Winterbourne on writing and constructing ‘Echo of Youth’

The wait for Winterbourne’s debut album ‘Echo of Youth’ is no longer. After testing waters with two EP’s, the duo consisting of James and Jordan cultivate honest lyricism and intimate, emotionally provoking melodies and instrumentation onto their debut offering. We chat to James about bringing their vulnerability, and strength to the world stage. 

How long was ‘Echo of Youth’ ready before release?
A while. Fully finished in June last year. Mixed and everything. We started making it in October 2017. It’s been a long journey. It’s been so long now that the perspective has changed so many times. I don’t even know what I feel about it anymore and I’m just keen for people to hear it.

That must release some nerves, now that it’s become less fresh and more part of your everyday.
We’ve heard the album so many times now that it feels like a familiar record to us. To put it out as a new offering is going to be a new feeling for us. A good thing is that it’s meant we’ve been able to hear it for a year now and we still love it and don’t feel that it’s become old. We’re not sick of any of the mixes, which is so rare…

Especially when it’s an album as well! It’s a good sign.
It’s worked out well and I’m proud of it. We just wouldn’t touch it… That’s success for us. I’m glad we’re not in a position where we’re pushing to change things around, because that would be a whole different feeling.

When was the moment for you where you felt that the album was finished? Was there a particular moment or song between you both?
We did the record in a few stages. We did some in Byron, just laying the beds and then we came back and worked with that for a few weeks. We did a week at our producer, Andy Mak’s home studio… We had another few weeks with it, then went into another studio. Then we finished it and had a few times where we could sit back and get perspective which was really helpful.

When we were in Byron, the song, which is the name of the record, ‘Echo of Youth’. We took every song live as a band and listening back, it was that one. It told us that what we’re doing is what we’ve been wanting to do for so long in our lives. The first time we realised was when we were listening to it on the car, and it was close to wanted it to do. To listen to it for the first time, we wanted to try and get the other songs to do that. Those are the moments that stood out.

Winterbourne’s sentiment extends past lyricism, highlighted by their conscious strategy for ‘Echo of Youth’ to feature as the final album track. 
The way the song finishes, every time I listen to the album, which I try not to do too often now, it comes to the end point and it somehow feels like it says what we want the whole album to say, but it feels like the end of a phase for us. It sums up the record in a way we didn’t know it was going to until we were in the studio.

Jordan and I have been making albums before we even had songs. We were writing down song names and pretending one day they would be actual songs. Track listing is something we’ve always been into. We wanted this album to move in a certain way and do certain things at certain times. We were particular about that.

As the songs unfolded and became more whole, we knew where they needed to go without thinking about it too much. We’ve never had the name of a song be the name of an album before. We’ve always not been sure, but the main reason it ended up being the name is because they’re the last lyrics of the album as well. It’s the last thing we say and it sounded like the album.

What do you think it is about albums that makes you gravitate towards them?
Because of your love of albums, what made you decide to make one following your many EP and single releases?
It’s strange now how it’s all panning out. Albums are becoming less of a ‘thing’, but people are still very aware of it. For some reason, that’s how we always listened to music. We would buy albums when we were, I can’t believe I’m saying it, growing up. When we were in high school, we would buy CD’s. When you go on a road trip you listen to the album, and that album becomes the story of the road trip. I would listen to an album start to finish before I went to bed all evening. You just want to do what you loved other people for doing, and try and offer something new…

It’d be easier to say we love albums and we wanted it to be one piece of art, but at the same time, we wanted every song to hold its own and be purposeful and have reason. You end up with 12 things you can listen to that offer a fresh perspective alone, but you put them together also and it makes sense. We had 50 songs to cut down, so that was a process. A big part of the process was making them make sense together lyrically and sonically.

The whole time we made it, we imagined it on vinyl, with the two sides. That’s why ‘Sunday Night’ is the half point. All these little things that are more pleasing to us is a big part of how we like to make music. Sometimes an album is an excuse to have some boring songs, but we didn’t want that to be the case.

‘Sunday Night’ serves as an intimate and candid offering from the Winterbourne duo.
Did you ever feel that you were oversharing on a song like that? Who initiates the idea?
There used to be [a barrier and a feeling of oversharing]. I finished the demo and sent it to Jordan. Because we’re close friends, there’s never anything that comes out in the song that we aren’t expecting to hear. We’re lucky in that respect. Sometimes, when you send your label stuff you wouldn’t normally have said to someone, that’s a strange thing. But, that’s only if you think about it from that perspective. I’ve never felt weird sharing that stuff because it feels like you need to in some way.

