'Sweet Nothings' are a psychedelic dream pop band from Sydney, made up of dynamic duo JC Murray and Katie B. They draw inspiration from an eclectic assortment of influences - from Pixies to My Bloody Valentine to Jesus and the Mary Chain - leading to a delicious variety of electronic music from swirling, heady pop to dark moody psych rock.
Their track 'Bad Boyfriend' is a heavy song with aggressive, loaded guitar and wafty, ethereal vocals. We're absolutely loving the exciting juxtaposition of hardcore guitar with shoegaze and synth pop. In fact, when the track begins the forward motion of the guitars actually catch you a bit off guard - I was expecting more of a Tame Impala-esque sound - but it oddly meshes rather well with the shoegaze. Definitely a hot track to rock out to.
We were very lucky to get an interview with these guys, so here we go:
What's in a name?
Katie and I used to play in a band called Bang! Bang! Rock n Roll. She always wanted to sing with us but we always felt that her voice was too sweet sounding for our brand of garage punk rock. When the band broke up we were feeling despondent and useless, we felt like we were nothing, nobodies, etc. Eventually Katie and I started making songs together again and decided to call it Sweet Nothings. Pretty lame huh?
How did you guys start playing music (together as well as alone)?
Katie has been playing guitar and singing since she was 14, and was always a massive fan of PJ Harvey, Queens of the Stone Age and Nine Inch Nails. I've been playing guitar since I was 19 when I first saw the White Stripes on the MTV music video awards and knew that's what I wanted to do. We met on New Years Eve 2005 and bonded straight away. We started our first band 'The Vignettes', put out 2 EP's and a Vinyl album, then formed 'Bang! Bang! Rock n Roll' a few years later, and now this! This is the first time we've worked together on songs from start to finish and it's pretty amazing.
Who are your major influences?
Pixies are definitely a major one. Their mix of genius pop and dark, crazy rock is utterly sublime. We used to be very influenced by garage bands like Ty Segall, The White Stripes, Jay Reatard, et al, but at the moment we really love a lot of spacey stuff: Pink Floyd, My Bloody Valentine, Jesus and the Mary Chain, Boards of Canada just to name a few.
Who writes the songs and what influences them?
We both contribute to songwriting. 'Bad Boyfriend' was inspired by a few situations. We had some friends who were all in relationships with controlling, selfish boyfriends; and we had these horrible next door neighbours who had massive domestic fights every night, so that's where that came from. We wrote 'Feeling Better' after both of us went through massive phases of depression, and thought we'd try and write a pop song about getting through it. Usually one of us will come up with a riff, then another will do some lyrics, then we'll pull ideas together and structure it and voila!
Where to from here?
Well we just started! At the moment we're just writing more songs and putting them up as they're completed. If we get popular enough we'll tour them and sell EP's and such, but in the meantime it's just free music we're putting out there for people to enjoy.
Why do you love making music (if you do!)?
Music is self expression at it's finest. Creating something that's yours is an amazing and fun process, and having it validated by people always helps. Even if we never go anywhere we'll always make music to vent, to have fun, and just to express ourselves as music lovers.
Any final questions, comments, pearls of wisdom or random trivia?
We once played with party animal Andrew WK and stole all his liquor from the green room... and we once got drunk with the saxophonist from INXS (Kirk Pangelli, legend!) at Luna Park, which we got kicked out of for being too drunk. We were party animals, but I think those days are behind us now... maybe...
Check out this edgy duo on Triple J Unearthed and their Facebook page.
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