The Velvet Club Turn Heartbreak Into Indie Rock Gold

Congrats on the release of Are You Falling In Love?. How stoked are you to have the album out in the world and see the great response it’s been getting? 

Extremely! Very relieved too. It’s been amazing to see the response already. It's kind of blown us away to be honest. There’s so many ups and downs throughout the process of making an album, so I’m very happy to finally have it out in the world, and the response has been a huge bonus! 

Several songs on the album are inspired by your relationship breakdown, yet the album is titled Are You Falling In Love?. What’s the story there? 

I initially had a different title but decided to switch to Are You Falling In Love? just before we locked it all in. The other title wasn’t a song title, and I loved the question as the album name. A lot of the album touches on a relationship breakdown, but there's also themes of self-discovery, moving on and finding love again in yourself or in what you’re doing with your time. 

Across 10 jangly guitar tracks, you address topics including the end of your relationship and mental health struggles. Do you find songwriting to be a cathartic experience akin to therapy, where you can get it all out via the medium of music? 

Absolutely! I think at times I’m only really completely honest with myself through the lens of songwriting. A lot of the time it takes me until I write a song or some lyrics that can almost seem random at the time to learn that those words on the paper are how I truly feel about a situation or something going on in my life that I might be ignoring or trying to push through.

Despite the themes that run through the album, there’s a real jovial sound to the songs. It’s fun guitar music that makes you want to dance. Are you conscious of this when writing, to make the songs upbeat despite the lyrical content, or is it just the natural evolution of how the songs come to fruition in the studio?

It’s definitely a conscious choice! Personally, I love the idea of songs being super personal and there being a deeper meaning and feeling to it if you’re willing to read into it and dig into the song completely, but at the same time, if you don’t want to do that, hopefully you can enjoy it for what it is on the surface! I’ve never wanted to create a record full of ballads, and I want people to enjoy our songs live, but I don’t think that means the songs shouldn’t still be honest and reflect what the writer is going through on a deeper level, instead of singing about drinking beers or watching the footy or something. 

Your good friend Luke Thomas produced the record. How important was his influence on the album? 

Very! I had made like 50 demos going into the album sessions but I’m not a good engineer at all so he was so helpful in not only improving some of the parts and sections of the songs from my demos with us by re-recording at his studio but at the same time encouraging us to leave some of the original takes from the bedroom demos that he thought had a charm or something that couldn’t be recreated in them. I really love this as it resulted in the mix of polished and produced tones from his studio and my very lo-fi tones from my bedroom setup mixed together all over this record.

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Scott Hoorscrot mixed the album, and George Georgiadis mastered the album. Both are well respected and in demand. How did they get involved, and what was their impact? 

We’re so lucky to have both of them work on our record! Scott was at the top of our list for mixing engineers. As we decided to produce it and record it ourselves with Luke, we wanted to get a really great mix. Scott’s worked on some of my favourite Australian songs/albums, so our manager set up a chat with him, and I nervously showed him a bunch of my bedroom demos. Thankfully, he loved them and was super keen to jump on board straight away pretty much.

Both Scott and George really added so much polish to this record, and I think their understanding of what we were trying to make and their expertise just took this record so much further than we ever could have taken it without them! 

If you had to sum up the album in three words, what would they be?

Community, love and friendship.

There was a period where the band went on hiatus to refresh and reset. Did you ever think you might not get back together, or was a reunion always on the cards? 

I honestly don’t know! It wasn’t so much as a hiatus, I guess it was more like there was no other option cause we literally had no money to record or go on tour, and my life was a mess, so I was kinda like, "Hey, let’s just go to work and hang at home for a bit." Haha. I think we all knew we were going to make more music together soon. We just desperately needed to breathe a bit. 

You’re hitting the road in August for a run of shows. For those who have never seen The Velvet Club live, what can they expect? And will there be an Adelaide visit anytime soon?  

Big energetic rock show! We love playing live, that’s definitely our favourite part of being in a band! I love Adelaide, honestly, I’m sure we will be back soon! We even stole one of your bands in Pureè for this tour. I feel really bad now!  

On the socials, the band posted about being a live band above everything else. How important is playing live, and what do you love most about it? 

Yeah, I think the live setting is just where our music has always made the most sense! We love playing live. We get so much happiness out of it as a group. I think my favourite part is just seeing the music connecting to people in the crowd. It’s really easy to forget that people care about your art or forget how good that feeling is when you’re not playing shows. It’s only when you see a bunch of people right in front of you signing the words back that you really realise that the music means something to other people outside of the band! 

Not only are The Velvet Club touring Australia, but you’ll be ripping up stages across the UK and Europe with DICE. How long have both bands known each other, and how excited are you to be on the road with them? 

We’ve known each other for years now! I think we first played with them in 2023! We’ve talked about touring overseas together since day one of knowing each other. We’re very, very excited to head to the UK and EU with them and very grateful that they chose to bring us with them! 

Is there a city you’re most looking forward to visiting or playing in, and why?

I really can’t wait to play Manchester. So many bands I idolised growing up from there and I can’t wait to see it! As for Europe, I’m really keen to see Copenhagen, but it’s my birthday the night of the Paris show, so safe to say I'm really looking forward to that one! 

Final one, The Velvet Rope by Janet Jackson or The Velvet Underground & Nico by The Velvet Underground? 

The Velvet Underground & Nico!

Are You Falling In Love? by The Velvet Club is out now. Listen here.