Words by Jade Adam //

Soaked Oats talk life tour and the artistic forces behind their latest EP Sludge Pop, ahead of tonight’s show at Oxford Art Factory.

After releasing a string of singles follow their debut EP Stoned Fruit Melodies, listeners around the world were eagerly awaiting what intriguing New Zealand fruit fanatics Soaked Oats had coming for us on their sophomore EP, Sludge Pop. Safe to say, our curiosity has been richly rewarded, with the four-piece delivering more of those wavy pop vibes and infectiously dreamy melodies that we’ve been sucking up ever since they first entered our radar back in 2017.

Catching up with drummer Conor Feehly, we discuss their relentless touring schedule and the inspiration behind their latest musical creations. If you wanna see them in the flesh, head to the Oxford Art Factory tonight – tickets and info here.

Hi guys! How has the tour been thus far?

It’s been good, we just arrived in Brisbane yesterday and played our first ever show here. Had a full house at the Bearded Lady on a Wednesday night which was insane! Played with an awesome band Polygon Woods who blew our socks off too!! We have not long been back from the UK, but this leg somehow feels like a different thing.

How’d the UK leg go?

It was mental. We played four shows total – two in Brighton as part of The Great Escape and two in London – one as our own headline and the other supporting Mermaidens. It was pretty incredible to fly 24 hours to the other side of the world and have people come to watch us play music. The crowds were really attentive and wanted to really listen to us so it was super nice compared to our shows back home which can often take on a bit more of a party vibe.

You guys aren’t any strangers to extensive touring, how do you think NZ pub gigs and such prepped you for international touring?

Really well! We played in quite familiar sized venues and environments in the UK so we definitely slipped easily back into our rhythm. I think we perform better when are comfortable, so being in familiar spaces helped.

What has been your highlight moment of the tour so far?

For me, it was our second show at The Great Escape at a venue called the Hope & Ruin. We had maybe gotten over some nerves from the first show, we just felt very relaxed which I think enabled to perform really well. I could also feel anticipation in the crowd to see us and it just felt really nice to win over people from the other side of the world. We also raffled off a crate of Speights, a fine New Zealand ale, which went down particularly well with the crowd.

Have you played in Sydney before?

Yea, we played in the smaller room at The Oxford Art Factory back in Feb and we are playing there again this time around.

What should we expect for this Friday’s show?

Well we will be playing songs off the new E.P that people wouldn’t have heard us play before. You can probably expect some excited kiwi expats too.

’Sludge Pop’ was released this year and has some really cool tracks on it. What did you draw on for inspiration for the EP?

The songs came pretty naturally out of the four of us just being together and jamming, but I think Oscar in his lyricism took inspiration from some different places. ‘Don’t Chew’ the last track on the E.P was inspired by a line from the Cormack Mcarthy novel All The Pretty Horses from the Border Trilogy. I think the line goes something like ‘My daddy used to tell me not to chew on something that is eating you’. I think that means just to not get too caught up in negative thought cycles and to have cathartic experiences that help you let go of those thought cycles.

I really like the art for the EP, did you form the concept or is it in collaboration with someone?

Oscar actually produced all of the art for the E.P himself. The art is kind of derived from themes running through the E.P, mud being the metaphor for the not so glamorous aspects of people.

Your EP Stoned ‘Fruit Melodies’ has always been one of our faves and we fell in love with the psych elements. ‘Sludge Pop’ takes that on but the sounds feel a little Poppier. Tell us about this progression? Are we headed further into that kind of territory next?

Thank you! I think the new E.P sounds poppier probably because we spent more time in post-production mixing and overdubbing etc, whereas Stoned Melodies was recorded quite raw and released as it was recorded. We are definitely keen to explore different ways of recording in future, contrasting high and low-fi, so you should maybe expect some variation.

What environments best suit you guys writing? Does the heavy touring inspire more creation or do you need to chill out and jam a bit?

Just being together we tend to inspire each other. Being in an environment where there isn’t any pressure where we can kind of just go on tangents and explore them helps. It can be a mixed bag when we are touring, we often might squeeze an impromptu jam into a soundcheck that we might revisit down the track. Oscar has done a bit of songwriting when we have been moving around, I think the touring lifestyle can sometimes induce some lucidity.

What is gonna happen post tour? Still gonna hustle more in NZ?

We are looking forward to taking a bit of a break from the incessant touring. The plan is to start writing and demoing new songs for an album down the track. It will be a nice change of pace to focus on writing rather than honing our live show. The hustle never really ends.