Project Description
Interview with
DARLINGHURST
Interviewer – Mirrin Gray
.
.
.
For any new fans, how did it all begin? When did you each find your love of performing music?
We have all been doing this since we were young. Cass and Pagan have been performing from the time they could walk, Matt comes from a modern day partridge family that all perform and Jason spent 4 years in London and then another 4 years in LA and Nashville writing for many well known artists. He won a British Music award at the age of 17.
How did the band come together then?
We were always writing original material but were only introduced to each other via a long time friend and successful producer, Pete Dacy. On meeting one another everything just fell into place and Darlinghurst was born.
What kind of music did you grow up on? Which artists inspired you?
Jason – grew up listening to 50’s &60’s music pop music – Elvis, Chuck Berry, Rolling Stones, and anything in his parents record collection, and that was on the radio.
What makes your sound unique? Why do you think people will resonate with your music?
We all come from fairly different musical backgrounds – Matt from folk music and a musical family, Cassie and Pagan performing country and R’n’B covers together respectively, and Jason from working extensively in pop music, in a production house in London, and independently in Nashville. But we believe people will resonate with our music because we’ve written our songs very honestly and authentically, and they resonate with us so well, that when people hear it, they will hear something real and relate to very universal feelings.
Your debut single, Sorry Won’t Get You Back, is set for release very soon. What does this song mean to you? Why did you choose this track as your first release together?
The song means something different to all of us, but again something we all relate to and I’m sure every person at some point in their life will feel this certain way – it’s such a universal feeling so we think it was the perfect first song to put out there. Plus, it also gets your feet stomping at the same time!
The debut album is planned for this year too. Tell us how the process of writing and recording that is going? What are the best and worst parts?
The writing process is very collaborative within the band. Even if someone brings a complete song to the table, we will still run it by all of us to see what we can contribute and see where we can take the song. The best and worst parts generally are part of the big picture – but it’s when all of us become vibrant and resonate together when we come up with an idea that we really love – that’s the best feeling, and it’s why we love writing songs together.
.
.
How does working together in this newly formed band compare to your separate ventures in the past?
It’s all our individual life experiences, and a common respect that we all share towards each other and our love of music that I think is what makes this band thrive and work so well. And why we have fortunately all found each other in the same place. Very like-minded.
You’ll be at some iconic Aussie festivals like Groundwater and Gympie Music Muster. How do you prepare for that? What are you most excited about?
We have been preparing for this since the day we fell in love with our craft. Every performance from the local pub, busking gigs, session work, tours, shows with no patrons to performances with massive crowds and hours and hours of practice have led us to where we stand today.
Excited is an understatement we are all just honoured to be accepted and share a stage we incredible artists.
If you could pick absolutely anyone to bring on tour with you, whom would you pick and why? (Dead or Alive)
The boys would definitely mutually love Carl Baron on tour with them, Pagan would only want her son Hudson with her and me (Cass) it would be my two Border Collies DJ and Indy.
So the dream is Nashville…Could you tell us a bit more about that and what makes Nashville so special for the band?
Well Nashville is the mecca for country music, and something that is definitely in our big picture in the future. Jason lived there for four years and understands the town and the musicianship very well, and what to expect when we eventually get there. So, it would be special for us to be seen and heard of there, just because of their appreciation and their love for music, and of such an honest genre in country. That’s the kind of environment we would love to be surrounded by and express ourselves in. And not just in Nashville, but everywhere we go and would like to go to.
What’s the next achievement you’re hoping to tick off together?
We are focused on getting out there and performing and connecting with people as much as we can, and to finish recording the rest of our songs for our first album.
Finally, a few questions for some quick answers –
FAVOURITE:
Album – COME ON OVER- Shania Twain
Artist – Chris Stapleton
Movie – Pay it forward
Place to visit – Santorini
Venue to play – Plaza Ball Room
Food – Anything Spicy
Drink – Maker’s Mark whisky
Person in History – Mother Teresa
Tattoo – (If you don’t have one, what would you get? Pagans Arrow- meaning New Beginnings
.
.
TOUR DATES
Saturday 3rd August – Melbourne Guitar Show – Caulfied Racecourse – Caulfield, VIC
Sunday 4th August – Play Lounge – Single Launch – St Kilda, VIC
Wednesday 21st August – Gympie Music Muster (pre-opening event) – Gympie, QLD
.
Check out DARLINGHURST below
Facebook | Instagram
.
BIO
Obviously it’s a long way from Darlinghurst to Nashville. Even further if you start from the outskirts of Melbourne and set out via London.
It’s taken years but now, finally, they’ve arrived. All divergent paths have led right here. Welcome to DARLINGHURST, a debut Melbourne four-piece set to redefine Australian country music.
DARLINGHURST are:
JASON RESCH — arguably the most successful Australian songwriter you’ve never heard of. With his modish mop and immaculate vintage suits, Jason initially looks more suited to The Rolling Stones in 1965 than an alt-country-rock outfit in 2019. But Jase has dedicated a big chunk of his young life to his love of country, having lived and worked in Nashville for years before recently resettling in his hometown of Melbourne.
