Join host Buzz Knight for The Paper Kites interview with Sam Bentley, lead singer and songwriter of the acclaimed Australian indie folk ban . In this episode of the Takin a Walk music history podcast, we explore Sam’s journey from Melbourne’s music scene to international stages, discussing the evolution of The Paper Kites’ signature dreamy, acoustic sound that has captivated millions worldwide.
Sam opens up about the band’s creative process, from writing beloved tracks like “Bloom” and “Tin Lover” to crafting their atmospheric albums including “Woodland,” “twelvefour,” and “On the Corner Where You Live.” We dive deep into his songwriting techniques, musical influences, and how nature and storytelling shape The Paper Kites’ melancholic yet hopeful melodies.
Throughout our music interview, Sam reflects on the challenges and rewards of touring as an independent Australian artist, the evolution of indie folk music, collaboration within the five-piece band, and balancing creativity with the demands of the music industry. He also shares insights into recording acoustic sessions, the importance of authenticity in songwriting, and what’s next for The Paper Kites.
Whether you’re a longtime fan of Australian indie music or discovering the band for the first time, this Paper Kites interview offers a rare glimpse into the mind of one of indie folk’s most thoughtful songwriters.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taking a walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
We're not trying to chase any momentum. You know, the
fans that come to our shows are really just music
lovers and they've kind of been brought into what we do,
and it's a really nice place to be. I have
to say, I think I would much prefer this slow
way of doing things as opposed to any kind of
very very quick form of success.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Um, Buzz night and welcome to taking a walk. You
know that feeling when a song comes on suddenly you're
transported somewhere else entirely. Maybe you're in a forest, maybe
you're remembering a moment you thought you'd forgotten. That's the
magic of the band, The Paper Kites. They don't just
write songs, they craft entire atmospheres. From their humble beginnings
(00:48):
busking on the streets of Melbourne to becoming one of
Australia's most beloved indie folk acts, the Paper Kites have
spent over a decade perfecting the art of musical storytelling.
Their breakout hit Bloom, has been streamed hundreds of millions
of times, soundtracking everything from quiet morning coffees to life's
(01:13):
most pivotal moments. The Paper Kites on taking a Walk,
Taking a Walk. I'm so excited to have Sam Bentley
from The Paper Kites on the Taking a Walk Podcast. Hello, Sam,
Hi boz Hey, doing fantastic. We're here to talk about
(01:34):
the seventh studio album from The Paper Kites. If you
go there, I hope you find it. I love that
title and also the new single which I love, every Town,
and we're going to talk about that. But Sam, since
we call this crazy podcast Taking a Walk, before we
(01:56):
embark on our little conversation, if you could take a
walk with somebody living or dead, who would you take
a walk with them? Where would you take that walk?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
M That's a very good question. I don't know. I mean,
I'm a big fan of a lot of different songwriters
for different reasons. It's very hard to pick one person,
and a lot of the songwriters that I would say
are kind of my people, I would be too afraid
to take a walk quick. But you know, I saw
(02:30):
Warren Allis recently and he's an amazing composer and he
bears the violin for The Bad Seeds with Nickay. But
I don't know if you you know he's worked with
them and have this very strange connection in that my
dad and my uncle, so Josh, who was my cousin
(02:53):
in the band. My father and his brother are brothers,
our parents and Parnellis. They all grew up in the
same town in Ballarat, in Victoria. And I actually got
to see Warren recently. He just released this documentary which
is a beautiful film about his life. My uncle was
given this guitar by Warren's dad, who taught him how
(03:16):
to play, and it's this beautiful old Maten guitar that
kind of has been in the family for all these
years and I never actually inquired about it until semi
recently asking him, you know, where did you get this guitar?
And he told me that Warren Ellis's father gave it
to him. So I had a very brief opportunity at
this film screening. It was like a q and a
(03:38):
sort of situation where I got to tell Warren about
this guitar that belonged to his father. My uncle still
had it and it was still in our family, and
he was really really happy to hear that. So I
think if I could walk with him, and you know,
I feel like we'd have a lot to talk about,
which would be really nice because he's one of my
favorite favorite musicians. Yeah, definitely, what.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
A great story. Thank you for sharing that. Appreciate that. Sure.
So for those who might be discovering The Paper Kites
for the first time, describe the sound to someone who's
never heard your music.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I mean, I think I don't know if you can
describe a sound as you're kind of honest, that's that's
always what we've tried to do. I mean, it's it's
always been based around kind of folk folk music. I
think at the heart of things. You know, we certainly
draw a lot from the singer songwriters of all back
(04:35):
in the day, and and a lot of what I
kind of based my songs around is structurally, you know,
folk songs, particularly just thinking about some of the songs
on this new record, Yeah, always kind of just sitting
down with a guitar, and and most of the time
guitars are very heavily featured in the music. It's rare
(05:00):
these days that we'll get a song out but doesn't
have guitar in it, so you know, it's it sort
of starts that way. But I think my mum always
says that your music is very hopeful, and I've always
kind of liked that, and I think I read this quote.
