Images by Jacqui Mitchell //

We spoke with Zeppelin Hamilton about Velvet Trip’s debut LP Harmony Blooms

You’re never going to find a more aptly titled record. For those of us who have been following VT since the early days, we’re aware that they began life as a bluesy-psych jam band who would rip our heads off with solos, go on ten-minute musical tangents, all the while dazzling us with their musicianship. It was bloody fun. But it’s nothing like what you’ll be hearing on their album.

Harmony Blooms is considered, ethereal, and lushly textured. It’s contemplative. Where the old Velvet Trip would tell you, the one on this record asks you. One one hand you have darker, heavier songs like ‘Silly Boy’ and then on the other hand you get doo-wop-worthy 60s-inspired pop on tracks like ‘Honest I Do’. The vocals are precisely layered, with each harmony revealing a different aspect and potential path of the tune.

Each listen rewards. Go ahead and check it out along with out interview with frontman Zeppelin Hamilton below:

Does the album feel like an accomplishment? What were some of the biggest barriers to making it?

Just to have it out and to have gotten this far to see it through has, it’s already a success in my eyes because it was such a struggle. Not to bang on about it, but Covid and the breakdown of the music industry and all industry in general was pretty defeating for most bands and artists that surround me. A lot of people threw in the towel while I was making it. I had to switch off the head noise and not think about the end goal and not try and talk myself into it being some big success. We’ve managed to do it completely independently without a label ball, without management, without distribution. So through Helen High Water is Harmony Blooms.

You broke your hand too… that probably didn’t help…

I broke my hand skateboarding and it was during a tour with my other band… It happened right before I went over to Europe, and then I spent three months in Europe with a broken hand and I didn’t get any physiotherapy. So by the time I got back, my hand was basically unusable. I knew that I needed to write a record, I needed to write music and I couldn’t play guitar.

I was given a MIDI keyboard. And I started experimenting with songwriting with a keyboard and finding different sounds on GarageBand and producing music that way, which I’d never done before. The voices and the tones and the sounds that I was finding were completely different and informed the songwriting. It was more intentional and I had to think about it more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwCxArlRJ88

Can you recall that first moment where you’re like, oh, this is MIDI thing is something I can do now? What was that feeling like?

It kind of started off as a bit of a joke really. I was literally just singing into my laptop microphone at, I just produced what actually turned out to be ‘Harmony Blooms’, which is the album name and the lead single of the record. That was the first song that I made on this MIDI keyboard, and that informed the direction of the entire album. I remember going away to the Blue Mountains and showing this track to my partner, Em and my friend Dyl, and they were like, “oh, this actually sounds like a song.”

I think people might be surprised when they hear tracks like ‘I’ll Follow You’. Have you given much thought to how people will react? Particularly people more familiar with your older sound?

You’re always going to have mixed reviews from people. We’re lucky enough to be in the infant stages – we don’t have a super established audience base, so I don’t think people are going to be too shocked. Personally, I just try and think about making music as a way of expressing yourself, and I think it’s really important to grow and change with every release. As much as I can help it, the goal of Velvet Trip is to always expand and grow. So this album is very different to the first EP we put out and we’ve been working on new music and it’s very different to Harmony Blooms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEDrgkrMILY

I was in attendance at a gig in Newy and I remembered distinctly not hearing many of the new songs. And so I was like, oh, what’s going on here? Tell me about that and what it’s like having a versatile band like that?

[Drummer and vocalist] Clay and I are the two solid members in the band and we have amazing musicians around us that play with us when we tour and play shows. There are some instances where some people can’t make shows work. Our new songs require since and keys and when we don’t have that element in our live performance, it makes it really hard to play the new songs. So we have to reimagine our set. We lean into more psych, bluesy sort of stuff.

How would you describe the record? It doesn’t have to be musical terms…

For me, it represents a moment in time. It was like we recorded it over two separate writing blocks. So we recorded six tracks and then we had nine months in between, and then we recorded another four tracks and then cut some of the tracks that we were holding onto. Over that time, so much had happened then there was so much going on in our lives that it kind of carries a lot of nostalgia for both of us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPwmkJJk2sc

You and Clay play with a bunch of other people like Julia Jacklin, Dan Sultan, and more. What have you learned from playing on those big stages and those rigorous rehearsals?

Dan has been a mentor for me for a long time, so I’ve learned a lot from him musically and professionally. Playing in his band and I’ve seen how somebody that’s so established and has such a foothold in the industry operates. How you hold yourself as an artist on stage and hold an audience and communicate with an audience verbally and musically – it’s been a really big learning experience.

What’s the best piece of advice he’s given you?

Don’t let anyone tell you what you are. It’s just made me believe in myself and get caught up in opinions or get caught up in other external influences. It’s kept me on track and given me the confidence and self-belief to see this album through.

Velvet Trip will be touring nationally over Feb, March and April. Dates below, tix here.