That song wasn’t meant to album. Most people hadn’t heard that song when we were in the studio. Jordan and I had the idea that we would record it acoustically and try and get it on there as a bonus track. We took 11 songs with the intention of making a 10-song album, and I started playing that song and we all loved the melodies and started jamming. The fifth take is what’s on the album. I think it comes across on the recording that it’s just raw. We’re lucky that we’re friends first, and that stuff doesn’t get in the way.

Jordan and James’ music beginnings came through consistent busking alongside one another.
How did you guys meet before deciding to busk?
It was high school in year eight. Our mutual friend was starting a band, but he wouldn’t let me in the band because he already had a guitarist, which was Jordan. I didn’t like him because he was in the way, and I knew he could only play power chords and not full barre chords, which is ridiculous. We ended up going on an excursion together, to play music at a French excursion. We bonded on the train over mutual musical interests and went from there.

What was the biggest thing busking taught you about putting your own ideas into the world?
The way we started was, we knew we could write songs because we’d been doing it for a couple of years… When we got to the busking scene, everyone was playing covers and we knew that people liked hearing those because they were familiar. We steered away and work more of our own stuff in there. We would play two covers and then one original. We would say, ‘by the way, that song is on our CD’ that we printed at home on my laptop.

People would actually buy them and enjoy it. It became more and more about the originals and we were writing more because we wanted to sell more. Then, we made artworks and became our own production factory. We were selling a lot because it was direct to the people hearing the song. If you can connect with someone on a direct level, they want it more in their life. That’s the essence of the music industry. We’ve always known our music connected with people, it’s just about finding the people.

We always think back at that when something’s not going our way, or our music isn’t getting to certain places. Whenever we’re in front of people, we feel like we can connect with them, which is the most important thing, and the reason we’ll keep going. That’s also from playing shows. At the same time we were busking, we were doing the usual circuit of supporting people and playing pubs. It’s all the same, about whether you can and can’t connect with people, which was an interesting learning experience. 

And in the present day, have you been performing the songs from ‘Echo of Youth’ live, and how is the feedback helpful?
It’s helpful because you know a certain song does work on a certain level, but then you try and get it to the point that it sounded live, and you can get caught in that. It’s never really helpful to make music based off someone might think of it. We try not to get brought up in it.

We played four to five songs on the album quite a lot, and we’re confident they hit home from people saying they liked it, or just from asking about it. That generally lines up about what we think about the songs anyway, and how strong we think they are. It comes into play, but the songs change so much anyway, so that becomes irrelevant sometimes and you have to believe in your judgement of a song and what it means to you.

What do you think the songs changing can be linked to?
It’s so many things. Particularly with this album, because we have two EP’s and the guys we’re working with, we’ve worked with a lot, we don’t know how he songs got to where we wanted them to, we just know that we were able to do it. At every point, you use what you’ve learnt and with the experience of making two EP’s, it’s about spending the time to bother making changes and making sure it’s something you want to offer to the world, not just what’s easiest or cool.

The main rule with this album is just to make sure it’s something we’re proud of at every point. I really don’t remember how, it was a lot of stages and a lot of putting things in and taking things out. A lot of working with our team. It’s super interesting, because you start with a song at the demo phase, then go through a big journey and it always ends up being like the demo because that was the essence of the song and there’s a reason it came out that way. That’s something we’ve taken a long time to learn. We didn’t try anything for the sake of trying to be different. It’s all stuff we genuinely love.

The way Winterbourne disperse messages and themes, is striking, touching on feelings of hope in ‘Daylight’, but navigating towards another other extreme of bittersweetness in ‘Breaking Out’.
Putting music out is one of the weirdest things in our lives. We do all these things, and then we have 12 songs to put out to show us. To say all the things, we’re saying and be influenced by so many things, it’s hard to let it come down to just one song. It’s a long process. Every time you listen to a song, you can’t help but wonder if it’ll be popular. It takes a lot of time to get a song to a place where that doesn’t [affect you] at all. When it comes down to it, it’s just words we wrote down when playing a guitar. We always want the singing and storytelling to be the main focus, rather than the cool sounds.

Listening back, the [idea that it’s not about how music sells] is in so many of the lyrics. So many of the songs are because of that experience and trying to offer something that’s personal to you and have people maybe not listen or care, or misunderstand it. You’re constantly assessing yourself next to someone more popular than you.

We didn’t know at the time, but this album is us saying, ‘we’re going to do it anyway’, and we love it. We take comfort in that and will keep making records in that way. We’re offering a view on the world through are brains, and if people would like to join in, that’s awesome. That’s what it’s all about.

Finally, when is ‘Echo of Youth’ best listened to?
I listened to albums just before I went to sleep in total darkness. It’s a lot to ask, and it’s a long time, but that would be ideal.