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Interview with
MICHAEL DAY

(9th October 2022)

Interview with Dave Bruce

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Photo credit Rhyan Lyndon-James

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Have you always wanted to be a musician? When did you get the song writing bug? 
I haven’t always wanted to be a musician, when I was in primary school I wanted to be an athlete in the 100m sprint, a swimmer for the breaststroke, or an AFL player.
Then I discovered the guitar in year 6 and the passion started growing. I then had a choice in year 8 or 9 to continue playing AFL or grow my nails out on my right hand and keep pursuing classical guitar. In the end I decided music was the right path for me. Shortly after this, I got into John Butler and Newton Faulkner and tried my hand at songwriting, which wasn’t great then, but it’s just like everything, you gotta suck before you can be an expert. After writing a few songs that I didn’t hate, I decided I should keep doing this. However, it wasn’t until 2019 that I decided to take it seriously.

How would you describe your sound? Why do you think people resonate with your music?
I’m still trying to work that out to be honest, however, I think ‘Psych and the Priest’(POTP) is a real turning point for myself and the band, the sound really sits with me. I have described it for a while as Indie Folk/Rock with some Roots in there as well. I’m aiming for an Indie Folk vibe but with some extra juicy goodness? I don’t really know, haha, what are words. 

Do people resonate with it? I guess so?? 
I’ve had people say they like it and it’s ‘good’ whatever that means.
I guess my feelings over the last few years aren’t isolated, it’s been hard for many people in many ways. We’ve had the pandemic with a hardline approach (good or not good, it’s been hard for people). There’s been a few unprecedented wars and just instability is rife. And then furthermore, as a culture we are so quick to hit people without real discussions or a genuine desire to understand life from different people’s perspectives.
This song is about anxiety, depression and being unsure if we’ve done right or wrong in situations. To me, that just feels like life at the moment. 

Which artist’s music and/or performance, past or present, inspires you today? 
There’s a few artists who I really admire and look to for inspiration. This song really came about after listening to Gregory Alan Isakov. His musical landscapes are just beautiful! I wanted to write something slower than normal and He was my go to. Amsterdam and San Luis are the inspirations for ‘POTP’, with San Luis inspiring the music video.  
I find I listen to a lot of Australian Music, because, what the heck, there’s so many good artists at the moment! Jacob Wylde is a Folk artist in Perth I listen to alot, just His rawness and folky goodness always gets me. Other artists that have influenced ‘Psych or the Priest’ include: Riley Pearce, Jordy Maxwell, Michael Dunstan, Raymondouu, Garret Kato, and Angus and Julia Stone. 

Your new single Psych or the Priest has just been/is about to be released/! Describe its origin and evolution. 
I was going through a pretty dark spot, and just feeling the heaviness of life. I wanted to get that feeling down into music and I wanted to imitate Gregory Alan Isakov just to try and develop my skills as a songwriter. The song had to be slow, a little dark and really pretty at the same time.
Once we got into the studio, it really took shape. I was working with Ben Humphreys (my guitarist) and Andy Lawson (Audio Engineer) at Debaser, Andy had just gone out of the room while Ben and I were trying to figure out what exactly to do with the electric guitar part.
As I was showing Ben different reference tracks, I held my phone up to His electric guitar which was going through all his reverbs and delays plus this cool synth pedal of Andys. As that happened, it made really cool synth pads.
This sparked Ben and I to sit down, grab a guitar and play a D chord (As the songs in D) and both just sing random melodies over the top. We then recorded that nonsense into my iphone. We then got the iphone and put it up to the electric guitar’s pickups, which was running through all the gear and we just got this cool pad which you can hear in the background of Psych or the Priest. 
Further, my bassist Rhyan Lyndon-James, also plays the trumpet so we got him to trial some trumpet lines and harmonize with the harmonica. Once we had the parts, I used Sound Better to hire Ryan Svendsen, a Trumpeter from LA. Once we got His parts, Andy ran His trumpet parts through some cool plugins to get the ambient background trumpets.
It just sort of came together, Andy is the big reason the song sounds as good as it does, we could not have done it without Him :) 

Is there an EP or Album on the drawing board?
There is an EP in the making but with the release of this song and it really hitting the mark in my head, I want the other songs to feel cohesive so I’m going back to work on them a bit slower to get them to a point I’m really happy with also.
Yeah, expect something in the future. I’ll probably release the songs as singles before they all become an EP. 

