Perfect poolside jam…
Newcastle Electro-pop duo BOO SEEKA are absolute legends in the local music scene, constantly delivering fresh and intricate electro-bops that hit the spot and then some since their 2015 debut smash ‘Kingdom Leader.’ They’re an absolute treat to see live as well, bringing the heat to whatever local festivals they grace with their presence. 2020 however has seen them strip it down and go back to basics with the smaller rooms, proving that the boys from Newie are natural performers, and are bloody good at curating immersive experiences for all who are lucky enough to witness their art live.
Their latest tune ‘Never Enough’ sees the boys immerse themselves in gorgeous summer vibes, all resulting from a classic studio glitch that helped them create one of their biggest dance anthems to date. It’s a tune that’s impossible not to feel uplifted by, and we guarantee you, if you’re ever dancing poolside and this beauty comes on, do yourself a favour and cop a frozen margie (no buts).
We caught up with Ben and Michael for a breezy chat on the ‘Never Enough’, get the deets on their recent NSW tour and suss out how they’ve been faring this year.
Check it below.
Congrats on ‘Never Enough’! It feels like you’ve really come at it from a real laid back, relaxed sort of vibe. Is that a fair summary?
Michael: I think BOO SEEKA has always been known to have that darker vibe to our textures and what we’ve done. I think going into, especially with just all the shit that’s happened this year, we just really wanted to create a song that made us feel good. It can’t get more simple than that really. And when we had this idea, we just ran with it. So, we wanted to show a bit of a different side and bring the summer vibes for sure. I think if you listen to the lyrics a little bit, I’m actually just gonna dive in on this one, it’s almost a sad song dressed in a…
Ben: In a suit.
Michael: In a pink suit.
Michael: Just to be happy and make you feel good. Like the music itself makes you feel good, but if you actually dive into the lyrics, it’s really deeper than what it would show.
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It definitely carries on the good vibes from ‘Days Get Better’, but in a really glittery sort of way. Regarding recording and writing the tune, how did the process for ‘Never Enough’ differ to ‘Days Get Better’ and the other tunes on the album?
Ben: I had this hook ‘Is it ever enough’ for probably a year and it wasn’t really fitting with anything. And I was literally in the middle of writing ‘Days Get Better’ and then I literally slid that first chord up and down the fret board, and then… It’s funny how you can literally sit on an idea for a year and a half and nothing comes, and then it just comes in fifteen seconds.
And we literally went in the studio and had this kinda disco beat and disco vibe, and we just went for it. We kinda came up with that string sample that’s in the background and we literally were listening to it on a loop in the studio for like an hour, just vibing. So, yeah, it was just a full vibe track. There wasn’t much thinking about it, it was just about getting in there and what it was making us feel, and we just went with it.
You have this sick line in the chorus that reads ‘I just wanna fly,’ it feels so damn euphoric hearing it juxtaposed with all those harmonies and musical layers. Was that part of the tune that was always there and conceptualised? Or did it come about later on in the process?
Michael: That came later. I think we had the hook, and then we had the disco vibe and then we were kind of plugging away at where we wanted the song to go and I think that’s just a line of letting go. It’s not a break up song, but it’s a song about things not going too well. And then there’s just a moment of “fuck it, we’re letting go.”
Ben: Yeah, it’s the fuck it moment for sure.
Michael: It’s the fuck it moment, and I think that ties itself back into the song. It’s funny that you say that because we just finished a run of shows, and everywhere we played it we’d play it at the end, and a lot of people would come up and just sing that chorus and like sing that little hook to us. And that’s what people would take away all the time, so it’s kinda the moment. Take the happiness from it, but there’s a little bit of deepness behind there as well.
Ben: Yeah, I think also everyone hearing that line exactly like you said, it’s… everyone’s gone through crap this year, you know, they just wanna let go. Just wanna fly and fucking forget about all of the shit.
Ben: It’s just a simple line that makes a lot of sense right now to us, and I think will make a lot of sense to people who listen to it as well.
Michael: It’s a good tattoo.
You got it tattooed?
Michael: I’ll find a spot for it!
You guys have described the recording process as sort of coming about from an ‘Epic mistake’. Fill us in on the cook up that inspired it.