(05:21):
I don't often read, you know, people's comments about our music.
It is never always good for my house. But this
person did say that their music is bursting with humanity,
and I was very very happy with that.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
I love that and the hopefulness. We all need hopefulness
more than ever now, So I love that About the
paper Kites. You've been making music for over a decade now,
which is something you must be proud of. What keeps
you so connected as a band through all the change
(06:00):
is in the music industry.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah, I mean we've been we've been friends but longer
than we've been a band, and I think that has
been kind of the foundation of what has made this work.
And there's been periods of time where you know, certain
members haven't been able to tour and sort of be
(06:25):
a part of the team for whatever reason, you know,
family situations at home, or you know, quite literally starting
families themselves. And so we've always said, like, the only
way that we're going to navigate kind of moving through
the different seasons with this band is if we kind
of make it first and foremost about about our friendship
(06:48):
and our family. So we've really been very careful to
do not push too hard in many ways like you
often can, especially if you're feeling the pressure of you know,
feeling like you need to tour or consistently release music, which
we have, but it has been around sort of long
(07:10):
breaks at home and just I think that's where we
kind of recharge, and that's where we're kind of the
happiest is at home in our sort of little build
bubbles with our families. And I really do think we've
just been very careful to keep the friendship preserved and
keep the family aspect preserved, and that's what we've been
(07:33):
able to do, which is a really fortunate place to
be in because I think I was talking about this
with someone the other day that a lot of artists
they're not really thinking about music in a long term
kind of way at the moment. You know, they're not
thinking about it as a career. That's very much about
(07:54):
the how can I be seen now?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
What am I doing now?
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And you know, a lot of the long jem doesn't
necessarily last past kind of two or three records, particularly
as a band. You know, a solo artist is a
different thing, but a band, you know, you've got five
different personalities that play five different kind of opinions that
can often kind of rub up against each other. And
(08:18):
so we've been yeah, really really intentional to kind of
try and get through and just keep putting our heads
down and releasing music. And you know, here we are,
as you said, about to release kind of our seventh record,
and it's in a really nice rhythm now where we
we're not trying to chase any momentum. You know, the
(08:39):
fans that come to our shows are really just music
lovers and they've kind of been brought into what we do,
and it's a really nice place to be. I have
to say, I think I would much prefer this slow
way of doing things as opposed to any kind of
very very quick form of success.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I view your music is cinematic and a great atmospheric quality.
When you're writing, are you visualizing these scenes and these stories?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, I think I've been very sort of visually inclined
over the years. I mean, I've had a lot of
different writing spaces and that sort of play down in
different ways. And I know when I was making on
the train ride home that record and the sort of
sister album on the corner where you live, I had
(09:36):
sort of projector set up in the studio and I
was just kind of watching films that I loved, and
I would just kind of mute the sound and composed
to scenes, just trying to capture, as you say, kind
of moods and atmospheres. And I've recently built a news
space to write in which I chose to paint green.
(09:57):
That was a bold choice, and you know, just bringing
in I've like kind of had to work out what
I want to fill the space with in terms of
art on the walls and things like that. The visual element,
to me is probably really the driving force of the
song other than the feeling. It's really those two things
(10:19):
that I would sit down with anytime I'm writing and
kind of say, firstly, how am I feeling? How do
I want the listener to feel? Because you can certainly
write with a great deal of intention in that way,
firstly working out what is the shared experience that we
want to have, But then it very much comes down
(10:41):
to what am I seeing, whether it's colors or a
very specific kind of place or image, how am I
going to convey that to someone else? And we've always
been very deliberate about the album art and the videos
that we make, and everything is tied together in the
visual think I've spoken about this before, but the visual
(11:04):
element is just as important as the music and the
things that you choose to I suppose pair with your music.
The people to see is really what they what they
connect with your music. You know, you think about sort
of a lot of your favorite artists. You're not just
thinking about the songs. You're thinking about, you know, the
(11:25):
record covers that you've seen, affairs, or you're thinking about
the videos or even the live performances. It's all the same.
So yeah, we're very very intentional and very careful about
how we present ourselves in that way.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
I love how you focus on the whole package, if
you will, because that's often a lost a lost art
these days. So hats off for all of that aspect
of things.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Can you take our audience through how your songwriting process
has evolved since your early EPs, like like Woodland to
the more recent work.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I was talking with someone about Woodland
the other day. I mean, we obviously we had a
good deal of it wasn't necessarily a success in the
way that you might sort of consider success to be.
We have still never really been much of a band
(12:39):
that receives any radio play, which was was kind of
the doorway really back then, and it was still, i mean,
things like YouTube was still a way to be seen,
but it was still in its somewhat earlier days. And
so you know, when we put out Bloom and that
(13:00):
EP as well, we were just kind of not really
sure how to how to navigate the music scene then.
