wrote most of it when I was on the road. It was just so clearly influenced by us touring, playing big American rock shows and festivals. It's kind of like a big explosive album which was really awesome and fun but I just wanted to show another side of us that is maybe a little bit more dynamic, whether it's slower or quieter, and that was quite intentional, especially because all of us love music like that as well. It was just the next development for us. I was heavily pregnant when I wrote a lot of it and just being in that place, you're way more raw and reflective because you know your life is about to change forever. Also, when I was writing, I was trying to spend more time with the songs as opposed to being like ‘oh we have a soundtrack, let's write a little song’. I was more just trying to simmer in them for a little bit. There was more space to do that.
Beautiful. There is definitely space on the album. Now you as a group, you've kind of got that indie rocker pop kind of vibe as you mention, particularly with your previous album and EPs. I'm just interested on your thoughts with regards to that genre in Australia. Australia historically is dude rock capital and I know you do very well internationally. So what are your thoughts on how you approach your music here and then how it's received abroad?
To be honest, in terms of the approach there hasn't been so much thought put into that mainly because when we released our first song it was quickly picked up on American radio. A few months later we were over in America playing shows. It was one of those things where I don't know., we just made this song, we really loved it. It was kind of what we formed the band around. We felt like we had something special here with ‘Edge of Town’ and then it just got all this energy around it. We were like ‘I guess this is what we're doing’. I’m sure being in Australia would have its influence in some ways but I couldn't really say. Especially because I listen to a lot of British and American music and I’m not that hooked into the [Australian] scene. I don’t even know what's going on half of the time. We are definitely influenced by it all, but I think it's probably somewhere quite deep.
It's in there. Beautiful. I know we talked about touring and the world kind of blew up and then bad things happened and then good things are starting to happen again. With that in mind, you're also going to be touring this beast. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Yes! It's hard to even believe that it will happen. We have these shows in May. We're really excited about them because, we're curating them around what is possible and right now everyone has to sit down. We played some shows around Sydney last November and they were so strange for us because they were at 50 per cent capacity and everyone was sitting down and it’s such a different energy. We thought, for these shows, we would lean right into that and curate a show so we're playing in more classical music hall venues. So we are excited especially for this album because it is more fitting for these kind of spaces anyway. But to bring in other instruments and have the night be quite a musical experience as opposed to just us playing our guitars and rocking on makes more sense. So we feel really really excited to put on these shows because they'll be a little bit different from what we usually do.
It’s the perfect album for it and you know what, there’s actually something quite nice about going to a concert and sitting down and getting a good dinner. The COVID seating. We were all complaining but we’re all going ‘this is actually brilliant!’
I know! At one of our shows they were sitting down and you could order fries and they would bring you fries. I was like…’that looks like my dream!’
Today We’re The Greatest is out now via Universal Music. You can buy and stream here.
Middle Kids are touring through May 2021. Tickets are on sale now.
Thursday 13 May - QPAC, Brisbane
Friday 21 May - Melbourne Recital Centre, Melbourne
Saturday 22 May - Melbourne Recital Centre, Melbourne
Friday 28 May - City Recital Hall, Sydney
Saturday 29 May - City Recital Hall, Sydney
To keep up with all things Middle Kids, you can follow them on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
