Melbourne four-piece City Calm Down are on the verge of releasing their sophomore album, ‘Echoes In Blue’, three years after unleashing their dynamic debut record ‘In a Restless House’. The I OH YOU-signees have been keeping busy in between records, taking their lauded live shows across the country and overseas, all the while gearing up to deliver an album that exudes both their distinct indie-pop soundscapes, while examining new sonic territory.
Before the band embark on a huge tour across Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and Europe, we caught up with drummer Lee Armstrong to chat about their new live set, experimenting with the band’s songwriting process, and winning over international audiences.
Best Before: You’ve had a very busy few months. How has everything been going?
Lee Armstrong: It’s been really busy, especially around Christmas time, but I guess that’s a busy time of the year for anyone. We just finished up the Laneway tour, and now we’re gearing up for the album release, which we’re super excited about. I can’t see it getting any less busy for us for a while.
And you spent a bit of time overseas at the end of last year too.
Yeah, we were over in the UK doing some shows, and we ducked across to Paris to do one show, which ended up being a 14-hour round trip. But we were over there for a couple weeks. Those shows were a lot of fun; it’s really exciting to be in a different country playing music. When you’re young, you never think that’s something you’d be able to do, but it’s been so great. The crowds were great, too.
So you’ve got your album coming out pretty soon; when did you actually start working on it?
We started working on this record pretty much as soon as ‘In A Restless House’ came out. I think, because that record took so long to come out, we thought we should get started on this one straight away in case we took forever again. We started the recording process about twelve months ago now, so it was quite a while ago. It took about six months to record it, just doing little things here and there, before we completely finished it. Now we’ve been sitting on it for a little bit before it comes out in April.
Was the writing side of it a collaboration between everyone in the band?
I would say it was pretty collaborative for the most part — maybe a little less collaborative than the last record, though. But everyone does their part and chips in, and we still did the same thing as the last album where we go away for weekends and write. We’d just hire out a house somewhere and try to figure out and process all of our ideas.
And you worked with Malcolm Beasley (Northeast Party House, Client Liaison, The Creases) again. Do you think it helped coming into the second album, having already worked with him on the last record?
I think it did. We thought about trying to work with other producers, but Malcolm has been such a good fit for us. He’s really good at mediating our ideas. He sits back and listens to everyone’s ideas, which we normally have a lot of because we’re so passionate about what we do. But he’ll hear everything, and kind of mediate and help us through that process. I should probably stop saying he has to mediate actually — that makes it sound like we’re arguing all the time! But he is just such a good fit for us; he has so many good ideas and contributes so much but, at the same time, he knows when to sit back and take everything in.
“You’ve just been so busy and so focused on one thing that it almost feels like you get a bit lost for a while.”
I’ve listened to the album a couple times through and it has quite a different feel to your last record, while staying true to that distinct City Calm Down sound. Did you intentionally try to take a step away from the first album?
We wanted to move away from the first album, expand our sound and create more options for ourselves when we were recording. Obviously, we didn’t want to alienate ourselves from our original fan base, so in a sense we also tried to carry a bit of the mood from the first album across. I think you can definitely hear a lot of differences and influences on the album, but the main themes and moods running though it are quite similar to the first record. That’s my opinion of it anyway — I think all four of us have a different view on it. We really just want to keep moving forward and trying new things so we can have fun with it all.
Was there a particular track on the album that you’re particularly proud of?
“Echoes In Blue” I really like — from a writing perspective, it’s one of the better tracks. It’s a bit more technical, and I really like the drums in that track, too. I play drums though, so I’m not sure if I can actually say that because I wrote them. I know when we play it live it’s going to be heaps of fun for me.
You guys have another couple tours coming up around the UK, before heading back here. Will this be the first time you’ve played a lot of the new songs live, or were you playing some at the shows last year?
We played some of the tracks off it already; we’ve played “Blood” and “Pride” quite a few times, and “Blame” and “Joan, I’m Disappearing” a little bit. But, looking through the track list now, I’m actually really excited to play the rest of them live. We’ve got rehearsal tonight so that will be fun playing around with the new stuff.
And do you guys have anything planned for the rest of the year, after these tours?
Not as yet. We’ve got the album release, then the tours but, as far as I’m aware, that’s it at this stage.
That must be a nice feeling, considering how busy you’ve been lately.
Yeah, it is! We’ll probably just start writing another record when all of this is over, though. I was talking with a friend the other day who just finished writing an EP, and we were talking about how, when you finish writing something, you don’t know what to do with yourself for the next couple months. You’ve just been so busy and so focused on one thing that it almost feels like you get a bit lost for a while. So I feel like that might happen a little bit after the tour is over. But I’d much prefer to be constantly busy than sitting around with nothing to do.
‘Echoes In Blue’ is out April 6. In the meantime, check out the brand new video for the title track:
And here’s when and where you can catch the lads on tour:
CITY CALM DOWN | AUSTRALIA & NZ TOUR DATES
Friday 8 June – The Tivoli – Brisbane, QLD
Saturday 9 June – The Gov – Adelaide, SA
Friday 15 June – The Forum – Melbourne, VIC
Saturday 16 June – Metropolis – Fremantle, WA
Thursday 21 June – Bar On The Hill – Newcastle, NSW
Friday 22 June – Metro Theatre – Sydney, NSW
Saturday 30 June – Odeon Theatre – Hobart, TAS
Friday 6 July – Whammy Bar – Auckland, NZ
Saturday 7 July – San Fran – Wellington, NZ
Photo: Mclean Stephenson.