Ben: There were a couple of mistakes really [laughs]. A tonne of mistakes. Do we wanna get into it? But there were probably two massive mistakes that made the song. The first was actually the bridge, that was one thing that happened. Because like we only had that line, ‘Is it ever enough?’ And we just had… he didn’t turn that line off, we were just listening to it on loop trying to think of lyrics and everything. And he just had that on and was just looping with it. And then all of a sudden he accidentally hit another button that brought the string part in and it glitched the strings that made the sample, and then we were like “Hurry up and record the glitch,” because that’s what’s gonna make it sound cool. So those strings, that string sound and that string vibe, sounded nothing like it does now. Like it sounds like we’ve taken it out of a record but it’s actually just us playing strings, but it glitched in the computer. And away it went [laughs].
Do those moments sort of keep this whole music thing fresh and exciting for you? I can imagine after doing this for five years it can get a bit repetitive at times
Michael: Things are a bit different now because of COVID obviously. So a bit of our writing process is Ben comes up with his hooks and kind of writes everything on his phone as a demo. Then we get together and we start to build on things and try to figure out what we want the structure to look like.
That didn’t happen with ‘Never Enough’ because it just kind of came together so quickly, so then we dove straight into the studio and then we were just like piecing together ideas and throwing shit out there. That’s why we keep mentioning mistakes. We tried a thousand things and none of them worked, and it… the song’s been there for a year, and nothing ever worked, and then through a glitch or through some fuck up, it turned into the song and we ended up going, “Fuck, we just need to make mistakes and try more things and go a bit crazy.” And I think we get stuck sometimes in needing to have songs, whereas this song just came at the right time, for the right purpose.
Ben: I think also because like this year we haven’t been able to tour, we haven’t been able to do everything that you would usually do on a road, and we write predominantly on the road, about what’s kinda going on and the abnormality of what our lives are. And sitting around all day and only having… all you can do as a musician is write, which I’m not saying is a bad thing, but it probably… I’m an over-thinker fucking everyday anyway, regardless of only being able to think about writing songs. So I think going into the studio and having a glitch that we were like laughing about kinda just… probably helped with the vibe of how happy the music side of things came out with this song. Instead of us like deep thinking about it so much.
Michael: He overthinks everything.
Ben: I’ll think about like how I fucking scrubbed my teeth properly or not.
The tune is so damn summery and vibey, it listens just perfectly for poolside bar kind of vibe. If you were dancing to this bad boy poolside, what drink would you have in hand?
Michael: Oh, I’d have to…
Ben: How many can we have?
Michael: I’ve gotta, I’ve gotta go…
Ben: [laughs]
Michael: This fits perfectly, I’m a frozen margarita man. I’d be holding them both, you know when you hold it under the bottom? I’d be holding them both with a big straw and sipping.
Double parked?
Ben: Yeah, for sure. Frozen margies. I’m a red wine drinker through and through, but this songs changed a lot of things for us, so maybe we’ll change our drink of choice to frozen margaritas.
Michael: I’m going to get a frozen margarita soon as I finish speaking to you guys.
Any recommendations for what we should be sipping on?
Ben: Oh man, if this could be everyone’s poolside anthem and they’re vibing on this track for summer, that’s all we want. Frozen margie in hand. Whatever your drink of choice is, if this brings fucking happy times, that’s kinda it for us.
Michael: It’s a late arvo pool sesh, everyone’s had a big night before, they’ve rocked into the pool, swimming around, drinking margies.
Ben: About to start it all over again.
Michael: About to start again.
You guys just completed a pretty crazy tour of NSW, how has it felt to be back on stage?
Michael: It’s been a little bit different because we’ve been doing sit-down shows because of COVID. But crowds have been going off. I think everyone was so excited to see music being back and it’s been really nice. It’s been really nice to kind of engage in a different way, to get off stage and see people sitting there having a drink, and you can sit down and chat to them as well, which you don’t normally get to do sometimes. So it’s been nice.
Ben: We’re just so thankful that there’s venues out there trying to get music going as quickly as they can. Like everyone’s complaining about sitting down and the restrictions and this and that but I mean, the answer to that is, it’s fucking better than nothing. You know, like we’re fucking stoked to be doing it again. And to be quite honest, we wouldn’t have done the show that we’ve been doing on these 25 shows. We did stripped back versions of all of our songs. And we never would’ve done it if we hadn’t gone through something like this and it’s been actually pretty cool and inspiring for us and probably a show that we will do again in the future.
Ben: But the other thing that’s been different for us is that we’ve never played a single before its release and it’s been so fucking cool to play ‘Never Enough’ right at the end of each show and just see everyone safely going bonkers in their chairs. And coming up and speaking to us about a song that they don’t know, instead of the 13 songs that they do know. And I mean it’s been a really fucking massive relief and a cool vibe for us just to be able to play that and see everyone smiling and having good times, so we’re stoked.
