Words by Amar Gera //

Sandy shores and world tours…

What do you get when you throw six long-haired teenagers in a shed with a bunch of instruments? Well, for one thing, you might get a hell of a racket. But, if you’re lucky, you just might get a group of mates that develop an immeasurable passion for live music, spend the next couple of years rising up through the local music scene, and end up becoming one of the nation’s most revered bands.

Ocean Alley’s music marries an inescapable fun-loving air with crazy emotional depth – not to mention hits for every day of the week. Lost Tropics (2016) and Chiaroscuro (2018) produced gorgeous lush anthems that neatly encompass the fundamental beauties of Aussie culture: Music, friendship and family. And at the end of the day, that’s what’s most important to the band, whether they’re selling out shows across the world, tearing up local festivals or just being general hooligans. No matter what, it always comes back to that shed, and that pure love for live music, as well as each other.

With their third studio album Lonely Diamond due in a week, we thought we’d catch up with guitarist Mitch to get the low down on the new record, suss how they’ve been faring in lockdown, and of course, get the deets on how drummer Obie got that glorious mullet.

Check it below.

I wanna start this off with a super important question; what’s the story behind Obie’s mullet?

I think it just got cut late one night [laughs]. The mastermind behind that, the man behind the scissors, was our bass player Nic. The boys just decided Obie needed to freshen up the cut. It was actually kind of weird. We were like, “Yeah, your girlfriend’s going to hate that,” and then she actually kind of liked it. Now, every chance he gets he gets it touched up.

We were actually in New Zealand playing a festival, and there was this big Maori dude cutting people’s hair backstage, and Obie went up and was like, “Oh, hey, bro. I was just wondering if, um,” and he just pointed to his hair, and the guy finished his sentence and was like “Touch up the mullet?” And Obie’s like “Yeah, bro.” And he’s like, “Sweet. No worries, man.” Really classic.

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Kicking things off tonight in Frankfurt for our first headline show of the tour. We’ve just been told there’s only a few tickets left so swipe up on our story to get one! Next up we’re playing a free show in Prague on Thursday… See you soon. Photos by @the.sauce

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Okay, now we’ve got the important stuff out of the way, how are you guys going! How have the last couple of months been for you all?

Pretty quiet, man. We wrapped the record before this whole lockdown thing. To be honest, it was really good timing. We couldn’t have really picked it, but it worked out well because we didn’t have any logistical troubles trying to finish up the recordings and whatnot. But unfortunately, we won’t be able to tour the songs that we’re about to release. We sort of missed out on that honeymoon period where you get to just relentlessly play and try those songs over again, and they really become a part of you. We haven’t had that opportunity yet. But when it all comes back, that’s pretty much all we’re gonna be doing. Until then, we’re just hanging out until we can play live shows again.

Is there anything you’ve learnt about yourselves, or about the band as a whole, throughout all the madness?

Yeah! It’s been testing for everyone you know, and we’ve all been sort of living on top of each other. There’s no release or getaway. It’s been quite boring at home. But half the band is up in Byron Bay now, and the other half still in Sydney. So we’re not totally all over each other at the moment, which is good.

But I think we just learned that we need to take care of our relationships amongst each other just as much as our relationship with the band and music. It’s important that when you have work to get done and when you need to step up to the plate that everyone’s pulling their weight. And to do that, everyone needs to be really respectful of each other. Just kind of that stuff.

For a bunch of blokes in their 20s you guys have lived such full lives. After all the chaos and craziness, whats most important to Ocean Alley in 2020?

Music, friendship & family. The trinity.

Now onto music, congrats on Lonely Diamond! It’s so dope to see how your sound has grown and matured over the past couple of years. What are you most proud of from it?

I suppose we’re most proud of how it has grown, but we’re still happy that it’s got that classic Ocean Alley sound. There was a lot of pressure on the back of Chiaroscuro and on the back of all those songs that did pretty well in the Hottest 100, like ‘Confidence’ for example. We’re just most proud of how we backed it up and got the job done.

