Interview: Reside

Melbourne sad boys, Liam (vocals) and Dylan (drums) of the band Reside had a chat to us about their music, writing process and what they would put on top of a pizza. Check out our exclusive interview below.

Can you briefly tell us a little bit about the bands timelines, where did you start, where are you now, where do you see yourselves?

Dylan: We started in very late 2016, it was immediately I came from an Akroyd Smart gig actually and you’d asked me if I wanted to get in on playing some music with you and you showed me the music and I was like “totally let’s do it”. Then we got Ariel and Sale on it and we were just gonna start it off as a bit of fun, play a few house parties, practise once or twice a month, and it just took off from there and decided to take it a bit more seriously.

Liam: I sent these demos of a few of our songs and sent them to our friends and we got invited to play this house party, it was our first ever show as a band. After that house party, we got invited to play a house party at another person’s house-Martin, who actually plays in Gloom In The Corner, it was his house. Then after that we got invited to play some actual shows and it just snowballed. Started with the Terra EP Launch and a whole year had passed and we decided to put out our EP and take it more seriously. And then 2017 happened.

Dylan: And 2018 was kinda weird, because Liam was on guitar originally and we got Will to join as secondary guitarist so Liam could just kinda take vocal duties and then at the end of 2018 we release ‘In This Moment’ and it was the first time we’d actually seen some real momentum behind the band beside just mates supporting us. Then this whole year has just been kinda like that, more and more snowballing-kinda freaky to look at actually.

So, you guys played Brisbane for the first time, how was that experience?

Liam;I think Brisbane was probably the first show on the tour that has actually genuinely felt like a party. It was so much fun, both Sydney last week and Brisbane were the two most fun shows on the tour, Brisbane in particular just felt –

Dylan :My favourite show of the tour. I had to miss the first part of the tour cos I had uni, and I couldn’t miss uni, I couldn’t afford to miss that much work so we got Adam from previously Set The Score and currently Better Half to fill in on drums and I was just getting mad FOMO, I was seeing all these pictures and these messages of the guys on tour and was like freaking out so finally got to play and I picked a great weekend for it as well. Brisbane’s one of my favourite cities and we have the whole weekend to just chill out so it was pretty good.

Do you guys have any pre-show rituals?

Dylan: I guess this isn’t too uncommon, I need to stretch up before I go on stage, I like to stretch up and do some rudiments on like a drum pad and stuff like that but if it’s a new city I like to have a few beers before I go on. Just because it’s kinda fun and helps me not take it too seriously and remember that I just need to have a bit of fun with it. I don’t get wasted or anything like that, I just like to have a beer and loosen up a little bit. Usually if it’s a hometown show I’ll probably just stay on the waters until we go on stage.

Liam: Yeah, I’m pretty boring, I do a lot of vocal warmups and try to relax a little bit and go away on my own. Or go for a walk and try to almost meditate a little bit and focus on bringing out this internal crazy character that’s within me. But I also know as a band we’ve been trying to get into the habit of going through the first song together and try to focus on a goal, giving ourselves a bit of a pep talk and a bit of motivation stuff.

So, for someone coming to their first Reside show, what should they expect?

Liam: So hopefully a good Reside show means that we’re playing really well and close to the record, hopefully we sound something like the things that we’ve recorded. But you can expect a ton of energy, as I said I kinda have this internal craziness that comes out so it’s a lot of directed energy. I feel like it’s an invitation to kinda join our weird screwed up family. We deal with a lot of darker things in terms of mental health and we wanna invite people to feel like they’re not alone in that-in feeling the things they do. It’s purely human you know, there’s light and dark in the spectrum of mental health.

Dylan: A big part of it for me is that playing these shows is a really good way to let off steam because it is pretty high energy and I can get up there and belt the crap outta my drums. Similarly, I love seeing it in the crowd when people are-not necessarily in a circle pit but that I can see they’re having fun, and blowing off some steam and actually enjoying being in the crowd. So maybe not what to expect but having a good attitude to bring in is to just have fun with it.

Liam;
You can also expect my outlandish outfits as well.

So, what’s the writing process like?

Liam: So far, it’s started with building the skeleton of the songs and ideally bring the rest of the guys in and adding their own flavours. I know on our last record, because it was such a personal record in terms of what the songs were about-I always like the records that we write to be like a year in the life of myself-my life in chapters. So, this last record is very centred around things really personal and where I am at and where I was in my life. But yeah it starts off with a bit of a skeleton from me, then Dylan comes in-he’s one of the most contributing people to making my songs actually good. So, we make the music first and then I write lyrics over the top of it.

Dylan: What I’ve found talking to other people is that it can be a bit of a counter intuitive approach because I hear a lot of people actually start with the melody and then build the harmony and build the song around that. But I write the exact same way when I’m doing stuff for school or solo stuff. I also like to try, when I come in and do my thing I like to bring in stuff I’ve been listening to and different ideas I might not necessarily hear on other records and try and make it stand out a little bit. Make it not be as safe I suppose.

