Broods Interview: Don’t Feed The Pop Monster
Coming in hot after placing #19 on Triple J’s Hottest 100 with their single ‘Peach’, Broods now give us the completed jigsaw puzzle – their third album, ‘Don’t Feed The Pop Monster.’
The album serves as their most vulnerable project to date. The complex tornado of emotions and thoughts that engulf New Zealand sibling duo Caleb and Georgia Nott are candidly navigated in such a way that eclipses the ‘Pop Monster’ and gives them a unique stamp of originality.
Georgia speaks to us about the pride of remaining relevant in the eyes of fans, the isolation of writing and seeing Broods as a vehicle for change and healing.
As we begin the conversation, Georgia is beaming with a refreshing buzz. We briefly dabble into her whereabouts, and the relaxing element that home has prior to releasing their heaviest material to date. She’s wonderfully chirpy and pounces on the opportunity to have a chuckle when possible.
A1on1: Are you in New Zealand right now?
Broods (Georgia): Yes! I’m in Auckland.
Will you be there tomorrow as the album’s released?
Yeah, it’s going to be nice. I’ve got some of my best mates here and my family and stuff. It’s nice to be here for the release.
How’s that period in loo been whilst awaiting the release?
Long. (haha) It’s felt really long. It’s been a way longer build up than the last record, so it’s like kind of this strange [feeling]. We’re so close to the finish line and it feels like it’s been a bit of a marathon this time. With it coming out tomorrow, I feel like I’m just finally settling into the excitement of it and realising ‘oh man! We did it!’
Do you think you feel an added sense of achievement and joy because it’s the third album and you’ve managed to stay relevant for so long without replicating your past work?
I think this record is the most honest representation of us we’ve ever [put out]. I think we always say that because we change, and we evolve, and we get to mark our different versions of ourselves with our music. The fact that people are staying interested through all these different versions is a really big achievement for us. Having longevity and the opportunity to make multiple albums and to have people care about what we have to say and coming to see us live is the real success. It’s not awards or knowing people, you know? It’s being able to carry on and keep going, and like you said, feel like you’re staying relevant.
‘Don’t Feed The Pop Monster’ follows albums ‘Evergreen’ (2014) and ‘Conscious’ (2016).
The third marker of their evolution takes an unorthodox turn. An additional weight can be observed, as the duo make reference to the plaguing notions of mortality, isolation, self-doubt and anxiety.
Do you think those issues have always been floating around in you, and now you’re better equipped to speak about them? Or do you think they’ve emerged more recently as you’re facing more pressures of being musicians? Or both?
Ummm, maybe it is a bit of both. I think the thing that’s changed is self-awareness. I think the more aware you become of your experience of life and you start to really ask yourself questions about your purpose and you start to feel like… you start to feel deeper the older you get. It kind of knocks you around a little bit, navigating these new depths. You do ask yourself so many questions and you start to fear different things. [You] let go of things that used to mean something to you and move forward into new challenges. I think the biggest thing we’ve learnt is how we are so much more responsible and capable.
We just had to look into ourselves a little bit more than we ever have and rely on ourselves a lot more through this experience. [We relied] on each other and the people around us with sound and the friends we’ve made over the past few years. They’re the kind of people we can have these conversations with all the time, so we’re constantly keeping open and talking about the world and our feelings. We’re I think asking [those] questions and it’s totally come across in this new record.
Can you talk about honing that balance and getting the push and pull right between what you and Caleb feel as two different entities, but still making up Broods?
I think the more we work together, the more we know how to do it efficiently (laughs). It’s gotten to the point where we’re in the studio and we don’t really even need to say anything about that anymore a lot of the time. We’re also learning to rely on each other outside the studio and off stage, in our everyday life. We rely on each other emotionally and support with what we go through as individuals. Every time we do that we become closer. It makes it easier to achieve that balance of what we both want. We also have really similar tastes!
That’s what happens when you’re siblings right?
Yeah! I mean, we don’t really know any other way and it just becomes more and more natural.
Their single ‘Peach’ provides a perfect snippet into the world formed in ‘Don’t Feed The Pop Monster’. The tune has an effervescent quality, centring itself around being content with the highs and lows of life.
We’re served an onomatopoeic touch in this track, where the sonics fluidly march alongside the lyrical delivery.
Was ‘Peach’ born from a place of peace or does it come from a rut, where writing the song gets you out of that hole?
It’s funny because it was kind of in the ‘Peach’ mode, when we wrote ‘Peach’. Just that feeling of being content and not feeling too high or too low. It was the first song we made and we were like ‘oh man! This is where the new album is going’. We’d found our stride and I think we’d been all over the show for so long. Then, we went to Nashville and started writing with Tommy English and everything kind of felt calm for the first time in a while. We wrote this crazy, erratic song about how all over the show we are in one of the most calm states we’ve been in.
Broods are able to weave in calmness, yet also delight listeners through the delivery of fiery, temperamental tracks.
The albums content pieces well with the name, ‘Don’t Feed The Pop Monster’, particularly as it begins with the bold statement in ‘Sucker’.
Why was it so crucial to start with such an audacious statement?
