From Overnight Success To The Set Of 'Conan', Middle Kids Are Going The Distance

Last Wednesday evening, Sydney darlings Middle Kids walked out onto the set of Conan after arriving in the US the night before, smashing out their sun-drenched hit single Edge Of Town for a global audience. Watching Hannah Joy wail and wiggle alongside husband Tim Fitz (playing that titillatingly subtle slide guitar) and drummer Harry Day, it's hard to believe that a trio performing with such dexterity hadn't played a single gig when the track dropped in May last year. Yup, not one.

A week earlier, 26-year-old Joy laughs heartily when we're (very) formally introduced over the phone. "There should be trumpets — ba ba ba ba-de-baaa," she chortles. Their debut EP and a string of headline and festival shows now tucked snugly under their belt, Joy feels more comfortable talking to media than she did nine months ago. "When we first started doing press stuff we hadn't actually done that much," she exclaims. "I mean, there's more content now so there's more to talk about, but I remember just feeling like every time we had interviews we didn't have much to say. We'd only released one song, we'd only played one show, you know? It felt premature... It's like, I probably shouldn't do interviews, like, 'Who are you to do an interview?'"

Self-deprecating humour aside, the trio have well and truly earned their place in the spotlight. Not many groups can lay claim to national airplay and sold out shows off the back of their first single. As well as buckets of triple j support, Edge Of Town was spun by none other than Sir Elton John on his Beats 1 radio show; the track has accumulated over 3.8 million Spotify streams at the time of writing. By mid-2016 the band were trotting through iconic US venues like Mercury Lounge in New York and The Echo in Los Angeles, had a run of shows in the UK and became a staple on the festival circuit back home.

"I don't want to get too navel-gazey: 'This is me, this is me.' It's not about me, it's about bigger things, bigger stories."

But it had to start somewhere. After Edge Of Town grew legs and hit the ground running, Joy, Fitz and Day realised that they were going to have to figure out a live set, fast. "That was definitely like, 'Okaaay, so, we gotta pull something together!'" she grimaces. "Tim and I had been playing for a while together on my solo project and Harry had played a little bit on that too, so we were quite familiar with each other's musicality, but we were definitely scrambling to get a full set together!" Their first Middle Kids gig sold out The Oxford Circus in Darlinghurst in early July. "It was such a special, fun gig. We were like 'wow', so surprised it was sold out, the energy in the room was so good. I must say though, the capacity wasn't huge, like 150 or something," she shrugs.

Fast forward a few months and they found themselves running amok on the stages of Fairgrounds, Volumes, Festival Of The Sun and more. "I feel like our music is good on a big stage like that. Historically we played in these small venues where the stages were tiny, so we were really squished. It was so awesome to be able to dance and move around because there was so much space. I could leap and lunge and crash into cymbals!

"For things to move in a way it hadn't before was quite exciting," she continues, "because you definitely do just get used to doing your thing and having your family go, 'You're cool!' and you're like, 'Thank you' and that's enough. But the energy that comes out of that is awesome, really positive and motivating."

Follow-up single Your Love dropped in August, proving Edge Of Town was no flash in the pan. They were the talk of BIGSOUND in September, and won FBi Radio's Northern Lights competition (sending them to perform at the Iceland Airwaves Music Festival in Reykjavik) in the same month. "BIGSOUND was where we were able to connect with Jim [Pitt, Conan's booker] for the first time and where we began the conversation about coming on the show, so it's hard to imagine that happening so soon without the conference," she acknowledges.

Their uniformly exceptional six-track EP Middle Kids is a testament to Fitz's inventive production and Joy's dynamic lyricism. Engaging storytelling (and that damn fine slide guitar) lies at the heart of their musicality, with Joy stressing the importance of communicating a full narrative within the allocated time frame. "I feel like something that's powerful about songs, about singing, is the chance to tell a story. And so I think lyrics in that way are really exciting because you have three-and-a-half minutes to tell a story that helps shape a point of view," she muses.

"Conan was so fun and we still can't believe we got that opportunity."

"I don't use my life story; I use a story that's maybe a little more broad — important or relatable to people." Keeping things personal would "feel too vulnerable, and also I don't want to get too navel-gazey: 'This is me, this is me.' It's not about me, it's about bigger things, bigger stories. I am quite vulnerable in terms of my emotions as a performer, but I think that to be vulnerable is a really important part of being a musician in a way that makes sense to you."

Middle Kids was predominantly recorded in Fitz and Joy's home with the exception of Day's drums, recorded at Parliament Studios in Sydney. "We recorded nearly everything on the EP in the basement... Tim's interface didn't have enough channels for a talkback mic at the time so if Harry was recording in the basement he'd have to yell feedback down a laundry shoot from the control room upstairs," she laughs.

"We were making demos here and we really loved the feel of them — sometimes there's just a little bit of magic and you don't know what it is, you just know it feels good. So we decided to follow that and I think that for our first EP it's kinda special to do that, to then grow from that place. But we're already starting to work on the album and I think that we'll record that a little differently, maybe more in the studio, and collaborate with a producer or something... We're really interested to see what will happen when making our first album, just wanting to keep that but then also we do want to grow and feel like the sound is evolving, not getting stuck. It'll be an interesting balancing act."

A few days after landing on US soil and the band are still on a high... quite literally. "America is a very big place so naturally there's a lot more venues and a lot more artists. It'll be amazing to be on the road traveling from town to town playing shows every night, which is a bit harder to do in Australia... We are so excited [to play with Cold War Kids]. Their first album is one of Tim's favourite records so he's losing his mind," Joy laughs. "Conan was so fun and we still can't believe we got that opportunity. We'd never done anything like that before so there was some anxious energy flying around backstage. Harry had a lot of fructose that day, so [he] was bouncing off the walls a bit!" Bon voyage kids!