Lazy loves: we chat to Angus Stone. ⁰

by Kirra • Music

Angus Stone’s languid melodies float around the room and his voice, soothing yet captivating, hits you right between the eyes and you can’t help but stop what you’re doing to listen. With the recent release of his latest album, Broken Brights and a massive tour hovering on the horizon, Angus took some time out of his hectic (yet somehow apparently still calm and enjoyable) day to chat to Kirra Smith about the album and living a life of dreamy days.

 

Can you tell me about a normal day in the life of Angus Stone?

I roll out of my bunk on the bus, walk outside have breakfast at 4pm, sound check…. have some drinks, play a show, get back onto the bus, roll back into my bunk and wake up the next day, in the next town.

If it was the best day of your life, where would you be and what would you be doing?

I’d wake up, splash on some clothes and lay on the couch to daydream about sleeping. Once that’s done I’d go for a walk in my paddocks… talk to the cows and the bees, then swim in the lake and dry off in the warm rays of the sun.

Tell me a bit about how Broken Brights came about?

Broken Brights came about through love of writing music.

The actual words ‘Broken Brights’ came about through filming with old cameras. When you shoot through an old super 8 camera, up into the light, it becomes too much for the camera and it shuts down and turns dark. And when you shoot it through a canopy it creates this flickering, these shards of lights, and I like to see them as broken brights.

How different are the sounds on this album to your previous solo album?

More so than the sounds it’s the feeling behind what this record means to me. And I guess that feeling is just this voice that I’ve found through exploring and the adventures I’ve been on, and I this “being different” is just more me.

Do you have a favourite song on the album and what does it represent to you?

My favourite song on the record is Monsters. I locked myself in a hotel room in Amsterdam and wrote this song for my girlfriend at the time. It was originally an electronic song but when I got back to Australia, we jammed and we recorded it as it is now.

The video clip for Monsters is cool because I’d been writing a story at the time and it tied in well with ideas we came up with for the clip. It’s the story of me being chased and escaping from the creatures of the forest. There’s lots of blood and me falling down hills.

Can you tell about bit about your process of creating an album?

The way I approached writing this record is the way I’ve always tried to write music: the moment a song chooses you it will arrive & unfold in its own time… it should always be naked & willing.

What can we expect from the Broken Brights tour?

I’ve always wanted to play in the Alaskan forest. So I put this forward to the guy who does our props… and he recreated that…. so it feels like we’re under the stars in the forest. I’m really proud of this record and just want to keep playing it live.

We saw you at Splendour in the Grass and loved every second, do you have a preference in the type of gigs you like to play i.e: festivals or intimate gigs?

Thank you.

There’s something about intimate gigs. I like playing in old churches, places with that history in the walls and in the air and being close to the people listening and I feel like you can get more of that at your own show than to at a festival. It’s still there… but it’s just different.

You’re touring in the US soon, how have they responded to Broken Brights?

We’re playing really cool venues and it’s become much like it has here (in Australia), in the way we can play solid shows. Going to places like Salt Lake City and making our way up to Canada, in through all the rural parts of the States, it’s amazing how your music can trickle into all those different rivers of another continent.

Is there anything in particular you hope people will get from the album?

For all the people that have listened to Julia and I for so long, I’m looking forward to handing it over to them, so that they can create their own worlds & experiences with the writings.