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Any tours or events coming up soon? What are you looking forward to, and what can the fans expect?
Yes! The big launch is at Clancys Fish Pub in Fremantle on the 15th of October. I’m also heading down to Albany, WA over the 7th, 8th and 9th to play 3 gigs, with the 8th of October including the Artists Lucas Jones, Sabrina Ives and Kris Nelson as supports at the White Star hotel.
I’m looking forward to the launch as well as getting these other songs finished in the studio :)
Fans can expect the launch to showcase some great support acts (Sash Seabourne and Anna Schneider), Clany’s does good food and drinks, I usually set up fairy lights and sometimes I put bean bags out cause, that’s how I want to experience live music, in the comfort of a thousand tiny foam beans suspending my body in the air.
Musically, fans should expect to hear more music, I can’t wait to show you.

How has COVID affected you to date? What have you introduced to balance the losses from missed events?
Covid has been frustrating, many canceled gigs, our first launch included. I think we just roll with the punches to be honest, there’s no getting back lost time so you just have to keep pushing forward. I think the bittersweet for us was because we couldn’t get international acts in WA for a while, a lot of local artists were pushed to bigger events than what they may not have gotten previously, so I’m grateful for that.

If you could perform with any music artist, Alive or Dead, who would you choose? And why? 
I’d love to support Gregory Alan Isakov or the Lumieers, or Angus and Julia Stone. That’d be a dream come true, to be honest. I just really like Gregory’s music, he makes me feel things. 
Ben Howard would also be up there. 

Do you have any long-term aspirations as a music artist? 
I currently have my sights set on one day, maybe, featuring Julia Stone on a track, she seems to be in the habit of playing on a bunch of artists’ music like Garret Kato, The Paper Kites, and Adrian Dzvuke (Perthy yew!). I love her voice. It’s so interesting and just sounds so great on folk songs!
I’d love to play some big festivals in Australia and overseas. Would love to play BigSound. 
Maybe I could get a manager to help me tour more and not miss festival applications, that’d be a good step. 
In the next year or two I’d love to tour the east coast of Australia.
Record our debut Album is on this list. 
Perform with: The Paper Kites, Riley Pearce, Jordy Maxwell, Angus and Julia Stone, Gregory Alan Isakov, Ed Prosek, Garrett Kato, The Oh Hellos, Tow’rs, and Mumford and Sons. 
Not fail. Yeah.

What is the best thing about performing to a live audience? What’s been the career highlight so far?
There’s something about being really present when you’re performing. I just get such a kick out of it, I think. There’s something exhilarating about having the attention of a room and knowing you could majorly screw this up and be humiliated, haha, the adrenaline. Hearing the crowd sing your songs is pretty special or even seeing people dance or respond in some way to this art that you’ve created is really surreal.
Career Highlight so far has been selling out a show or two and playing Blues at BridgeTown (we supported Donna Simpson and Vdelli). There’s also been some other festivals, such as Edge of the Bay (we supported Dulcie), Gidgestock. Pretty much any time we play a festival really because there’s food and good hangs with the band, and we get to eat food together.
We were nominated for a WAM award last year which was also amazing! 

Finally, a few questions for some quick answers –
FAVOURITE:
Album – Johannesburg – Mumford and Sons 
Artist – Oh Hellos 
Movie – Emperor’s New Groove (Judge Me) 
Place to visit – Albany and Margaret River 
Venue to play – Rosemount
Food – Hot Chips 
Drink – Strawberry Thickshake
Person in History –  John Howard (Tracksuit Dreams!) 
Tattoo – (If you don’t have one, what would you get?)  Probably a matching tattoo with my Wife cause I’d love it and she would think it’s the lamest thing ever, which we can agree it would be, but I’d rep it. 

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Follow MICHAEL DAY
YouTube – Instagram – Facebook – Spotify

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‘Psych or the Priest’
Single Launch

Clancy’s Fish Pub- Fremantle (Fremantle, WA)
Saturday, 15 October 2022 7:30 pm
TICKETS and INFO

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Press Release 30th September 2022 (below) HERE

MICHAEL DAY
shares new single + video
‘PSYCH OR THE PRIEST’

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AMNPLIFY – DB