Liam: I think we definitely are about trying to break out of the style that we could be shoe boxed into. I feel like a lot of bands that kinda do the alt rock thing and its very saturated-especially in Australia now. I’ve always wanted to break out of it and be different and stand out a little bit so it’s certainly something we try and aim for with our music.

What do you think the key is to maintaining a band and keeping things fresh and original nowadays?

Liam: I don’t know if this answers the question 100% but I always admire bands whose career span can reinvent what they are and who they are so from record to record they can change their style up a little bit, keep it fresh. I also believe in the theory of hybrid genres or bringing in styles that you wouldn’t necessarily expect. An example that I always admire is Arctic Monkeys, a band that from record to record just manage to change what they are and what they sound like.

Dylan: I think a pretty important aspect to keeping it fresh is listening to new things as much as you can and in what you want to introduce to your music; understand why you like it, understand what elements you actually want to bring to your music. But also, an interesting thing I’ve been looking at recently is understanding how the albums I like, how they were influenced and developed and looking at who influenced them. I had someone once describe it to me as looking at an album, looking at It forwards, backwards and side to side. In a sense of who its influenced, who it was influenced by and other bands at the time that its gone on to influence. I’ve been thinking about that phrase a lot recently and I think having an understanding of that is pretty important to keep things fresh because then you can take elements of the things that you like, but not necessarily from the place that you found it and have a whole fresh palette of what your gonna do.

Aside from music, do you have any other creative outlets?

Liam: As a band we’re super big into film, one of the things that we like to do, if you ever go on our social medias, we make little skits and little videos. We’ve got ourselves a camera that we make music with and direct our own music videos. We keep everything really DIY. I handle most of the recording, it’s all done in house, the mixing and the music videos are done by ourselves. That’s something that we creatively like to do.

Dylan: Yeah, those promo videos and music videos are the biggest creative outlet for me. The promo videos are good because it doesn’t necessarily pertain too much to music as it does. It’s like a comedic delivery, it’s fun. I think those are the biggest, the only things I got.

Liam: The other thing too, as a band nowadays you have to be able to understand the different areas in creating a brand. We often always have to think of the concepts in terms of what does our merch look like and what does our artwork for the cds and what the releases are going to look like. We’re super passionate about photography, trying to make press photos a little bit different, step outside of the box. Yeah, having an understanding of those things and trying to create a brand.

Do you have any favourite local bands our viewers should checkout?

Dylan: Hands down Parkwood. I gotta give a massive shout out to Parkwood they’re one of my favourite local bands, there’s Heartline, Colourblind. That’s a question that’s hard to answer because it’s like giving an acceptance speech, you’re gonna miss someone, someone’s gonna get mad.

Liam: Like what defines-how big can a local band be you know? But I definitely reckon Heartline, and Colourblind. Colourblind from Adelaide are so amazing. I really like Waxflower as well who we played with on Friday. There’s definitely heaps more I’m just really put on the spot so I’m not thinking, bit scattered right now.

What does your shower playlist consist of-if you have one, any guilty pleasures?

Dylan/Liam:

Not guilty about anything

Dylan: I love Robbie Williams, first artist I ever liked. I really like lo-fi hip hop as well I’m really getting around that. Yeah, I’m really into relaxing music at the moment like Ocean Alley, Jamiroquai…if it’s things ill absolutely belt along to it’s a couple of local bands or ever my own music, as far as guilty pleasures go, Simple Plan.

Liam: I rate Simple Plan too. Actually, we were talking about this the other day about certain pop songs in the late 90’s and early 2000’s we got really around Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue. This could feed into what are your influences or what I’m listening to right now, I’m listening to lots of old music at the moment actually. Also, super into 80’s stuff, Tears For Fears, The Cure, The Smiths, Joy Division heaps at the moment.

Dylan: Also, soundtracks to movies, scores for movies, I really love the scores for Bladerunner and Taxi Drive. I’d go on all day but the Bladerunner and Taxi Driver scores are probably the two that I’d chuck on the shower playlist.

Okay, final question. You may interpret this however you want. Alright, pizza-everyone loves pizza. What would you put on a signature Reside band pizza?

Liam: It’d have to be vegan right. Ariel doesn’t eat meat, I don’t eat cheese or dairy, so it would have to be vegan cheese, and Dylan’s some sort of vegan. So, mock meat pepperoni, peppers, chilli-has to have a bit of spice cos I’m a massive spice lord.

Dylan: This could fit in there somewhere but the other day Ariel made this cheeseburger pizza which was really good but yeah, we need to work something from there in the mix. He put beyond meat mince on it, tomato base, ketchup, mustard and vegan cheese on it and it came out tasting like a cheeseburger and I was absolutely astonished. So, I reckon a cheeseburger pizza plus chili, plus pepperonis and capsicum. Frankenstein monster almost.

Liam: Kinda accurately describes our music.

Dylan: A mess.

And come up with a name for it

Liam: See the light pizza. He’s much more clever at this stuff, I’m terrible.

Dylan: Don’t let this fool you I’m actually really funny

Liam: I’m just going to call it the chili burger pizza. It pretty much sums everything up-actually we could just call it ‘The Mess’. Bless this mess.