So all we really had was the fact that we'd
been in other bands previously that we loved playing in,
but we never really had any kind of success, and
for some of us, myself mainly kind of felt myself
(13:23):
being pulled in this other direction with a great love
for folk music, and that wasn't the kind of music
that I was playing at the time. So yeah, it
really just started off, let's kind of write songs that
are a little truer to the kind of music that
we're passionate about and we're listening to. And so that
(13:44):
record or that EP very very simple songs, and it's
funny I look back on it now. I mean that
EP was fifteen years ago now and the songwriter I
am now and the songwriter I was that. I mean,
it's really the one, the one kind of profession, or
not the only one. I shouldn't really be said definitive,
(14:06):
but it's one of the professions that you really do
kind of get better at as you get older. And
as I look back on this song and I am
amazed at the simplicity of them, and I think that
can be a beautiful thing. You know, sometimes you can
get too lost down you know, this kind of whole
(14:30):
of like discovery and pushing yourself as an artist and
trying to really break barriers. And I've never been interested
in that. I've always just tried to be a good songwriter.
So I think in that regard it hasn't changed because
I've first and foremost been about the song and is
just going to translate to other people? But I don't know.
(14:53):
I have, somewhere along the way cared very much about
the humanity of the thing, you know, like, can you
you hear? Is there a sense of longing? Is there
a sense of yearning? Is there is there soul in
the song as much as there can be for a
band like us, You know, we're not like and we're
(15:13):
not a groovyous band.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Out there, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Vocally, like the way that I sing, you know, it's
not It's not the most soulful voice that I've ever heard,
But I think there's a little character in there, and
can I show that through what I what I do.
So a lot of those earlier recordings vocally, you know,
we were kind of doubling all the vocal tracks. Gave
it this kind of indie sound. We call it the
(15:38):
indie double where you would sing a whole song and
then you would track the vocals again over the top,
and it kind of just smooths the whole thing out,
kind of covers any kind of vocal imperfections. And I used.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
To be very.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Self conscious about my own voice and whether I I
just I feel like I didn't have any voice, and
I didn't have anything that was going to be engaging.
And so every track back then that was on the
first two EPs and the first record. I think we
stopped it a little on the first record, but mostly
(16:13):
it was done on those early releases, and it wasn't
until the second record that I kind of felt like
I need to step out a little from behind the
safety of that and really have a go ats just
like presenting myself very plainly and hopefully there'll be something
(16:36):
that connects. But that's been very important as the years
have kind of progressed, I feel like, I mean, musically
is one thing. We've all certainly grown as musicians and
matured and changed together, but vocally for myself at least,
I can say I feel like each record has become
more and more comfortable with who I am and how
(17:00):
I sound, until up until this recent record that we did,
which was really just done live in the studio trying
to be okay with the imperfections of my voice, and
to me, like the older I get, I don't really
care about perfect singers anymore. I'm interested in like voices
(17:23):
that are full of character, and I'm starting to love
like terrible singings on paper. That's that's kind of where
my interest seems to go. I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
I just.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
They just sound like they've they've lived a bit, you know.
So that's that's where I'm at now. But I, in
answer to your question, is a very long way to
answer it. I think we started off very simple but
sort of very safe as well, and as we've grown
over the years, I think we've kind of ended up
in this place where everyone's just very a lot bolder
(17:55):
in terms of the sounds that we're able to make,
and just yeah, the imperfections of it too, I think
has been something that we just we really want to
lean into. And I circle back to the humanness of
it all. You know, I'm trying to communicate.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
That I'm so glad to hear you talk about the
imperfection factor, because that is at least by and large lost.
I think there's so much focus on the way technology
and all of that corrects the imperfections, and I think
(18:35):
you just highlighted the beauty, the beauty of it all.
So I'm so glad to hear you say that.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Really, Oh no, I'm glad to hear it. I mean,
who knows where things are going to be going and
the next kind of decade or so, you're already seeing
a lot of these these AI bands popping out. I
don't know if you heard about that, but you know,
that's one of the sort of defining things we can
grasp onto as like our imperfections. I just think that's
(19:04):
going to be a very telling thing between music, that is,
you know, kind of machine made versus the organic time.
You know, how can you tell it's you know, it's
the soul. It's the soul that's in a song, and
they're the very things that give it, so you the
imperfections that just the transparency of the you know, this
(19:27):
is the person singing who has been through something.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
So take us inside the creation of If you go there,
I hope you find it. What was that process like?
And talk about what you're most excited about with this project.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
It's funny this this record wasn't supposed to be made.
When it was made. I suppose there was another record
that I had kind of finished and I presented it
to the band, said this is what i'd like to do.
