Australian stars Sheppard are about to hit the UK, and we got some time to chat to the group of six about their music, inspirations and favourite artists before their live date in London on Wednesday.
How did the six of your form the group?
The group's inception was back in 2008 when Amy heard me singing in the shower and decided to recruit me for a music assignment she had at TAFE (Training and Further Education), which called for her to write a song with harmonies. We loved doing it so much, and we thought our voices worked well together, so we just kept on writing songs!
Eventually we added in Jay Bovino as a third member, and the three of us wrote about 30 songs over the first half of 2009. After we had recorded all of the tracks, we realised we needed a full band to play them live, so we convinced our younger sister Emma to start learning our songs on the bass guitar, then we auditioned Michael Butler for lead guitar and Dean Gordon for drums.
How would you best describe your music?
I think our music is a blend of styles and genres, but mostly fits into the "pop-music" catagory. We write music that we think is fun and energetic, with plenty of harmonies. We endeavour to give each song its own personality when we are in the recording studio. We don't rely too heavily on the technological side of production either - we trust good melody over interesting chord progressions, with sensible song structure, and meaningful lyrics.
Where do you draw inspiration for your music?
We draw inspiration from anywhere, but it has to be something we care about strongly. For example, we wrote a song called "In The End" which looks into the possibilities of what happens after death.
Another song of ours, "Let Me Down Easy" is a final plea from a guy who knows his relationship is failing, for his girl to go easy on him.
Another song, "Hold My Tongue" is about freedom of speech. It's about not being afraid of the consequences of saying how you feel. So we can draw inspiration from many avenues, but it has to be emotionally charged. I'm sure if we cared enough about the dustball underneath the washing machine, we could write a song about it! Not too sure how interesting it would be though!
What is it about music that you love?
What I love about music is that it's a universal language that brings people from all walks of life together. No matter what culture or language, music is understood and enjoyed. It provides artists with an amazingly creative and unique platform to express their ideas and emotions, potentially in front of huge crowds of people who all get to share in the same experience. Music truly is one of the most incredible things that humanity has discovered. It makes us all feel alive!
You've already seen great success - where do you hope to go from here?
Well there's still a long way to go. At the moment we have only released a 5 track EP, and a single, so we have over 30 songs in the catalogue that we are looking forward to sharing with our audiences. We are hoping to release our debut album in February, which will help get our name out there. We are constantly honing our craft, writing better songs and maturing our sound, so we all hope to be doing this for the rest of our lives. We are yet to properly share our music with the US and Europe, and the majority of the world, so there's still plenty of avenues to explore!
Tell us about your EP "Hold My Tongue".
The recent release of Hold My Tongue came with two extra tracks, a remix Jay and I made of our first single "Let Me Down Easy", and also a bonus track called "All In My Head". It had been a whole year since we released our debut self-titled EP, so we were very excited to get these tracks out there as it gave us a chance to show our audience how much we'd grown as artist and songwriters. You can imagine how excited we are to release our album!
What do you expect from your UK live show?
To be honest, I have no idea! We've only played the UK once before, at Wilderness Festival. We had such a great time and the crowd was very welcoming, so if that's any indication, we are going to be in for a treat!
Who are some of your favourite acts in music today?
There are a couple! Coldplay are hands down my favourite band. I just love the energy, the colour, the music, and Chris Martin's voice is incredible. I've seen them play twice, and both times they absolutely blew me away. I'm also a huge fan of John Mayer, I feel like he's already a timeless classic. Kings of Leon, Fleetwood Mac, Fun, Foster the People, and Gotye are also some of our favourites.
If you could collaborate with anyone, who would it be?
I would love to collaborate with John Mayer, Chris Martin and Gotye, all at the same time. Working with three talented, adventurous song writers, could you imagine? I feel like we'd come up with an instant classic! Maybe we should ask them if they want to join the band!
Where do you hope to be in 12 months time?
To be honest, we just take each day as it comes, and we try not to expect too much, but what the hell... In 12 months I think it would be nice to be touring the world with our grammy award winning album, playing sold out stadium shows in the UK, the USA and everywhere else we can reach with our go-go-gadget arms of music! Too much?
What can we expect next from Sheppard?
As I mentioned earlier, we are going to be releasing the debut album around February 2014, so we're focusing heavily on that. We are then going to be touring that album extensively, so we will hopefully be coming back to the UK on a more regular basis! We are constantly writing and recording new music, so you can always expect more songs from Sheppard. We aren't slowing down any time soon.
Sheppard are playing live at Water Rats in Kings Cross on Wednesday October 23.