CASSIE LEOPOLD and PAGAN NEWMAN — the ladies of Darlinghurst who were a duo long before their powerful harmonies forged the foundation of this new quartet. Wait until you hear these voices together. Cass and Paigs: a force of nature, technically unrelated but inseparable sisters in life and song.
MATT DARVIDIS — The new kid on the block. A prodigious guitarist, the missing link.
It’s Darlinghurst’s blissful four-part harmonies that hit you first. Next, you’re struck by the quality and depth of the songwriting. It’s on another level. World class. The closest comparison is perhaps a modern take on ’70s Westcoast celestial folk country rock, a bit reminiscent of Crosby Stills & Nash, or the Eagles or Fleetwood Mac in their more country-tinged moments.
How Darlinghurst got to this point, the long journey to get here to the start, dates way back to the mid-2000s when Jason was still a teenager, dreaming of how to get out of school and play music for the rest of his life. When all of a sudden, like a fairytale storyline to a country rock musical, his high school band got talent-spotted and flown from Melbourne to London for a showcase in front of one of hottest producers in the world at the time, Brian Higgins. The producer passed on the band, but immediately saw something in Jason and invited the teenager back to England to join his in-house production team, Xenomania.
Jason’s first ever professional recording session was adding guitar lines to Gabriella Cilmi’s “Sweet About Me”, one of the biggest global hits of 2008 and winner of the ARIA Single Of The Year. Soon after, Jason’s first songwriting session at Xenomania produced a song called “The Promise” which became a massive UK number one for the label’s premier pop band, Girls Aloud, and went on to win Best British Single at the 2009 Brit Awards. This all happened within the first few months of Jase leaving school.
Jason stayed with Xenomania for almost four years writing and playing on tracks for artists such as Kylie Minogue, Pet Shop Boys and countless others.
With all that success as an international hit maker and session player, Jase decided it was time to pursue his true musical vision and headed for the US, first to LA and then his ultimate destination, Nashville.
Meanwhile back at home, Cassie and Pagan were also paying their musical dues. Separately, they’d both started writing and performing as children and each had spent time overseas pursuing their artistic dreams. The pair eventually met about a decade ago, singing in a tribute band together. The band was big business, constantly playing live around Australia, but after four years of life on the road, the girls decided they needed to strike out on their own and get back to chasing their own musical dreams.
And here’s where destinies start to intertwine and where Darlinghurst’s lynch pin comes into play: the gravitational core of the outfit, its unofficial fifth member, producer Pete Dacy.
Pete, along with Keith Ridgway, his business partner in Secret Sound Studios, have a long-earned reputation for nurturing a generation of local talent around Melbourne. They’ve also been the driving force behind some massive acts along the way, including the multi-platinum Taxiride and chart-toppers The Androids.
“Pete is a very selfless man,” says Jason. “He’s very kind to be around. When I said I was coming back, we were very excited about the prospect of working together. He brought to fruition the whole concept of Darlinghurst.”
It was Cassie who had first met Pete in what now feels like a lifetime ago, when she was a teenager in a girl-band recording demos at Secret Sound. Similar to Jase’s experience in London at almost exactly the same time, the band didn’t survive but the producer saw something special in Cass. She became a regular session singer on Pete’s recordings.
Jump forward to about three years ago: When Cassie and Pagan decided it was time to start recording their own original country songs, the first person they called was Pete. Serendipitously, Pete told the girls he’d just recently met this incredible songwriter who was about to relocate back to Melbourne after years in Nashville …
Initially, the idea was that Jase would help the girls write some songs for their duo. But as soon as they met, as soon as the three of them started singing together, everyone felt the magic.
Cassie recalls the moment: “I remember walking out and saying to Pagan, ‘This is it, this is the one that’s going to happen!’ I had this feeling from the start. This is going to happen, I can just feel it.”
So the country duo became a trio and by last year had amassed a collection of some thirty original songs.
They began the process of selecting a debut album worth of tracks when at this final hour, only December last year, their mentor Pete made a radical suggestion – Darlinghurst should be a quartet. And he might know just the right guy.
Guitarist Matt Darvidis had also first met Pete when he was a teenager – Matt’s mum was recording an album with Pete, which Matt played on. They kept in touch, Matt even did work experience at the studio while he was still at high school. But he hadn’t spoken to Pete in over two years when the producer called him late last year and said:
“You still playing music? I think there’s this band you might be interested in.” Matt went into Secret Sound and listened to what the trio had so far. “It was really something I couldn’t say no to,” says Matt. “The songs were incredible. And I felt I could add something.”
Which brings us up to here, right now. Darlinghurst has arrived.
The first song you will hear from Darlinghurst is entitled “Sorry Won’t Get You Back” – it’s big and soulful and beautiful and as soon as you’ve heard it, everything we’ve discussed here will suddenly make perfect sense
Where Darlinghurst goes from here is anyone’s guess, but Jase, Cass, Paigs and Matt know exactly where they hope this will all lead. “The dream is to get to Nashville,” says Pagan.
Written by: Dino Scatena
.
.
