Dande and the Lion: Twilight Highway
Dande and the Lion bring their diversity to centre-stage on their latest single ‘Twilight Highway’. With its uncharacteristic pace, increasingly large drums and guitar riffs and light, cheeky lyrics, the track is sure to leave a buzz within you.
When did the base idea for ‘Twilight Highway’ start circulating between you?
During rehearsal, Bianca was playing around with different sound effects on the synthesiser and came across the one you hear in the intro to Twilight Highway. She played the note repeatedly and Nick and Abbey jammed in with the main bass and guitar riff. Once we had that down, Nick took to writing the lyrics.
Can you talk about the story behind the song?
It’s about two best friends hitting the highway, care free and enjoying the moment. It was written with dual lead vocals in mind and lyrically meant to be light hearted in nature to tie in with the upbeat, atmospheric sound.
The song is starkly different in terms of the energy from ‘Stardust’. Can you talk about testing the waters with new arrangements and not locking yourself into a particular sound?
We’ve been a bit like that from the get go. It’s been suggested to us that we need to have a definite sound but with five people in the band with different musical influences it’s hard to conform to one particular sound. There are four songwriters, four singers, we change instruments on stage, we delve into a range of sounds and styles, and so maybe the diversity is what makes us interesting and different. To us it sounds like Dande and The Lion, so maybe that’s our particular sound.
What has it been like to perform it live get people’s feedback on the song?
Fantastic!! We receive the best response with ‘Twilight Highway’. To hear everyone participating and clapping during the chorus is great! With any of our songs, it’s the movement of the crowd, smiling faces, dancing, engagement and maybe even small conversations afterwards that makes it extra special.
Has it been eye-opening to you guys to be able to see how much you can push the boundaries in terms of mixing guitar riffs with different singing styles and different arrangements?
Yes, absolutely. Watching a song evolve from where it began to how it ends up is kind of magical. We allow the song to flow and form, try out all ideas and see what we connect with, and choose from there. In our own way, too, we push each other.
‘Twilight Highway’ is a good example, where we pushed our guitarist Tass to sing, had Abbey solely on guitar, and had Nick write the lyrics for two female leads. These were things that, as a band, we hadn’t done before but it came along quite easily. We still have to get Chris (our drummer) on vocals one day haha.
How has it been to explore the wilder, more adventurous side of Dande and the Lion, not just sound-wise, but with the lyrics?
We’re a pretty open group and so there’s a lot of trust when presenting ideas and lyrics. For ‘Twilight Highway’ it was interesting because Nick wrote the lyrics and wanted Tass to sing lead.
“Not only was this the first time I’d been pushed onto the mic, I definitely struggled connecting with the lyrics initially because I didn’t relate to it so I really had to put a lot of work into that too. Nick had lots of fun pushing my boundaries, and looking back I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I think you’ll see a lot more of our adventurous side coming out in the near future.” – Tass
What can we expect the music video to be like?
A throwback to 90s music videos, a dash of 80s computer games and space themes; and all up a dynamic explosion in colour and sound. Oh, and just a general laugh; it was super fun to make and it’s pretty funny to watch too!
What is next for you guys?
We’re playing spotted shows across the Sydney region before embarking on an east coast tour in October and November in support of our EP, which will be released towards the end of this year.
During this time we will be road testing new songs and hopefully have new things to show for 2020!