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You guys have had some sick supports along the way. You always find the coolest and most unique local acts for your supports. It really comes across like you just want to uplift artists whenever you can. Is that a fair assessment?
Ben: Yeah, a hundred percent man. I mean especially in our local town of Newcastle as well, like we were trying to… we know on two different levels. Prior to being in BOO SEEKA we were in bands that would just be so stoked to get a leg up on that kind of thing. So, for us, if we can give someone that’s wanting to get out there a gig, someone who spends their fucking every living breath to do it. If we can give them an opportunity to come in and play to the music lovers, we’re stoked.
Ben: There’s a guy at the moment that we just had at the Byron Bay shows called Tommy Myers and man he’s so good. And for us as well, like all of the supports that we’ve got, it’s because we found them and we love them and we go out in the crowds and we just sit out the back and watch because we love the music. And then they become our favourite artists and we’re literally downloading their EP’s or whatever they’ve got online, listening to it on the the trips, because they’ve almost become a soundtrack for us. So yeah man, I just think and hope that… we all know it’s fucking hard to get out there when you’ve gotta start your music and if we can support people that we love, then we’re a hundred percent in for sure.
Michael: Shall we give them a plug? We had Austin McKay and Miller Roberts in Newcastle, and then we did Apricot Ink in Sydney. And then we did Tom Myers in Byron.
And Sadboii in Woolongong. Sadboii Yeah. Check all those artists out because they’re all sick. I feel like we’re shallow when we choose our support acts because if they’re not sick, we don’t have them.
Ben: The coolest thing about this trip as well is we’ve been, well obviously we’re predominantly an electronic thing and most of our supports are usually in the electronic realm, or we have a lot of hip hop artists that come because we love our hip hop. But it’s been sick doing this acoustic stuff because we love acoustic music, that’s kind of my whole background so it’s been sick to get Tommy and Austin and Miller because they probably wouldn’t usually be able to come and do normal shows to a certain extent, so it’s been sick to kind of broaden it all. It’s been great.
Everyone this year has been forced to strip it back and take their shows back to small rooms, what’s that experience been like? Have you learnt or rediscovered anything about the whole process?’
Ben: We’ve learnt that we put too many fucking tracks in our songs, I’ll tell you that fucking much… When we went back in the studio and were like reworking the songs we were like “why the hell are we…” There were like 237 tracks in some of our songs.
Michael: But it’s been nice, because you go in and you like literally go through tracks and you start muting things and you go, “Okay, well what do we and don’t we need?” And then you kinda go rehearse and you start playing along and it turns it, it kinda turns itself into this new song in a way. A song that people know, but also a song that we can kind of get excited about, not have to play it a million times. It’s like we can do something different and get the love back a little bit. It’s pretty nice. We had a lot of months off and we kind of drifted away a little bit and then just kind of picked back up and we-
Ben: It also was really nice to kind of have the nerves back again. To be quite honest, we’ve been in front of like fifteen thousand people at a festival and me and him are just swinging off the rails and fucking throwing ourselves around, and that’s what we’ve been used to. And I say that in the most non-dickhead way ever, but it’s been sick that… because usually our crowds are so energetic and they’re just raring to go, and then you’ve got 150 people a night, literally sitting in their chairs, just fucking watching your every move. It was actually fucking daunting-
Michael: Yeah, it was.
Ben: The first ten shows. And it was… it was actually epic to have that feeling back again, get the butterflies and, and not just a know what’s gonna happen kinda thing.
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Lastly, with live music on the comeback and excitement in the air, how are you guys feeling? What’s the energy like?
Michael: I’m just so excited to play again. Like we’re so excited to be back, but when things go back to normal I think every artist is gonna have so much sick music and they’re gonna be performing really well. Everyone’s gonna be vibing, like festivals are gonna be fucking off their head.
Ben: Yeah, I mean you hear those stories back in the day of there being live music at venues from Monday to Sunday every week and like fingers crossed man. I really hope the music industry in Australia and around the world… like I would love to see early shows on a Monday at 7:00 if someone could go out and see a live band, as opposed to when you usually you see the bands only touring on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
Hopefully there’s that much music going out and everyone’s just supporting each other and all the artists as well. I just hope that it doesn’t become this competition of “ah there’s too many bands on the road” or this or that or whatever, I just hope we all get together as an industry and celebrate the fucking industry being back and just get out there and fucking make live music happen again.
BOO SEEKA’s new tune ‘Never Enough’ is out now. You can buy/ stream it here.