What do you think? And it was start of met
(20:05):
with we really like this, but we're not quite ready
to move on to this. I think everyone had a
really good time making at the roadhouse, and you know,
in many ways it's kind of a very good example
of kind of what we do very well, the kind
of music that we play well. I think the record
(20:25):
that I had written was kind of maybe a little
a little darker in many ways, and so there was
this sense of like this, this is cool but it's
not really what we feel like we want to do
next to follow that record up. Yeah, it surprised me
a little because usually everyone's kind of we're all on
the same page in terms of moving ahead. So, and
(20:49):
this is at the time that we were renovating at
my home, so the whole home was really gone and
I didn't have a space to write. Spoke to one
of our friends that own this farm, so we rehearsed
out at a farm in the Yarra Valley in Victoria,
which is a beautiful part of the state. It's kind
(21:11):
of wine country, so a lot of valleys, a lot
of rolling hills, very green. Yeah, I asked her, you know,
do you have a space that I can use? So
they offered me this little upstairs, upstairs room, a very
small room in one of the airplane hangars that they
(21:31):
have there. And so I spent a great deal of
the year writing there working on this record, and that's
where most of the songs came together. And that's the
same place as I said that we rehearse at. So
it's kind of nice. I would be writing there and
then presenting these songs to the band and we'd be
working on them and there's a lot of interesting things
(21:54):
on that farm, but one of them is an old
bus that sort of sits in this field, just totally
rusted over. We're kind of thinking of this album title,
and I think that that little phrase was suggested, and
Christina went and wrote it on the window of this
bus and it just kind of stayed there for months,
(22:16):
and then we thought, actually, that could be like a
great album cover. We took a photo of it, so
that's the cover that you see there. Yeah, and it's
still there. Actually, I'd feel like maybe one day it'll
become a tourist destination. But yeah. It was actually a
really a really beautiful process making that record because we'd
(22:36):
come off two records that were very collaborative. We had Roses,
which was an album of dewets, the whole thing was
duets with different artists, and then at the Roadhouse we
bought in three friends to join the band, and so
it wasn't just the five of us, and we hadn't
really made music with just the five us quite some time.
(22:59):
So there was a little, i won't say fear, because
it wasn't that. It was just maybe a small degree
of worry that we hadn't really done anything that was
just back to the sort of five original members, and
we had become sort of reliant on the skills of
(23:20):
these friends that we brought in. We toured at the
Roadhouse for like two years. We were an eight piece band,
and you know, the musicianship that they brought to the
band was just something that you don't want to go
without because it's so great, you know, really lifts the
live experience. And so you know, pulling it back to
(23:40):
this five people, it felt like, you know, are we
still able to do this? I mean that's a very
kind of dramatic thought to have. I mean, of course
we can, but I'll say that it felt like it
was very reassuring to kind of hear these songs with
just the five of them sent and remember that, like
we we do this because it does work for five
(24:03):
of us, and there is this kind of magic that happens.
And this record kind of feels like a band kind
of remembering the things that they that sort of made
them fall in love with playing together in the first place.
I think, you know, just the three of us, Dave,
Christina and myself so of singing together and just Dave's
(24:24):
guitar playing and then not really having like the backup
of a sort of a bigger band. Yeah, it was.
It was a really wonderful process. And then heading into
the studio, like I said, we we are really leaning
into the live tracking these days and just kind of
getting in a room together and playing a song, listening
back to it, and really the conversation was always like
(24:47):
how does it feel? Does the song feel good? Not
is it is it correct? Just does it kind of
feel feel right? And that's the great thing with live
live tracking is if it doesn't, you can just go
and play it again. But most songs, you know, were
kind of bearing like two or three takes. There are
(25:08):
a few songs like I Know When the Lavender Blooms
kind of took a little longer just because that was
a very kind of group based song. There's a song
called Deep in the Plans we made, which is just
one microphone in the middle of the room, and I
think Dave and Christina was still learning the song kind
of as we went, and we just had this really
(25:31):
great take with a song just it felt like it
was about to fall apart because it's so delicate and
a very gentle, kind of three part harmony through the
whole thing sort of rises and falls, and we got
this great take and we were like, Okay, great, let's
do it again. And Matt Redlick, who engineered and co
(25:51):
produced with us, he just so he said no, like,
don't touch it that song, like you got it, it's fine.
