Interview: daste. delves into their creative process, lessons from their debut album, their excitement for touring, and more.
daste. image via Maxwell Byrne
Over the past half year, Australian trio daste. have been steadily building anticipation for their sophomore album, dasteWORLD. With a string of singles the band has teased a project that promises to be both immersive and expansive. Featuring collaborations with a talented roster of producers and musicians, dasteWORLD is set for release on February 19.
The Daily Music Report caught up with daste. to explore the origins of the project. In our conversation, the band opened up about the challenges of the release cycle, the lessons they carried over from their debut dusk&dawn, and the rewarding process of bringing their music to life on stage. Let’s dive in!
The Daily Music Report: Congrats on the upcoming release of your sophomore album, dasteWORLD. How have you enjoyed this release cycle so far?
daste.: The release cycle has been incredibly exhausting if we’re completely honest. It’s been a really rewarding experience and we’re so excited to be at the finish line as well as being proud of the body of work we’ve spent the last two years creating. The responses have been amazing to each of our singles and the excitement is being felt by the three of us.
We approached this album with the intent to release a string of six singles which has been a lot of hard work with aspects such as content creation, artwork etc. and we spent a large chunk of 2024 playing live shows which added a lot of pressure due to the time and attention it requires to be touring that heavily.
But now that we’re here, we can’t wait for everyone to hear it and to hit the road bringing it to life on stage.
Are there things you learned from your debut, dusk&dawn, that you brought into this release? How does this experience compare to your first album?
We learned a lot from our experiences during the recording of dusk&dawn. We were still doing a lot of the production ourselves, keeping a majority of the process in-house. I would say that we learned the that the most “dastey” sounding music we make is when we’re all together, so going into the writing of dasteWORLD we took the time to go on writing trips and start our ideas from scratch. We feel that’s been one of the most rewarding lessons learned.
How does this album differ from your debut album? Are there any elements that feel like a continuation or evolution of your earlier work?
The main difference in the process between both albums is the types of collaborations. dusk&dawn was collaborative in a feature artist sense, with our friends DVNA, Uhkirra, Akurei and Maina Doe all contributing their vocals. With dasteWORLD, a lot of the collaboration in the project has been behind the scenes.
We worked with a number of people such as Maxwell Byrne (1tbsp/Golden Vessel), Jasper Gundersen (First Beige), Lloyd Haines, James Vincent (Jim Alxndr), Aidan Rahman and Jess Cameron. These were all such talented producers, writers, session musicians and mixing engineers who were able to elevate our sound to another level.
So although, the previous album looks like a more collaborative album we’d argue the opposite.
Can you tell us a little about dasteWORLD? Are there themes that run through the project? What inspired it? Were there any particular moments or stories that shaped this project?
Like all of our music, dasteWORLD has themes of introspection and self-discovery. A massive theme of dasteWORLD as a whole is around escapism. The concept for dasteWORLD was really around the world that we get to escape into together when we write these songs, sometimes writing about real experiences, or making up stories that link with lyrics in other songs. World-building was a big part of this album – no pun intended.
Your lyrics often explore themes of love, loss, and resilience. Could you share the stories behind a couple of your favorite tracks? Are there specific moments or messages you hope resonate with listeners?
We like to say our lyrics are purely introspective however, recently we had a fan tell us in Montreal, that we were a bunch of lovers so I guess it’s true. We just try and explore themes that everyone can relate to in the hopes they don’t feel alone when they listen to our lyrics. ‘either way’ is a song where the lyrics continue to pop up in our present songs and we actually ended up revolving ‘dusk&dawn’ around the sun as a result of that track – a sun that always rises. As we’re progressing, we’re trying to evolve our lyrics to a point where they can have layers and double meanings that fans can pick up on.
Are there any Easter eggs or subtle details in dasteWORLD that listeners might not catch on the first play?
Yeah, we’re always trying to reference anything daste. subtly in our works. We tried to approach the lyrics in this album with care and cohesion and you might be able to pick up on lyrics in one song, referencing lyrics from another song.
How do you approach translating your studio work into a live setting? What are some challenges or rewarding aspects of performing your music live?
Translating the studio work into a live setting has always been an interesting challenge for us. From the beginning, the idea of us recreating all the production layers and FX in our songs with only the three of us and possibly somebody on drums seemed impossible, but we felt like it was too important to our music to disregard completely. Over the years we’ve switched our live setup around countless times trying to find the best way to do it, even doing it with just the three of us and a sampler for the drums. Currently, we have the help of some amazing musicians that play in our live shows (Aidan Rahman and Nathan Graham), and we’ve put a lot of effort to make sure everybody’s talents are being utilized with the small crew on stage.
As we grow we aim to make the tracks more and more live and our dream is to add as many talented musicians on stage as possible. Performing those songs that we’ve spent so long listening to over and over in a studio setting is so refreshing and really makes you fall in love with the song all over again.
You’re about to head out on a tour of Australia supporting Still Woozy. How did the opportunity come about? What excites you most about sharing the stage with him? Are there particular cities or moments on tour you’re especially looking forward to?
One day we just got told we’d been put forward as an option for his upcoming Australia tour and it was basically down to whether he vibed with us or not. About a week later we found out he did! It was a cool moment because he was an artist we’re all a fan of and used to listen to a lot when we were starting out. I guess we’re most excited to meet Sven and the band, while soaking up the experience and learning as much as possible from one of the best to do it.
What’s your go-to snack or ritual in the studio or while on tour? Is there something that always sets the vibe when you’re creating or getting ready to take the stage?
We don’t often snack in the studio, but we always make sure we have a finely rolled wendy in the holster to set the creative vibes. Tour is a whole different story, you’ll find the tour van stacked with goodies but one collective favourite would be Pomplamoose La Croix’s. And before shows we all drink gin and tonic with lime.
If you could have any artist remix a track from dasteWORLD, who would it be, what track, and why?
That is honestly a big ask. We’re so open to anyone remixing our songs. If we had to choose a song to be remixed it would be ‘New Light.’ It’s a funny inside joke because we ended up changing it so many times that we came up with a “New Light Multiverse” after the amount of revisions the track went through. It’s one of the more up-tempo tracks of the record so we’d love to hear it in a dance perspective. It could be nice to hear it flipped by one of our early influences like Tora or Leisure.
See daste. live on tour with Still Woozy.
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