Dear Seattle: Hellbent On Authenticity

Dear Seattle are still riding the high off releasing their third album TOY, and for good reason. Reaching #1 on the Australian ARIA Chart and #4 overall in the first week of its release, fans frothed the album from the very beginning. The success of the record championed the band's biggest tours overseas and now a re-release of TOY's deluxe edition on vinyl arrives ahead of an extensive Australian tour with support from Seahaven.

It's not hard to see why TOY gained so much traction in the charts. Chatting with The Note, frontman Brae Fisher talked about the journey of writing and producing the album, taking it back to the fundamentals, his introspection, his excitement and producing a record that has resonated with fans across the world.

The band's sophomore record Someday was released in 2022 and written amidst COVID pandemic restrictions and lockdowns. Fisher recalls that losing the live music element in his life made it different for him to write.

“You lose that whole application of it being something that needs to translate to a live performance," he said. On top of that, being unable to collaborate in person with the rest of the band members led the album in a slightly different direction.

"Whilst I love that album and think there's so many amazing parts of it, it was very exploratory," Fisher says. "It started floating more in the direction of the style of music I was listening to, which was lots of folk music and softer ambience stuff.

"For this record we were like, let's just bring it back to what excites all of us together and do the record that I feel we always needed, which was one that shows what the sound of Dear Seattle is.

"(TOY) is the strongest album we've ever written. I feel like the craft of our songwriting has gotten so much better and it really shows. I think that's what allows people to really resonate with the music; it makes it so much easier for people to comprehend it, absorb it and really connect with the message and the feelings behind it."

As a songwriter, Fisher is as genuine as they come and he was thrilled to speak about something he was clearly so passionate about. He described the way he writes as "journalistic", delving into his emotions, things that he's experienced and how he sees the world, leaving everything out on display.

"I'm kind of hellbent on this idea of authenticity," he says. "Gratification comes from writing an album that feels really personal to yourself as well as feeling like it's pushed your own boundaries too."

Love is one of the biggest themes on the album, something that has previously been underexplored in Fisher's writing, mostly because he felt like he didn't understand it, and partly because he was afraid of it.

"I've had first loves and stuff like that in my life, and our first EP was kind of written about heartbreak. I felt like I'd experienced it, but since then I've met my now fiancé and we've been together for nine years. I feel like I have such a better understanding of what it actually means to love someone and that (feeling) is more interesting to me now.

"From a songwriting perspective, love songs are such a common thing. But I've become more interested in it because I've realised how nuanced and deep love can be, and to me that has become really intriguing and something that I can dig deep into.

"Before, I thought sadder, anxious emotions were interesting to me because that was what I was experiencing at the time. It comes back to whatever circumstance I find myself in; what I'm experiencing and learning day to day is what informs what I end up writing. At the moment, I guess love is a big part of it."

READ MORE: The Lazy Eyes: Finding Beauty in Simplicity

The final track on TOY is the band's Like A Version, a cover of Missy Higgins' 'The Special Two'. Upon listening to the original, I was extremely curious to find out how the band chose this song for their cover in the triple j recording studio.

"We had a lot of ideas floating around," Fisher said on deciding which song to choose. "It was actually my brother who suggested it to me because it reminded him of the way I write music."

He sat down to relisten to the Australian classic, and lo and behold, it was "perfect".

"(Missy Higgins') style of writing and her lyricism feels so similar to the way that I approach writing lyrics. I instantly started working on a demo of how it could sound as a Dear Seattle song and it just came out so naturally, like it was [a] Seattle song from the get-go. I was just like, 'yep, this is it, this feels right'."

One year on since the release of TOY, fans received the lucky news that the album was being reissued with two additional songs, 'Bedroom Pacer' and 'I Can't Make It Right'. The band, being on their upward trajectory, touring and gaining new listeners by the minute, decided to give their fans "something to chew on".

"We always loved the two songs; in hindsight they probably always should have been on the record. We added them because we did this big tour of the US last year, visiting almost every state, and we had all these new eyes on us. We did an Audiotree session over there as well and it felt like there was this influx of new people looking at the band and listening to us. We felt like rather than making all these people wait for a new record, let's just do a deluxe release and add those two songs that we've always loved."

Because of the widespread success of TOY on home soil and overseas, Dear Seattle embarked on their biggest tour to date, heading over to Europe, the UK, North America and Asia. As Fisher joined our Zoom call, he shared that he had only just gotten home from a week in Asia. Returning almost immediately to work, he was hiding in a meeting room in the office to do this interview.

"(Asia) was probably one of our favourite tours we've ever done… the fandom over there is crazy.

"Pretty much everyone who was at the shows would stick around afterwards and get a photo with us, and they'd print off photos of the band to get signed or draw images of the album artwork and stuff like that. It was a whole other level," he said, beaming.

Fisher also shared that he’s experienced some pretty special moments with fans on tour, especially when he was on stage. "(The audience) singing the songs back is the highest echelon of seeing people resonate with what you made and to be able to share that experience with them, in the flesh, face to face is super special to me," he recalls.

"I've had one conversation with a guy who told me that he was dealing with really difficult mental health stuff at the time and wasn't sure if he wanted to still be here. He mentioned that the music had helped a lot in his journey. I wrote those songs for myself for the same reasons, going through a really tough time and just venting because I needed to get it off my chest. Now I've put that out there into the world and potentially helped someone else.

"It's a crazy, perplexing thing that (music) can have that impact on other people."

Catch Dear Seattle performing at Lion Arts Factory on Sunday 30 August. Tickets on sale now via moshtix.com.au.