And I think us being us, we were sort of like, no,
let's give it a few more gos, and we just
couldn't get it anywhere near what we managed to capture
it at. So, you know, that's the magic of blob
Drag And there's a lot of there's a lot of
(26:13):
character the five of us in this record. And Yeah,
I think to me, if you were to ask me
kind of what it was to me and what this
record feels like to me, I think it's just, yeah,
five five friends, five musicians kind of coming back together
and just rediscovering, Yeah, what kind of made them to
(26:34):
want to do this together. And the Farm has become
an important backdrop to this record, but also an important
space for us as a band. We've really grown in
that space and really kind of learned to, yeah, to
kind of just be a band. I know that's a
(26:55):
weird thing to say. If that makes any sense. But yeah,
it's been a very fruit space for us.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Well, yeah, you're exploring the joyous nature of collaboration, right,
I mean that's really what it is.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
That's right, That's right, and you know you kind of
you need a space to do that, and we've managed to, yeah,
navigate quite a few records there there, so we have
to have them and very lucky to have them.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
I'm so glad you took the time Sam to be
on the podcast Taking a Walk. Congratulations on If you
go there, I hope you find it and enjoy the road,
because the road is long and you guys are going
to be out there for a while, but I hope
we get to do this again, Sam Bentley.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah, so thank you so much, Bob. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk Podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
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a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast,
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Speaker 3 (28:03):
Taking a Walk is made possible by the support of
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Taking a walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
We're not trying to chase any momentum. You know, the
fans that come to our shows are really just music
lovers and they've kind of been brought into what we do,
and it's a really nice place to be. I have
to say, I think I would much prefer this slow
way of doing things as opposed to any kind of
very very quick form of success.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Um, Buzz night and welcome to taking a walk. You
know that feeling when a song comes on suddenly you're
transported somewhere else entirely. Maybe you're in a forest, maybe
you're remembering a moment you thought you'd forgotten. That's the
magic of the band, The Paper Kites. They don't just
write songs, they craft entire atmospheres. From their humble beginnings
(00:48):
busking on the streets of Melbourne to becoming one of
Australia's most beloved indie folk acts, the Paper Kites have
spent over a decade perfecting the art of musical storytelling.
Their breakout hit Bloom, has been streamed hundreds of millions
of times, soundtracking everything from quiet morning coffees to life's
(01:13):
most pivotal moments. The Paper Kites on taking a Walk,
Taking a Walk. I'm so excited to have Sam Bentley
from The Paper Kites on the Taking a Walk Podcast. Hello, Sam,
Hi boz Hey, doing fantastic. We're here to talk about
(01:34):
the seventh studio album from The Paper Kites. If you
go there, I hope you find it. I love that
title and also the new single which I love, every Town,
and we're going to talk about that. But Sam, since
we call this crazy podcast Taking a Walk, before we
(01:56):
embark on our little conversation, if you could take a
walk with somebody living or dead, who would you take
a walk with them? Where would you take that walk?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
M That's a very good question. I don't know. I mean,
I'm a big fan of a lot of different songwriters
for different reasons. It's very hard to pick one person,
and a lot of the songwriters that I would say
are kind of my people, I would be too afraid
to take a walk quick. But you know, I saw
(02:30):
Warren Allis recently and he's an amazing composer and he
bears the violin for The Bad Seeds with Nickay. But
I don't know if you you know he's worked with
them and have this very strange connection in that my
dad and my uncle, so Josh, who was my cousin
(02:53):
in the band. My father and his brother are brothers,
our parents and Parnellis. They all grew up in the
same town in Ballarat, in Victoria. And I actually got
to see Warren recently. He just released this documentary which
is a beautiful film about his life. My uncle was
given this guitar by Warren's dad, who taught him how
(03:16):
to play, and it's this beautiful old Maten guitar that
kind of has been in the family for all these
years and I never actually inquired about it until semi
recently asking him, you know, where did you get this guitar?
And he told me that Warren Ellis's father gave it
to him. So I had a very brief opportunity at
this film screening. It was like a q and a
(03:38):
sort of situation where I got to tell Warren about
this guitar that belonged to his father. My uncle still
had it and it was still in our family, and
he was really really happy to hear that. So I
think if I could walk with him, and you know,
I feel like we'd have a lot to talk about,
which would be really nice because he's one of my
favorite favorite musicians. Yeah, definitely, what.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
A great story. Thank you for sharing that. Appreciate that. Sure.
So for those who might be discovering The Paper Kites
for the first time, describe the sound to someone who's
never heard your music.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I mean, I think I don't know if you can
describe a sound as you're kind of honest, that's that's
always what we've tried to do. I mean, it's it's
always been based around kind of folk folk music. I
think at the heart of things. You know, we certainly
draw a lot from the singer songwriters of all back
(04:35):
in the day, and and a lot of what I
kind of based my songs around is structurally, you know,
folk songs, particularly just thinking about some of the songs
on this new record, Yeah, always kind of just sitting
down with a guitar, and and most of the time
guitars are very heavily featured in the music. It's rare
(05:00):
these days that we'll get a song out but doesn't
have guitar in it, so you know, it's it sort
of starts that way. But I think my mum always
says that your music is very hopeful, and I've always
kind of liked that, and I think I read this quote.
(05:21):
I don't often read, you know, people's comments about our music.
It is never always good for my house. But this
person did say that their music is bursting with humanity,
and I was very very happy with that.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
I love that and the hopefulness. We all need hopefulness
more than ever now, So I love that About the
paper Kites. You've been making music for over a decade now,
which is something you must be proud of. What keeps
you so connected as a band through all the change
(06:00):
is in the music industry.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah, I mean we've been we've been friends but longer
than we've been a band, and I think that has
been kind of the foundation of what has made this work.
