Okay Dane guide us through EP launch for ‘Alienation’

With the release of their debut EP Alienation, Okay Dane celebrated by presenting the songs live at their EP launch. Songs teeming with energy and a refreshing, rock intensity, the group’s most recent body of work illustrates the efforts taken to achieve coherence between writing and performing.

Okay Dane discuss the process and journey to curating the environment at their first ever EP launch.

Concept

For this show, we were performing with 2 new members (Nathan on drums and Iseabail on guitar) and we had to get them up to speed with our material in only a few weeks. We’d only ever performed as a 3 piece with 1 guitar, but we’ve always intended on having a second guitarist live.

Our new EP is quite layered as far as guitars go, so it was important to have our live set reflect the arrangements on the EP. Our vision for this show and for our set going forward is a loud, dynamic, and dense but layered sound, filled with vocal harmonies, melodic lead guitar lines and space. 

Preparation

To get the new members ready for the show, we had to first collect recordings (studio recordings, demo’s and crappy live audio recordings) and put them onto a private playlist. Finding some of this stuff was tricky as we’d mostly just been playing off of memory for most of the set and some of those songs are yet to be recorded.

For guitars, I’d spent some time writing guitar tabs for each section and deciding what I’m going to play and what Ish (Iseabail) is going to play, the decision I arrived at is that I’ll play most of the rhythm and guitar solos, with Ish joining me on rhythm but also playing the atmospheric lead lines.

Rehearsal

When it came to running the set with the new line-up, everyone had done their due diligence and properly prepared. It didn’t take long to have it running smoothly and it was extremely satisfying to hear these arrangements played live as we intended them with each part intact.

People’s Response 

The response we’ve received from everyone that came to the launch was overwhelmingly positive. I think a lot of people are always a little surprised to see how close we can sound to the recordings, even more so now as a four piece. With shows like this it helps us put on a killer show if the room has a good vibe, and there was plenty of energy in the room. Playing on the same level as the audience also really seems to help them all feel like they are a part of the action and throw themselves into the music.

The Feeling of Playing Live

We had played most of the EP tracks at one time or another, but this was our first show where we were able to play all the guitar parts. There were multiple guitar lines going throughout most of the EP, so being able to layer them live with songs like ‘Weak’ alongside all the harmonies was a unique experience.

It was our first time playing the tracks live to people the way they were originally intended to sound and that made the whole set feel fresh. Playing ‘Headache’ and ‘God Complex’ live again was heaps of fun now that people have had a chance to learn the lyrics and are able to sing along with us.