CARL COLEMAN OF PALACE WINTER

Hi Carl and thanks for taking the time out to speak with us at Musicology. Firstly, congratulations on the new record Keep Dreaming, Buddy. This being your third album, was there a feeling of confidence and boldness in how you approached this record or just as demanding and challenging as any of your previous LP’s?

Hello! Just want to firstly say it’s wonderful to speak to an Australian publication for the first time! This record was the hardest thing both of us have ever worked on. Yes, on one hand, there’s a level of belief in your methods and strengths when you’ve been able to get as far as we have as a band. But the constant push to go somewhere else with your work and jump out of your comfort zones etc. It’s bloody challenging! But also super rewarding when you can look at the work later and think “damn, I’m happy with this”. Some artists may say it gets easier along the way. They’re either lying or they’ve given up haha.

In terms of the writing and lyrical content, was there an overarching narrative tying the album together or an assortment of topics and inspirations that zig zag throughout the record?

I’ve been told that I’m a classic example of ‘writing what you know.’ I think that’s true. I draw most of my inspiration from everyday life and my favourite artists and inspiring people in my life. This record doesn’t have a conceptual arc per se, but I like to think all of our albums draw a line back to the ‘human condition’ and what it is to be alive right now. It’s a bit like the Buddhist saying, ‘life is suffering’. Bleak I know Haha. But I generally can’t write “happy”. I’ve tried and it sounded like Smash Mouth or some shit… There are definitely narrative songs on the record though, so yeah there’s a bit of zig-zag going on. Little stories and vignettes with new characters popping up. I’m pretty traditional in that sense.

The dynamism between you both is wonderfully encapsulated in the track 1996. The fusion of your unashamed Australiana vocalism and Caspar’s elegant synth pop hooks both meld so well and speak highly of your work as a duo. How much deliberate and how much unintended aspects of your southern and northern hemisphere selves comes to bear how you approach your writing and recording?

Thank you! A great compliment and actually that’s probably our favourite on the album. In fact, I think Caspar feels it’s the best thing we’ve ever done. I agree with you, that song sort of sums up the whole record and what we wanted to achieve. Super colourful, lots of textures. And the bridge section was really fun to create. We wanted it to feel like you just opened this door to a nightclub and there was a whole other party going down in the next room. As for the cultural clash between Caspar and I, indeed it plays a large role in our overall dynamic. I think it’s the core of what makes our sound interesting. We’re complete opposites in so many ways. As musicians, as people. In fact our band mates often laugh at us “how the hell are you two friends?” Haha. But somehow, when it comes to writing songs & making music, there’s a really strong spark there. ‘A healthy friction’ I like to call it.

The strong lyricism continues on Top Of The Hill but with the addition of Lowly’s Soffie Viemose making an appearance. How did you strike up this partnership and was it a project that had been in the works for some time and just required the right pairing?

Lowly are mates of ours. Both our bands emerged around the same time, about six or seven years ago and we’ve toured with them a bit. Soffie is force of nature. To see her sing live is kinda like attending the sermon of a possessed preacher. I mean that in the best of ways of course. Obviously her feature here is quite calm and soothing, but man when she really catches fire, look out! We knew we wanted a female character on Top Of The Hill and I love Soffie’s performance on it. Again, having her involved was all just part of that strive for new colours and flavours.

The video clip for Top Of The Hill is as cinematic excursion of its solitary subject. Was this something that was strictly storyboarded prior to the shoot or ended up being shot in a very organic method that took shaped based on how it felt during the filming?

It was definitely planned out and somewhat story boarded. But as you can imagine, indie bands don’t have a whole lot of budget to make Beyonce level videos, but we love what the actress Carla Viola brought to that song. I like that we the viewer, don’t really know her but we really want to know her story. I felt that way anyway.

Another feature artist on the record was Jason Lytle of Granddaddy fame who appears on The Deeper End. What was it like to have an artist that you grew up listening to and admiring to then many years down the track, work with the man?

It’s pretty damn special feather in the cap. And a really proud moment for our band. We found out that he’d dropped one of our songs on a playlist he curated with Dangermouse. After that, we sort of struck up a little pen-pal vibe with him on instagram and then the C part in “The Deeper End” popped up and we thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be wild if Jason sang this part? Like some sort of voice of reason looking through the window at all the chaos.’ And we’re so grateful that he was up for it. It’s still pretty surreal to be honest. But amazingly now, it’s etched in stone so to speak. Or rather, etched in wax!

With such richly layered tracks and a masterful finesse in you compositional structures, by prising these layers apart can you elaborate on the technical nature of your production and piecemeal construction through the instruments and electronic equipment you used on Keep Dreaming, Buddy?

Pretty much every sound is created with a piece of hardware. Caspar loves using analog synths through guitar pedals, tape delay, spring reverbs, etc. And modular synths! I’m a very un-flashy guitarist but I somehow make it work haha. I don’t like to have a whole lot of effects on my guitar sound. My fav is fuzz. But I’m a chord basher for the most part. On the first two albums, we pretty much wrote all of the songs in the same room. Just acoustic guitar and piano. But we mostly separate songwriting from production. We’ll record sketches and demos just on our phones until there’s a solid song there. Most importantly, a song needs to work totally independent of sound and production. When we start actually recording and producing a song, we finish it in one go, so we don’t have any loose ends or half-baked projects lying around. The PW-songs you hear, are the only ones that exist. We work on something until it becomes something we like.

Of the ten tracks on the album, how considered was your approach in track order in terms of the overall narrative the record follows?

This is always deeply considered. We would often sit at the end of a days work and play Tetris with the track list. Even when we still had 3 songs to go, we’d just play around with the puzzle to see how it was all shaping up and how the songs best spoke to each other. It’s a good question because getting the track order and flow right is probably more challenging than people realize. But after a while, you just have pick one and go with your gut. Oddly enough, I think our first two albums were almost made entirely chronologically. Almost as if the story was unfolding as we made it. Whereas on KDB, the opening song ‘Monument Eyes’ was the final thing we did. I’d be really curious to see how other artists work around their album track lists and if there are any fun tricks or methods floating about.

With the world in lockdown and the live music scene being mothballed for the remainder of the year, you have a string of dates scheduled for next year which is great and begs the question; can share with us one of your most remarkable concerts and what made it so memorable?

Oh man. We’ve been pretty spoiled. Green Man festival in Wales back in 2016 comes to mind. We played at midday and expected an empty tent. Only then to walk on stage to a full house and it just went off. I don’t know how many were in there but it felt like 5000. I think the fact that everything was still so new and we were just so grateful to be playing at such a prestigious festival in a majestic location like that. It all felt like a dream and was just such an exciting time. There are countless others, but that’s the one that came to mind this morning. Shit you made me miss gigs now! Haha

Lastly, on a philosophical level, what does music give you that nothing else does?

Gee, how do I answer this without sounding like Sting or some shit haha….. hmmm. Honestly, I think it’s just the ultimate escape. You can lose yourself in music. Find yourself. Fall in love. Discover a path. Realize a dream. Be moved to tears. Float off to the stars. In my opinion, people need music like they need air. At least I do anyway.