And there's been periods of time where you know, certain
members haven't been able to tour and sort of be
(06:25):
a part of the team for whatever reason, you know,
family situations at home, or you know, quite literally starting
families themselves. And so we've always said, like, the only
way that we're going to navigate kind of moving through
the different seasons with this band is if we kind
of make it first and foremost about about our friendship
(06:48):
and our family. So we've really been very careful to
do not push too hard in many ways like you
often can, especially if you're feeling the pressure of you know,
feeling like you need to tour or consistently release music, which
we have, but it has been around sort of long
(07:10):
breaks at home and just I think that's where we
kind of recharge, and that's where we're kind of the
happiest is at home in our sort of little build
bubbles with our families. And I really do think we've
just been very careful to keep the friendship preserved and
keep the family aspect preserved, and that's what we've been
(07:33):
able to do, which is a really fortunate place to
be in because I think I was talking about this
with someone the other day that a lot of artists
they're not really thinking about music in a long term
kind of way at the moment. You know, they're not
thinking about it as a career. That's very much about
(07:54):
the how can I be seen now?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
What am I doing now?
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And you know, a lot of the long jem doesn't
necessarily last past kind of two or three records, particularly
as a band. You know, a solo artist is a
different thing, but a band, you know, you've got five
different personalities that play five different kind of opinions that
can often kind of rub up against each other. And
(08:18):
so we've been yeah, really really intentional to kind of
try and get through and just keep putting our heads
down and releasing music. And you know, here we are,
as you said, about to release kind of our seventh record,
and it's in a really nice rhythm now where we
we're not trying to chase any momentum. You know, the
(08:39):
fans that come to our shows are really just music
lovers and they've kind of been brought into what we do,
and it's a really nice place to be. I have
to say, I think I would much prefer this slow
way of doing things as opposed to any kind of
very very quick form of success.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I view your music is cinematic and a great atmospheric quality.
When you're writing, are you visualizing these scenes and these stories?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, I think I've been very sort of visually inclined
over the years. I mean, I've had a lot of
different writing spaces and that sort of play down in
different ways. And I know when I was making on
the train ride home that record and the sort of
sister album on the corner where you live, I had
(09:36):
sort of projector set up in the studio and I
was just kind of watching films that I loved, and
I would just kind of mute the sound and composed
to scenes, just trying to capture, as you say, kind
of moods and atmospheres. And I've recently built a news
space to write in which I chose to paint green.
(09:57):
That was a bold choice, and you know, just bringing
in I've like kind of had to work out what
I want to fill the space with in terms of
art on the walls and things like that. The visual element,
to me is probably really the driving force of the
song other than the feeling. It's really those two things
(10:19):
that I would sit down with anytime I'm writing and
kind of say, firstly, how am I feeling? How do
I want the listener to feel? Because you can certainly
write with a great deal of intention in that way,
firstly working out what is the shared experience that we
want to have, But then it very much comes down
(10:41):
to what am I seeing, whether it's colors or a
very specific kind of place or image, how am I
going to convey that to someone else? And we've always
been very deliberate about the album art and the videos
that we make, and everything is tied together in the
visual think I've spoken about this before, but the visual
(11:04):
element is just as important as the music and the
things that you choose to I suppose pair with your music.
The people to see is really what they what they
connect with your music. You know, you think about sort
of a lot of your favorite artists. You're not just
thinking about the songs. You're thinking about, you know, the
(11:25):
record covers that you've seen, affairs, or you're thinking about
the videos or even the live performances. It's all the same.
So yeah, we're very very intentional and very careful about
how we present ourselves in that way.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
I love how you focus on the whole package, if
you will, because that's often a lost a lost art
these days. So hats off for all of that aspect
of things.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Can you take our audience through how your songwriting process
has evolved since your early EPs, like like Woodland to
the more recent work.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I was talking with someone about Woodland
the other day. I mean, we obviously we had a
good deal of it wasn't necessarily a success in the
way that you might sort of consider success to be.
We have still never really been much of a band
(12:39):
that receives any radio play, which was was kind of
the doorway really back then, and it was still, i mean,
things like YouTube was still a way to be seen,
but it was still in its somewhat earlier days. And
so you know, when we put out Bloom and that
(13:00):
EP as well, we were just kind of not really
sure how to how to navigate the music scene then.
So all we really had was the fact that we'd
been in other bands previously that we loved playing in,
but we never really had any kind of success, and
for some of us, myself mainly kind of felt myself
(13:23):
being pulled in this other direction with a great love
for folk music, and that wasn't the kind of music
that I was playing at the time. So yeah, it
really just started off, let's kind of write songs that
are a little truer to the kind of music that
we're passionate about and we're listening to. And so that
(13:44):
record or that EP very very simple songs, and it's
funny I look back on it now. I mean that
EP was fifteen years ago now and the songwriter I
am now and the songwriter I was that. I mean,
it's really the one, the one kind of profession, or
not the only one. I shouldn't really be said definitive,
(14:06):
but it's one of the professions that you really do
kind of get better at as you get older. And
as I look back on this song and I am
amazed at the simplicity of them, and I think that
can be a beautiful thing. You know, sometimes you can
get too lost down you know, this kind of whole
(14:30):
of like discovery and pushing yourself as an artist and
trying to really break barriers. And I've never been interested
in that. I've always just tried to be a good songwriter.