We knew we had to write some songs, and we spent extra time being uncomfortable, just trying to get through writer’s block and sort of going through all of that together. But we just kept trying to play and come up with something. Our perseverance was probably a bit of a flog [laughs]. We wrote and and recorded it over a longer period of time too this time around.

Whats the story behind the title?

We thought it was just kind of a cool image to go with in the way we thought the record could be structured. It’s like seeing it through different windows. Looking through different windows at the same subject, that kind of thing. And we thought a diamond with a faceted shape, cut and angled, sort of represented a window. And when the track ‘Lonely Diamond’ was written, we sort of just borrowed that name for the record because we thought it sounded cool.

There’s such a complex mix of sounds and influences throughout the track listing, but it totally works. Did it require lots of work to get it to all balance out? Or did that come easy?

We always try and have a nice mix of styles on our records because we don’t want to write a record of 12 of the same songs you know. And we had the extra time, so we actually ended up rewriting three bridge parts from different songs from what the original idea was. And that was probably because they didn’t quite fit together. When we started to get that collection of songs, we realized, “Oh, we need to try to kind of tweak parts here and there.”

So yeah, we did spend a lot of time. It was in between a hefty touring schedule as well. We would go on tour, and then we’d come back with fresh ears. We were stoked to have that opportunity to spend more time demoing and writing before we went to straight into recording.

There’s a lot of introspection and reflection on the record, with tracks like ‘Up In There’ and ‘Lonely Diamond’ being grounded in some really personal themes. Where were you guys at mentally going into this album?’

Yeah, that was… we all write our own part. Baden writes the lyrics so he had free reign to do that. The imagery and metaphors that he writes are relative to him at the end of the day, but he always manages to fit it with the music. That’s really important. But there was a lot of pressure for us to back up the successes that we’d had and we were in the middle of hectic tours, as well as month long bus tours and you know, flying around Aus playing festivals and stuff.

There’s probably a bit of that longingness for an escape. Those kinds of feelings made their way onto the record. And I think when we weren’t touring, and were back in the studio, we really had the chance to mellow out a bit. And so there are some of those more mellow and introspective songs. It’s not all punchy and go, go, go, like your ‘Hot Chicken’s. But yeah, we really felt like we needed to include, as I said, a broad range of styles so that it felt entertaining.

You’ve talked about how ‘All Worn Out’ was a real lesson in songwriting for you guys. You can definitely hear the time taken on it. What was the main lesson you took away from it?

Probably to trust your keyboardist when he comes up with a good song [laughs]. That one was written by Lach, and we didn’t change it much. That was a lesson in less is more. Don’t touch it. Let the idea remain pure and just let it speak for itself.

You’ve admitted that the album is a lot darker than previous works. Was that at all daunting, considering you guys came up as the quintessential, fun-loving party band?

Yeah it was, but we like to challenge the listeners. And I think it’s awesome when you do see some of those more rowdy crowds that are having hell of a time and fully there to party sort of slow down for a bit, especially for when we play those slow burners live. And by giving people a varied experience in the live show or while they’re listening to the record, I think it just makes it more captivating.

This is a bit of a personal one, but I wanna throw it back to one of your earliest tracks ‘The Flood’, which still holds up so well in 2020. Do you guys ever get tempted to chuck it in a set, for old times sake?

We’ve actually talked about maybe rewriting some of those older ones into the show, and ‘The Flood’ is definitely one that we’re actually proud of. Some of the other ones are pretty shit [laughs]. But yeah, maybe one day. It’s always an option. I think there’s only one version of it? It’s up on YouTube hey.

Yeah with that mad beach backdrop.

I actually took those photographs! They’re all my work. That’s Mona Vale beach, I think. I used to do heaps of photography back then when I was in high school, and they’re all my photos. We just needed some cool backgrounds, so the boys were like, “Oh, just put some nice photos of the beach up.”