To be honest, this whole thing has come together just by feeling it out. We didn’t really sit down and be like ‘ok, we need to start it like this, we need this to go here and then we need to finish it off with this lullaby’. It just kind of happened and then looking back, we were like ‘man, this is what happens when you trust your instincts’. It happens the way it’s supposed to happen. It’s quite satisfying that we knew what we wanted to do even when we didn’t know. But, yeah, I think that starting with ‘Sucker’ was such a perfect way to go into it.
We were kind of getting caught in keeping up with other people and feeling shit about ourselves when we weren’t doing as well as other people, or comparing ourselves and our careers to other people. The thing about this industry [though] is every single person has a different experience. You cannot find two people who have the exact same experience. That’s why you can’t get too caught up in comparing yourself to others or staying on track the way other people do or keeping up with trends and all this shit. At the end of the day, trends come and go, and authenticity is this thing that gets stamped in time forever.
Broods taking an individual route and embarking on their own journeys came in the form of travel. From writing camps in Nicaragua, relocating to Los Angeles and sessions in Nashville, their horizons were expanding. Consequently, this broadened the inspiration behind the album.
Can you talk about each of the climates you made the album in? How was each one more conducive to making certain songs and writing your best work?
I don’t know. I think we travelled a lot. When you travel, when you write, you kind of let go of that pedantic day to day. What am I going to have for dinner? When am I going to do my washing? I need to do this. This person wants to catch up for coffee. You go to these places and you don’t really know anybody. You’re just here to write and you just completely let go of day to day shit. I think that’s how we got to stay in this more deep [state] and exist and write at a deeper level and get to explore things that you sometimes don’t have space in your brain to explore. It wasn’t necessarily like [the specific place].
Obviously, every place is inspiring for different reasons, but for us it was just the fact that we were away from home. It’s almost like holidays you kind of just chill out a little bit. I think that’s where we drew our inspiration from. From not thinking about those things and solely focusing on writing music.
This album sees Broods invigorated and rejuvenated in their craft. Pre-album, Caleb and Georgia unleashed themselves into solo endeavours. Specifically, Georgia created a female driven ‘Venus Project’ to showcase females and their artistic freedom and capability.
The separate projects allowed Broods to come together as a stronger, more streamlined force.
What do you see Broods as a vehicle for that’s different than the Venus Project?
I definitely see Broods as a vehicle to spread the word about being open about mental health. I think that even when we didn’t know that’s what our purpose was, it was still our purpose. We’ve always written about our own experiences and been really open about what we’ve been through. I think this album in particular is all about being inside your head and feeling confused about complex feelings and emotions and going through times that are [difficult].
It’s like poetry!
Yeah. It is a huge, huge, huge part of who we are, the spectrum of emotions that we feel. We have a very, very wide spectrum and I think being able to express everything that we feel, whether it’s crazy, crazy highs or crazy, crazy lows.
You’re very in touch with all your emotions.
People can connect with that. If people can connect with that and feel understood, it brings everyone one step closer to being able to feel like they are not isolated in their pain and give them hopefully some strength to speak up about what they go through. It’s been really beautiful to be able to preach that and through promoting the album as well. It’s such an important thing to both of us. Watching each other go through hardships, watching people we love go through hardships and going through it ourselves, it feels like that is what we’re here for. Obviously to make music, but also like you said it’s a vehicle for [mental health].
Broods not only acts as a vehicle for mental health through the lyrical content of their music. They extend their sense of responsibility to pioneer mental health through their live show, which will make its way to Australia in late May.
Can you talk about the special place the live show holds for you guys? How will it serve as a translation of the album?
I think the beautiful thing about playing live is that it makes everything real. It makes the connections you have with your fans so much more of a physical thing. You’re trading energy and you can feel it in that room, the connection you can make with somebody through music. It doesn’t really sink in until we play it live. [There] we see people face to face and we get to talk to them and hear them sing back and stuff and it’s incomparable. It’s the most indescribable feeling. It is going to be heavily emotional to tour this new album because it holds a lot of gravity for us.
Do you think you’ll strip it back? Will you let the album do the talking over the production and live arrangements? Because there’s enough gravity in the album?
I think we’re going to make it flow and make it exactly what it needs to be and explore some different versions of songs that are a bit older. We’re still kind of building it, but I think it’s going to be the most fun we’ve ever had making a show.
Georgia is continually gracious for the support shown towards the deeply personal album, even after our time is cut. As She thanks me and tells me that the words of encouragement ‘mean a lot’. It’s clear how fond she is of the 12-song collation that the whirlwind of life has translated into.
‘Don’t Feed The Pop Monster’ is out now. With its diary like feel, it’s bound to take you on a journey with the several emotions deeply submerged in your brain.
As for Broods, they have chiselled a ground-breaking release of their emotions. Georgia’s final statement to me goes something like, ‘I do like talking about my art!’ Now after this release, Broods will be sharing about their art for a long time to come. Fans all around will continue craving Broods’ sentiment and gravitate towards their progressive stance on sonics and heavy subject matters.
Broods on tour
TUES MAY 21 – THE FORUM – MELBOURNE
WED MAY 22 – THEBARTON THEATRE – ADELAIDE
TUES MAY 28 – ENMORE THEATRE – SYDNEY
THURS MAY 30 – EATONS HILL HOTEL – BRISBANE
SAT JUNE 1 – METROPOLIS – FREMANTLE
TICKETS ON SALE 9AM MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4
https://www.livenation.com.au/artist/broods-tickets
Follow Broods
