Slowly Slowly guide us track by track through the creation of their fifth studio album ‘Forgiving Spree’, out now via Nettwerk Music Group.
Forgiving Spree
“This song was the last written for the record and explores forgiveness, through a somewhat selfish and vitriolic lens. I think I understand the power of forgiveness and know what I need to do, for myself to move on and to heal; but it is often so hard to achieve at that core level. The song is about that struggle and also about the power in doing so. It’s a dance with kindness and self awareness that is hard to nail, but ultimately moving through life unburdened by grudges is the healthy way.”
Gimme The Wrench
“Some of the idols in my life, my father and my grandfather, are extremely hard working. During the previous song ‘Forgiving Spree’, I muse on all the times I have felt slighted by chance – this song is about taking back that control through sacrifice and hard work. It’s about not being afraid to put yourself on the line for what you want, because ultimately the things in life worth their salt are those that need a bit of elbow grease to get going. It’s a song to inspire you at the base of the mountain.”
How Are You Mine?
“This song is about that feeling of disbelief as you navigate a healthy loving relationship. We often concoct stories about ourselves and build our personalities around what we think we deserve from the world. Through the power of love all things are possible – this song is a celebration of that feeling and a reminder that it can and will turn around, no matter how bleak the circumstances may feel.”
Hurricane
“Grief, disassociation, but ultimately hope. I know I can’t move through life unscathed and yet when traversing a heavy change, I find it hard to feel engaged. I liken this feeling to standing in the eye of the storm, in momentary calm, watching events, places and people spin around you. Ultimately the only way out, is through.”
All Time
“This song muses on timeless, ageless and boundless love. Have you ever felt that all the details, every single defining feature of your world could melt away and be erased and yet you still would feel connected, at your very core, to a certain someone? A love that spans universes. It may seem to some sickeningly sweet, but if you haven’t experienced it, I hope you do some day. I think it’s also a response to ageing, and knowing I can’t be here forever, the inviability of youth is leaving me – so as I have a curious wander through reincarnation, it’s nice to think I will always find a north star to lead me home.”
Love Letters
“Geez I really do lay it on thick with the love thing hey. Anyway; the lost art of the love letter (something maybe that has fallen through the cracks in the digital age?). I realised I do this through songs, and always have. It’s also a bleedingly aggressive tapeworm of a hook in the chorus that I personally think is just so fun. Big guitar solo, big 80’s stabs – it’s an aesthetic I love and always have. I know we have our roots set in emo singer songwriter territory, but for christs sake let the boys have some fun.”
That’s That
“I often feel the saddest songs are quite disguised – ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’, ‘King Of Wishful Thinking’, ‘Mr. Brightside’ etc. One moment you are singing along, dancing, and then you get sucker punched by the message in the song, it’s almost like it needs to catch you in an unassuming state, but when you listen to a fragile acoustic ballad, you are semi expecting it?! I don’t know, I often think about this duality and have always wanted to try my hand at it. There is a bitter aftershock when a relationship breaks down, where you feel invincible and unscathed – I think there is such a deep sadness in that lie we carry around, before the reality hits.”
Meltdown Masquerade
“This song plays with the ‘Jekyl And Hyde’ struggle in losing your cool. It’s like that moment when you are part human, part hulk and what is going through your mind. I think once I started to see rage and spite as humorous emotions, obviously while in a removed state, it helped me disarm the bomb so to speak when I was in the thick of it. This song is toying with that feeling of standing on the edge of a meltdown, but through the power of laughing at yourself, being able to see those emotions as separate to yourself (if that makes sense?). There is so much colour in our emotional spectrum and yet we often choose to paint with the same old easy options – anger, for me anyway, I feel – is the cowards way out.”
Born Free
“‘Born Free’ is personifying emotions, as if they were characters at a party you were bouncing between, all with human traits. Musing on traversing emotions as if they were interactions with individual people. I realise it’s quite a bleak outlook, to paint each of the emotional states in the song as having left me worse off, but I was feeling rather low when I wrote the song, until I realised through the thought experiment, that the slate gets eventually wiped clean. These emotions are worldly things, you don’t take them with you. We are born the same way we leave the world – as a clean slate. I found freedom in that, and not in a way that is nihilistic, but I think because I was navigating death/grief/loss, the afterlife was playing on my mind. I think it’s a beautiful sentiment, to remind ourselves at our core we are good and we are not responsible for the way we are forced into the world. The concept, when I think of it, lightens the way in which I see the road ahead.”