Interview: Tyler Richardson from ‘Luca Brasi’

Just days after releasing their long awaited third album ‘If This Is All We’re Going To Be’, Luca Brasi are gearing up to hit the road with The Smith Street Band on what’s going to be one of the tours of the year! We caught up Brasi’s frontman Tyler Richardson and chatted all things album, tour, and being anxious about releasing new tunes.

Tyler thanks for having a chat! ‘If This Is All We’re Going To Be’ is Brasi’s third full length album, tell us a bit about the album and the ideas that went into it?

Well yeah like you said it’s the third one now, f*ck I don’t know what happened in the last five years (laughs). I guess the first time around we’d never been in a band, we were just four guys who wrote some songs and went to the studio and rocked out with everything we had. We had no idea about how to do a record, how you were supposed to do it and you know hence, the faster, kind of raw punk songs that we had. And from there we just kept doing that and eventually we got picked up by Poison City Records and our album got put out and then properly became a band after that really.

I guess the second time around, we learnt how to write songs with direction and with ideas of where we wanted them to go. It’s still a punk sound, but more guitar heavy and a bit more melodic, and it’s probably not how we exactly how we wanted it to work out but this time [with ‘If This Is All We’re Going To Be], we’ve actually nailed that melody and songs as well.

You worked with Brian McTernan on the new album, who has worked with big bands in the scene like Circa Survive and Converge to name a couple, what was that experience like?

It was cool! We really wanted to go for a record that sounded big with melody, and we thought “f*ck it, let’s go all out and make a big album”, and it was awesome working with Brian. He’s done some of our favourite albums, y’know, all the Hot Water Music stuff, we loved his records, they were so big and that’s what we went for. So it’s really cool to get insight into how he does things.

I also read you recorded the album in Hobart, was it a more relaxed process working so much closer to home?

Yeah! I mean it’s been gnarly because all of us work and study full time in-between band stuff, so we decided to do the record at home and work at the same time. It was pretty brutal getting there at like 4 o’clock in the afternoon and getting out at 4 in the morning then go to work and do it all over again!

That’s rough man!

Yeah dude (laughs), it was like 17 days of that so we were pretty much toasted.

I know sometimes musicians can be a little protective and anxious before releasing new music, whether that be due to wondering about fan reaction or whatever, is that the case for Luca Brasi or are you guys just keen to get the new stuff heard and out there?

Yeah, I mean as much as I’m keen, I mean I suppose it’s already out there as it’s on rotation on triple j at the moment! But you’re dead right, there’s that element of thinking “f*ck, I hope this goes down alright” (laughs). But at the end of the day we’re so stoked and as much as you can proud of what you’ve done it’s still a little intimidating y’know?

Just on the triple j feature album man, that’s not exactly a little thing! What’s that like?

Oh, stoked man! There was a lot of hope that they’d catch the album but at the same time we never thought this would actually happen. I was sitting on the couch and got an email in all capital letters and it was like ‘Luca Brasi feature album next week’ and I was like “f*cking hell!” (laughs).

A few of the songs have an almost melancholy feel to them in many ways emotionally driven, Overwhelmed, Ill Prepared especially, what were some of the themes behind the more evocative tracks on the album?

Yeah, I guess you’re dead right. I don’t know whether it’s melancholy or not but they always seem to resolve in a certain way, without it ending in a sad sort of way if that makes sense. That’s the way I’ve always written songs, it’s important that it always has a story and it kind of winds out with an ending without being just one way the entire way through. There’s a lot of self examination in the record, trying to figure out stuff (laughs) y’know you’re acting a certain way or why you’ve done certain things in your life, so a lot of it is based around that.

Aeroplane is the first single that was released for the album. That’s been out for a while now, you sold-out a national tour off the back of it! How has the reaction been to that when you’ve played it live?

Oh man it’s crazy! We started that tour and Aeroplane had been out maybe six weeks and already it was one of our most popular songs, like when we played it in the set it was just insane, already people knew every single word and every single bar, so we were pretty pumped!

The Cascade Blues is a bit of slow burner, is that always a conscious decision to have a slower track on an album, like “right we need to chill things down a bit” or was it just more of a natural thing that happens in the writing process?

Umm yeah, I mean we want to have dynamics in the record, but as I was saying a lot of the songs are similar (laughs). There’s a huge difference between each track but we were trying to write a record with dynamics, add a little light and shade, but if songs were too far different it wouldn’t sound like the same record if that makes sense. So the idea was to keep the familiar sound of the band and explore a little bit dynamically. Listening back I think we achieved that to a degree which we thought we wouldn’t be able to, so we’re still stoked that it sounds like a record rather than a bunch of different stuff.

Now the album’s out, you guys have a little bit of time off before hitting the road with The Smith Street Band, which will be absolutely insane! Do you guys have a particular routine you run through when preparing for a big tour like this?

Yeah, I mean we’ll always have rehearsal days! But apart from that nothing really changes! Once we’ve sorted our side of things, we sort out the songs we want to play down to a point where we’re happy to play them live, and especially with the new songs, it’s new material that’s never been played live so it’s going to be pretty different. But yeah, we just like to be as prepared as we can and get out there for the first show and play it as good as we’d play a last show.

Like you said, the tour will see a lot of the new tunes played live for the first time, any hints as to which ones may make the cut?

So at our last show we were able to sneak in Aeroplane obviously, Anything Near Conviction and Say It Back, so they’re the three we’ve done so far. So on top of that we’re hoping to chuck in Count Me Out (the last song on the album), so that one’s definitely in the set. I think Overwhelmed / Ill Prepared will actually be on there! I’m pretty sure (laughs).

Read our album review of ‘If This Is All We’re Going To Be’ HERE

The Smith Street Band National Tour
w/ Luca Brasi

FRI 3 JUN
Metro Theatre, Sydney
SAT 4 JUN
Max Watts, Brisbane
FRI 10 JUN
Capitol, Perth
SAT 11 JUN
The Gov, Adelaide
THU 16 JUN
Max Watts, Melbourne
FRI 17 JUN
Max Watts, Melbourne
SAT 18 JUN
Max Watts, Melbourne

Get Tickets HERE