So I think in that regard it hasn't changed because
I've first and foremost been about the song and is
just going to translate to other people? But I don't know.
(14:53):
I have, somewhere along the way cared very much about
the humanity of the thing, you know, like, can you
you hear? Is there a sense of longing? Is there
a sense of yearning? Is there is there soul in
the song as much as there can be for a
band like us, You know, we're not like and we're
(15:13):
not a groovyous band.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Out there, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Vocally, like the way that I sing, you know, it's
not It's not the most soulful voice that I've ever heard,
But I think there's a little character in there, and
can I show that through what I what I do.
So a lot of those earlier recordings vocally, you know,
we were kind of doubling all the vocal tracks. Gave
it this kind of indie sound. We call it the
(15:38):
indie double where you would sing a whole song and
then you would track the vocals again over the top,
and it kind of just smooths the whole thing out,
kind of covers any kind of vocal imperfections. And I used.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
To be very.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Self conscious about my own voice and whether I I
just I feel like I didn't have any voice, and
I didn't have anything that was going to be engaging.
And so every track back then that was on the
first two EPs and the first record. I think we
stopped it a little on the first record, but mostly
(16:13):
it was done on those early releases, and it wasn't
until the second record that I kind of felt like
I need to step out a little from behind the
safety of that and really have a go ats just
like presenting myself very plainly and hopefully there'll be something
(16:36):
that connects. But that's been very important as the years
have kind of progressed, I feel like, I mean, musically
is one thing. We've all certainly grown as musicians and
matured and changed together, but vocally for myself at least,
I can say I feel like each record has become
more and more comfortable with who I am and how
(17:00):
I sound, until up until this recent record that we did,
which was really just done live in the studio trying
to be okay with the imperfections of my voice, and
to me, like the older I get, I don't really
care about perfect singers anymore. I'm interested in like voices
(17:23):
that are full of character, and I'm starting to love
like terrible singings on paper. That's that's kind of where
my interest seems to go. I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
I just.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
They just sound like they've they've lived a bit, you know.
So that's that's where I'm at now. But I, in
answer to your question, is a very long way to
answer it. I think we started off very simple but
sort of very safe as well, and as we've grown
over the years, I think we've kind of ended up
in this place where everyone's just very a lot bolder
(17:55):
in terms of the sounds that we're able to make,
and just yeah, the imperfections of it too, I think
has been something that we just we really want to
lean into. And I circle back to the humanness of
it all. You know, I'm trying to communicate.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
That I'm so glad to hear you talk about the
imperfection factor, because that is at least by and large lost.
I think there's so much focus on the way technology
and all of that corrects the imperfections, and I think
(18:35):
you just highlighted the beauty, the beauty of it all.
So I'm so glad to hear you say that.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Really, Oh no, I'm glad to hear it. I mean,
who knows where things are going to be going and
the next kind of decade or so, you're already seeing
a lot of these these AI bands popping out. I
don't know if you heard about that, but you know,
that's one of the sort of defining things we can
grasp onto as like our imperfections. I just think that's
(19:04):
going to be a very telling thing between music, that is,
you know, kind of machine made versus the organic time.
You know, how can you tell it's you know, it's
the soul. It's the soul that's in a song, and
they're the very things that give it, so you the
imperfections that just the transparency of the you know, this
(19:27):
is the person singing who has been through something.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
So take us inside the creation of If you go there,
I hope you find it. What was that process like?
And talk about what you're most excited about with this project.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
It's funny this this record wasn't supposed to be made.
When it was made. I suppose there was another record
that I had kind of finished and I presented it
to the band, said this is what i'd like to do.
