Hailing from the Central Coast, E^ST (Mel Bester) is joining an army of Aussie wunderkinds turning the local music scene on its head with spirited beats and unbridled verve. ‘Get Money!’ is the singer-songwriter’s third EP, and sees her at her most dynamic yet thanks to tongue-in-cheek hooks and windows-down singalong melodies.
E^ST took some time out from her national tour to chat about blasts from the past, lockout laws (ew), and making paper.
Best Before: Hey, how are you?
E^ST: I’m good! How are you?
Good, thanks! You just got back from England. How was that?
It was really fun. I love the UK, but it was really hectic. I was only there for ten days, and within those ten days, I’d travelled from Manchester, to Oxford, and then to London again. So it was a lot of travelling. It was really fun.
Did you get up to much writing over there?
That was the plan, but I ended up getting sick, so a lot of my sessions were a bit meh, you know? Nothing really happened, but that’s fine.
Lots of English Breakfast teas, I can imagine.
Yeah, ha!
So you’ve actually been making music for a long time. I found a recording of you singing from 2006 on YouTube, for Operation Christmas Child.
Whoa!
But it was just last year that you left school to focus on music. Was it an easy decision for you then, having spent most of your life doing.
Yeah. I mean, it’s a big decision to make, you know, not finishing high school. But for me, it was very easy. There was no doubt in my mind about it, and I still feel the same – that it was the right decision.
You’ve been keeping pretty busy. I saw you support Broods a couple years ago, and then you played on the Little May tour this year, which was amazing! Have you picked up many tips from being on the road with more established artists?
Yeah, definitely! With every tour I do, I find myself learning so much more. With Little May, I learnt that sometimes doing stuff in an understated sort of way is the cool thing to do. Their show was just so beautiful and they just stood there and did their thing and it was flawless, perfect. They didn’t go crazy with any lighting shows or set piece or whatever, but it was an amazing show.
It’s a really good thing to do, but I kind of miss the simplicity of not overthinking what you’re writing, and just going back to basics.
You’ve also been hanging out with a bunch of other young Australian artists; Montaigne, Japanese Wallpaper and Mallrat. With Sydney’s lockout laws, do you feel like your cohort is at a disadvantage when it comes to playing shows?
I don’t know! None of my friends or are I really big party people, so I don’t feel like we’ve been that affected by the lockout laws in Sydney all that much, but there has definitely been a huge change in Sydney and it’s so evident when you go to other cities like Melbourne or Brisbane, and you’re there at 1 or 2am and everything is buzzing, and there’s a lot of stuff going on. And then you go to Sydney at that same time and it’s just dead, and there’s no one in the streets. I hope that we can get over this, somehow, and Sydney can be the place to be again.
Your new EP is out, which is super exciting. It’s a lot more experimental than we’ve previously heard from you. How do you think your sound has changed?
I guess it’s been a combination of a lot of things. I think the main thing for this last EP was, I’d been doing a lot of tours and gigs and I just felt like I wanted some more high-energy kind of music, because that was my favourite to play live, and playing live is such a big part of what an artist or band was. That was the main sort of inspiration behind the last EP. But, in saying that, it’s important just to write songs as well, not to have a motive or any kind of agenda and just do what comes naturally. As far as production goes, treat it in as natural a way as possible as well.
So would you say your actual songwriting process has changed much over the last few years?
Unfortunately, I think it has in the sense that I find myself overthinking a lot. When I started out writing and when I started the E^ST project, it was much more simple, and it was just kind of like me sitting in a room with an acoustic guitar writing. Over the years I’ve collaborated with lot more people and done a lot more co-writes, which is awesome. It’s a really good thing to do, but I kind of miss the simplicity of not overthinking what you’re writing, and just going back to basics. I definitely feel like that’s something I want to get back in touch with for the next project I work on.
And I guess there must be a different sort of pressure now that people know who you are and are familiar with your work. Do you feel like your fans have changed over the last few years?
I guess the majority of my fans are triple j listeners, because that’s sort of the biggest platform to discover music in Australia. But we did a tour with twenty one pilots earlier this year.
Yeah that was massive!
Oh man, it was amazing. Such a great tour. They have quite a young audience – between the ages of 12 and 20. Doing that tour brought new fans and younger fans in as well, rather than the 18-30 year old demographic.
That song was just a way for me to try relax and encourage myself and say that “it doesn’t matter. You only get one life and you should spend it doing what you love doing.”
For “Screentime”, you actually got a lot of your fans involved. Was that a special moment for you, having people that support you there for the video?
I was actually super moved by the whole thing. I was kind of expecting no one to turn up after I’d put that post up on Facebook, but a lot of them did and they were just the loveliest people. They were so helpful and just threw themselves into everything we asked of them. It was really special, and it was awesome to connect with them on a personal level as well. I’m friends with a lot of those kids now, and it was just great to be able to say it to their faces – “Hey, you’re awesome. Thanks so much for everything you’ve done for me.” That was really a special moment.
You interact a lot with your fans on Facebook and are responding to comments often. How important do you think staying in touch on social media is for you as an artist?
It’s really important. Obviously, as you gain more fans and followers it must be harder to do that, because you get a lot of comments, But as much as I can, I really just love replying to people, because if they can take time out of their day to say something nice to you or encouraging, then I can do the same for them. I get to know some fans over social media and then I meet them at shows, and we’re friends already – that’s really awesome.
Was there a new overarching concept for ‘Get Money!”? It’s a lot more playful than your previous stuff.
We didn’t write that song with that in mind – I guess it just sort of turned out that way, but it was kind of written at a really stressful time in my life. I was a bit freaked out about having left school and having no real prospects, really. That song was just a way for me to try to relax and encourage myself and say that “it doesn’t matter. You only get one life and you should spend it doing what you love doing.”
That definitely comes through. How did the collaboration with Mallrat come about?
It’s funny – we actually didn’t know each other before that collab happened. I’d sort of written the song, and we all kind of liked it. It was recorded and everything, but we all felt like there was something missing from the song. Somehow, my label came across Mallrat. They knew her management and they put her forward like, “Hey we found this really cool 18-year-old rapper. Maybe she should try a verse.” And she did, and sent through her ideas, and it was perfect! It completed the whole song.
Do you have a off the new EP you’re most excited to play live on you upcoming tour?
At the moment, my favourite is “Get Money!”, especially going into summer. I feel like it’s a summery jam!
You can get your hands on the ‘Get Money!’ EP here.
E^ST TOUR DATES
Friday 11th November // The Foundry– Brisbane QLD
Saturday 19th November // The Plot – Parramatta NSW
Saturday 26th November // Vanfest – Forbes NSW
Sunday 27th November // Aviary Sessions – Perth WA
Saturday 3rd December // Spilt Milk – Canberra ACT
Friday 9th December // Fat Controller – Adelaide, SA