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Interview with
SELVE

(12th March, 2021)

Interviewer – Dave Bruce

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For any new fans, how did it all begin? How did you discover your love of music and form Selve?
The formation of Selve is a long story, but in short, we are a bunch of people who get together and make sounds until our ‘selves’ merge into some kind of catastrophic ectomorphic ‘SELVE’ that stands towering like some colossal Silver Surfer, stomping and romping through cities and forests in search of other selves to merge with.
I am a proud Jabirr Jabirr man and I think my love of songwriting and music comes from the ancient culture of song that I carry inside my blood. That being said I am incredibly influenced by contemporary music of all kinds and the band have a diverse range of influences that craft our sound. 
Without over-philosophising, I think my role is to relay and respond to the story of the time we’re in, as all of my ancestors have done before me. No doubt, today’s sounds are very different, but it’s still a continuation of an ongoing story regardless.
Anyway to stop going on about my self-referential purpose in life; every member of Selve is an extremely passionate person who brings power and style to the band. I think we share a common desire to make playful music that lightens the load of the world and pokes fun at the ridiculous ideologies that drag it into the muck. We also just love what we do and aim to make music that we can enjoy and respect, and perhaps make some friends along the way.

Which musicians have inspired you most?
I’m admittedly not too off the beaten track, but as I’m a very narrative based songwriter I’m mostly inspired by an artist’s lyricism – Nick Cave, Bob Dylan, Father John Misty, Leonard Cohen and all the other usual suspects. As far as sound goes, I’m probably more inspired by the likes of Pond, Tame Impala, The Rolling Stones, The Doors and all the usual suspects in the flashing carousel of idolatry that’s been dangling above our heads since we were in the cradle. 

What makes your sound unique? Why do you think people resonate with your music?
Well currently we’ve been going for a sound that is very referential to the archetypal rock’n’ roll sound, but laden with a certain degree of satire and parody that means we are somewhat mocking ourselves while indulging in some unresolved residue from our adolescence. 
That means we can write songs that are critical of our time, culture and values while being embedded in a sound that is familiar, attractive and fun.
I think we try to write songs that lyrically are a bit of a gut punch, but in a way are kind of undercover spies because musically they are very digestible. 

You’re going to be performing your single launch shows soon. After last year, what are you most excited about when hitting the stage again?
Performing really is just the most fun and fulfilling thing for us. This set we have made is really playful, fun and a bit mad. We’ve been working on the songs we’ll be performing for over a year, so it feels like a big build up to these launch shows. And we really are just excited to get on stage and bring people into our deranged circus and reveal what a bunch of crazy motherfuckers we all are. With love, of course!

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Have you got any performance memories that jump out for you?
A big highlight for us was doing a series of performances at The Tivoli late last year. Firstly we opened for Megan Washington at her Brisfest album launch, then we did two opening nights for Electric Fields which was freaking incredible. 
All three shows were amazing. But at the third show there were a lot of mob there who had obviously come for both us and Electric Fields. The feeling in the place was just really beautiful and electric and I think at the time it was the best we’d played and we were all just really proud. 

You wrote your new single The Pink Hotel during an artist residency at the iconic Coolangatta hotel of the same name during lockdown last year, how did your surroundings inspire you? Can you tell us a bit about the meaning of the song?
Yes, The Pink Hotel was created in an actual place in Coolangatta called The Pink Hotel! 
Thanks to some grant funding, we teamed up with the hotel to do a 14 day residency in a room they have there called the Artist Suite, which has a piano in it and all these other lovely, fancy things. We brought all of our studio gear into the room and just dove deep for 14 days writing and demoing and going mad.
Before entering the residency, I had begun writing a bit of a short story around the concept for the music, as is my practice. The premise of which was The Pink Hotel being this kind of last resort standing in the middle of the apocalypse. Funnily enough, by the time we entered the residency it was the middle of COVID-19. 
We were the only people in the entire hotel and the streets of Coolangatta were a barren wasteland, which was a kind of eerie prophetic moment that lead us deeper into unpacking the song as a kind of Shining-esque haunted hotel filled with ghosts of past idols, clinging desperately onto living souls to maintain their relevance.
It’s also kind of just a parody of the music industry and an investigation into the motif of the ‘mystical hotel’ that seems to thread itself through the folklore of rock’n’roll music.

If you could tour with anyone, who would it be and why? (Dead or alive)
I think I’d really like to tour with Pond. I should probably get in line! But I just really love the whole band, especially Nic Allbrook as a songwriter and performer. They are a band that can tell a good story but also give a performance like some interstellar acid lizard, which I think is just so important. There’s not many bands that bringing the kind of unhinged theatre that they do and it’s something Selve can learn a lot from.

What’s been the career highlight so far and what would you like to achieve going forward?
Recording this single down at Rainbow Valley Studio’s with Alex Henriksson was pretty damn awesome. It was our first time getting into a professional studio and a pretty cool full circle moment, as I went through a big Matt Corby phase in the Telluric era, so it was surreal to be recording at his studio.
We’re hoping to do a bunch more songs down there and I guess just keep going forward and slipping our way through doors that open, or finding ways to pry them open so that we can just keep making music and doing what we love. 

Finally, a few questions for some quick answers –
FAVOURITE:
Album –  In Rainbows by Radiohead 
Artist – Foals 
Movie – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas 
Place to visit – Tugun Beach, Gold Coast
Venue to play – The Tivoli, Brisbane
Food –  My partner, Creation’s, homemade pasta 
Drink – A nice refreshing Balter XPA
Person in History –  My Mum
Tattoo – I have a burning tree inside an ice cube on my wrist. 

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Check out SELVE below
unearthed – spotify – instagram – facebook

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Press Release 12th March 2021 below

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AMNPLIFY – DB