What do you think? And it was start of met
(20:05):
with we really like this, but we're not quite ready
to move on to this. I think everyone had a
really good time making at the roadhouse, and you know,
in many ways it's kind of a very good example
of kind of what we do very well, the kind
of music that we play well. I think the record
(20:25):
that I had written was kind of maybe a little
a little darker in many ways, and so there was
this sense of like this, this is cool but it's
not really what we feel like we want to do
next to follow that record up. Yeah, it surprised me
a little because usually everyone's kind of we're all on
the same page in terms of moving ahead. So, and
(20:49):
this is at the time that we were renovating at
my home, so the whole home was really gone and
I didn't have a space to write. Spoke to one
of our friends that own this farm, so we rehearsed
out at a farm in the Yarra Valley in Victoria,
which is a beautiful part of the state. It's kind
(21:11):
of wine country, so a lot of valleys, a lot
of rolling hills, very green. Yeah, I asked her, you know,
do you have a space that I can use? So
they offered me this little upstairs, upstairs room, a very
small room in one of the airplane hangars that they
(21:31):
have there. And so I spent a great deal of
the year writing there working on this record, and that's
where most of the songs came together. And that's the
same place as I said that we rehearse at. So
it's kind of nice. I would be writing there and
then presenting these songs to the band and we'd be
working on them and there's a lot of interesting things
(21:54):
on that farm, but one of them is an old
bus that sort of sits in this field, just totally
rusted over. We're kind of thinking of this album title,
and I think that that little phrase was suggested, and
Christina went and wrote it on the window of this
bus and it just kind of stayed there for months,
(22:16):
and then we thought, actually, that could be like a
great album cover. We took a photo of it, so
that's the cover that you see there. Yeah, and it's
still there. Actually, I'd feel like maybe one day it'll
become a tourist destination. But yeah. It was actually a
really a really beautiful process making that record because we'd
(22:36):
come off two records that were very collaborative. We had Roses,
which was an album of dewets, the whole thing was
duets with different artists, and then at the Roadhouse we
bought in three friends to join the band, and so
it wasn't just the five of us, and we hadn't
really made music with just the five us quite some time.
(22:59):
So there was a little, i won't say fear, because
it wasn't that. It was just maybe a small degree
of worry that we hadn't really done anything that was
just back to the sort of five original members, and
we had become sort of reliant on the skills of
(23:20):
these friends that we brought in. We toured at the
Roadhouse for like two years. We were an eight piece band,
and you know, the musicianship that they brought to the
band was just something that you don't want to go
without because it's so great, you know, really lifts the
live experience. And so you know, pulling it back to
(23:40):
this five people, it felt like, you know, are we
still able to do this? I mean that's a very
kind of dramatic thought to have. I mean, of course
we can, but I'll say that it felt like it
was very reassuring to kind of hear these songs with
just the five of them sent and remember that, like
we we do this because it does work for five
(24:03):
of us, and there is this kind of magic that happens.
And this record kind of feels like a band kind
of remembering the things that they that sort of made
them fall in love with playing together in the first place.
I think, you know, just the three of us, Dave,
Christina and myself so of singing together and just Dave's
(24:24):
guitar playing and then not really having like the backup
of a sort of a bigger band. Yeah, it was.
It was a really wonderful process. And then heading into
the studio, like I said, we we are really leaning
into the live tracking these days and just kind of
getting in a room together and playing a song, listening
back to it, and really the conversation was always like
(24:47):
how does it feel? Does the song feel good? Not
is it is it correct? Just does it kind of
feel feel right? And that's the great thing with live
live tracking is if it doesn't, you can just go
and play it again. But most songs, you know, were
kind of bearing like two or three takes. There are
(25:08):
a few songs like I Know When the Lavender Blooms
kind of took a little longer just because that was
a very kind of group based song. There's a song
called Deep in the Plans we made, which is just
one microphone in the middle of the room, and I
think Dave and Christina was still learning the song kind
of as we went, and we just had this really
(25:31):
great take with a song just it felt like it
was about to fall apart because it's so delicate and
a very gentle, kind of three part harmony through the
whole thing sort of rises and falls, and we got
this great take and we were like, Okay, great, let's
do it again. And Matt Redlick, who engineered and co
(25:51):
produced with us, he just so he said no, like,
don't touch it that song, like you got it, it's fine.
And I think us being us, we were sort of like, no,
let's give it a few more gos, and we just
couldn't get it anywhere near what we managed to capture
it at. So, you know, that's the magic of blob
Drag And there's a lot of there's a lot of
(26:13):
character the five of us in this record. And Yeah,
I think to me, if you were to ask me
kind of what it was to me and what this
record feels like to me, I think it's just, yeah,
five five friends, five musicians kind of coming back together
and just rediscovering, Yeah, what kind of made them to
(26:34):
want to do this together. And the Farm has become
an important backdrop to this record, but also an important
space for us as a band. We've really grown in
that space and really kind of learned to, yeah, to
kind of just be a band. I know that's a
(26:55):
weird thing to say. If that makes any sense. But yeah,
it's been a very fruit space for us.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Well, yeah, you're exploring the joyous nature of collaboration, right,
I mean that's really what it is.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
That's right, That's right, and you know you kind of
you need a space to do that, and we've managed to, yeah,
navigate quite a few records there there, so we have
to have them and very lucky to have them.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
I'm so glad you took the time Sam to be
on the podcast Taking a Walk. Congratulations on If you
go there, I hope you find it and enjoy the road,
because the road is long and you guys are going
to be out there for a while, but I hope
we get to do this again, Sam Bentley.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah, so thank you so much, Bob. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk Podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Taking a Walk is made possible by the support of
our great sponsors, and we've thanked them, including Chase Sapphire
Reserve my gateway to the world's most captivating destinations is
from Chase Sapphire Reserve Claude AI. Try Claude for free
at claude dot Ai, slash Buzz and Lexus Experience Amazing
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