In The Studio With Gang Of Youths As They Finish Their Album

Sydney (and often America) based Gang Of Youths came out of 2013 as a focal point of the emerging artist crop, with the promise of a debut album giving them serious '2014 one-to-watch' status.

Having signed a deal with Sony Music – through their own Mosy Recordings label – they relocated to America to record with Kevin McMahon in his New York barn studio, Marcarta Recording. With the album (originally slated for a September release) nearing completion, the band recently found themselves in Sydney and spent two days tweaking and polishing what they had in Sony's studio with house engineer Adrian Breakspear.

“Sort of. Sort of almost done,” singer and chief songwriter Dave Leaupepe told theMusic.com.au in the studio's pool room. “We've got a bunch of songs today that we're finishing off to send off. Almost done – it'll probably be out and I'll be like, 'It's still not done'.”

The vast majority of what will become the debut album was recorded in New York – and Kevin McMahon's space will have its thumbprint all over it – but Leaupepe's obsession with perfecting will leave him tinkering until the very end.

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“I think my vision's been pretty uniform. The whole process of this has been profoundly autocratic from the start, mostly because the subject matter is so personal. It kind of materialised in this super control-freak manifestation.”

He said, “When it came to the studio, throwing things down, there was a distinct process that had to align itself with what I initially intended. For the most part, things look how I wanted. Things that didn't go how I envisioned in New York we're just re-doing here… It's just an obsessive thing, never being able to stop. Even when I was a kid I'd be like that with anything, if there was a video game that I'd finished I'd have to go and fuckin' do all of it. I had to unlock all the characters and unlock all the bonus shit – I just had to do it.”

Leaupepe knows there needs to be a deadline though, and is warming to the idea that someone else may need to create it for him.

“I hope as soon as possible. My personal goal is to have it mixed by the end of July and mastered by August and set for wide release sometime for the end of this year of the start of next year.”

Listen to their new single Poison Drum below as you scroll through the in-studio shots taken by theMusic.com.au's Cole Bennetts.