You’ve said your favourite lyric from that tune was ‘I’ve burnt all my bridges/ smoking cigarettes in this paper town’, are there any ‘The Flood’-esque lines on Lonely Diamond?

I think there’s less storytelling lyrics like that. I think there’s more raw stuff like on tracks like ‘All Worn Out’. Like that first lyric, ‘Hold me down’. They’re quite short, sharp and dark. It’s definitely heaps different to ‘The Flood’ days, to a ‘Yellow Mellow’, to that In Purple record. Completely different lyric writing by Baden, yeah.

I also wanna mention ‘Tombstone’, which really put into words how the nation was feeling throughout the fires. Australia and it’s music scene has through the absolute wringer the past two years. How have you guys felt throughout it all?

We just kept tugging away hey, and it’s kind of in our heads that art will always prevail. We kept trying to make music, kept trying to create art. But yeah, we’ve sort of been lucky with all this disruption that’s happened this year. On the back of all the lockout laws, the new regulations that stopped a couple of festivals and then the fires.

We just want to get back to playing live music because that’s the bones of our industry. And it supports not just the musicians, but it supports people that work in the pub, all of the tech pros etc. So we’re just stinging to get back into it really.

Now, onto the future, on a scale of one to ‘How To Make Gravy’ by Paul Kelly, how keen are you to get back on stage?

 Aw, yeah. Gravy. Gravy Baby. Yeah, It’s definitely Gravy. Gravy Baby.

What do you think those first couple minutes are gonna be like when you step out there for the first time? Do you reckon you’ll be nervous?

I think we will be nervous because it’s probably the longest period that we’ve gone without playing shows. And hopefully, we can get our asses off the couch and do some rehearsals beforehand so that we don’t fuck it up on the night [laughs]. But yeah, I think it’s just going to be electric. All of the first weeks back will be. Not just our Ocean Alley gigs. All the crowds, all the bands that go and do those first gigs after all this stuff is just going to be fucking wild, man. That’s the light at the end of the tunnel everyone can look forward to, just the crazy parties when it’s appropriate to do so, when everyone’s ready to go back. Nothing lasts forever you know, that’s what you got to keep telling yourself.

Lastly, you’ve said that the ultimate goal is to make music and travel the world with your best mates, then come back and sit on the beach for the rest of your lives. If you could ask the future Ocean Alley on that beach a question while they’re watching the sunset, what would you ask?

First of all, I’d be curious to know which beer they’re drinking in the future [laughs]. Maybe Coopers come out with some crazy new flavour, and we’re sipping on something like that. Some people might, if they had that question, might ask how long it’s gonna take. As in how long until we’re sitting on that beach. Because you know, you’re from the future. But I don’t think that would be a good thing to know. I think that’s sort of our ethos and where we come from is that we just do it because we like making music and we like traveling the world and performing with each other.

It’s actually kind of irrelevant how long it would take. I’d probably just ask him about the beer, to be honest. I want it to be a surprise, man. No one wants to know how they die. No one wants to know the future.

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Sounds perfect to me. Only question is, what beach are we talking, which beer are we downing, and what song are we blasting?

We’d probably be blasting… That’s a hard one. Let’s just say, we’ll be blasting some Paul Kelly ‘How To Make A Gravy’. No, Paul Kelly, ‘To Her Door’ actually. We’ll be playing Paul Kelly ‘To Her Door’ and… What beach would we be sitting on? Somewhere warm, somewhere up north. With some nice waves… Sitting down at the beach at Belongil in Byron Bay. And of course, with a couple of Coopers.

I lied I have one more question. I know you guys are big fans of Japanese food, so if you had to allocate a Japanese dish to each Ocean Alley album, what menu would we be looking at?

Aw Lost Tropics would probably be vegetarian gyoza. Chiaroscuro would be chicken karaage. And Lonely Diamond would be like a spicy tuna hand roll!

Ocean Alley will be dropping Lonely Diamond on June 19 and are playing some very special headline shows in support of it early next year. You can pre-order the album here and cop tickets here.