Interview: Old Mervs Chat New EP, Touring, Their Summer Plans And More!
We caught up with WA band Old Mervs following the release of their new EP ‘Get Better’ to hear more about how this catchy collection came together.
Read our chat with Dave and Henry below!
Hey boys! Firstly, a big congrats on releasing your new EP ‘Get Better’- it’s such a great collection!! You recorded it with Dave Parkin at Blackbird Sound Studio in Perth, what was it like working with him?
Working with Dave on this project has been unreal to say the least. To have someone who cared so much and was so invested in the music we were making was huge for us. We were always just trying different things out and just generally having fun with the process. That naturally made it a super comfortable environment which is so important when you’re trying to be creative.
You had to narrow down a bunch of demos into the final 6 track EP- were there any tough choices or disagreements about what to include and what to leave out?
It wasn’t actually that hard to narrow down. We were pretty happy with what we went for in the end. I (Dave) didn’t want to record ‘Where I Go’ for a minute there though, which is funny to me now because it ended up being the lead single on this EP. Before going into the studio, it used to have a way slower verse and wasn’t really that good in my opinion, but we mucked around with it a bit and got a way better outcome thank god.
Do either of you have a personal favourite track on the EP?
Dave: At the moment probably ‘Where I Go’ for me. It’s been so fun playing it live, and I don’t cringe when I hear it these days so that a good sign.
Henry: Probably ‘Get Better’ for me. It’s a real fun song instrumentally, with a nice swagger to it. Hopefully now that it’s out we’ll have some people chanting the chorus when we play it!
Your iconic Aussie surf-rock sound has made you one of my go-to’s for sunny roadtrip music- I want to know, what artists do you tend to reach for when creating that perfect roadtrip vibe yourself?
We listen to a party mix of everything hey, from country music like Tyler Childers, a lot of blues like Stevie Ray Vaughan, all the way to our favourite Aussie bands like DMA’s.
We’ll list some off for ya:
The Grogans
Great Gable
Pretty Ugly’s
The Vanns
Courtney Barnett
Caamp
Father John Misty
Briston Maroney
Wolf Alice
You’ve mentioned icons like Hockey Dad, The Strokes and Catfish & The Bottlemen as being big inspirations behind your sound- do you have any new/smaller artists you’ve recently found yourselves inspired by?
A lot of newer/smaller artists definitely inspire us to write. I’d say our mates Humble Amarda from Perth absolutely gets us frothing on writing in a big way. Another emerging band that we’re loving is Highline from Sydney. We played some shows with them on our last tour and their music is unreal. There’s so many acts of all sizes that we see live and love, but I’d say Sydney’s Royel Otis and Bussey’s from Adelaide are others that stick out for sure.
You just wrapped up a huge national tour, which included a showcase at Bigsound that I caught- it was such a good set! How was the tour for you guys? Your final stop back in WA looked huge!
The tour was sick! We were bloody shocked with the amount of people that came to see us and sold out all but 1 of the venues on the east coast run. They were our first headline east coast shows and after that little taste we’re so keen for more. The hometown show was definitely special for us, we have been eyeing off The Rechabite Hall for a while now so to sell it out and wrap the tour up there was epic.
Finally, I’d love to know what’s next for Old Mervs, can we expect to see you hitting the road again soon or is it time for a bit of a rest after such a massive year already?
We’re just gonna cruise for the rest of the year and take some time to write some new stuff for the next body of work. We’re both going back to our family farms for a bit to help out with harvest and do all the other summer jobs around the farm, and then we’ll be back to playing shows next year which we are very keen to get back into it!
Cheers!
Soundtrack your summer with their EP- out everywhere now!
