Excited For The New Slowly Slowly Album? They Take Us Track-by-track Ahead Of Its Release

Slowly Slowly's second album, St Leonards, is just a day off dropping and frontman Ben Stewart has kindly shared an exclusive track-by-track look with The Music ahead of its release.

Dinosaurs

This song came together really quickly and completely out of nowhere. I was working on something else and came up with that looped guitar phrase that runs throughout. I went off on a tangent and the jigsaw fell in place. The lyrics and melody all slotted on top within 20 minutes. On reflection, it really encapsulated that longing for childlike naivety, juxtaposed with the glum lens of adulthood I was experiencing. I was going through a very bleak period of my life that seemed unending.

Extinction

This song has the same chord progression and rhythmic structure as Dinosaurs. Weeks after Dinosaurs was finished I wanted to create something which provided some sort of relief from its tension and negativity. I wanted something hopeful ringing in your ears. Something that foregrounds the positive relationships in life and how one good thing can make all the bad pale in comparison. One person can be so instrumental to your recovery. It’s really fun to play live.

The Cold War

This is a really private song that I wrote while travelling through Italy. I kept popping into guitar shops trying to finish it off over about six weeks. With the recording we really tried to keep that initial acoustic element embedded in the song, even though it developed into an epic emotional purge. It’s our drummer Murph’s favourite song on the record and I think it really captures his energy towards the end.

Aliens

Aliens took years off my life. This song felt so different to everything we had ever done and it was a real departure for me creatively. Lyrically, speaking from a bird’s eye view rather than about a single relationship was new territory and it took me a while to reconcile that I was capable of that. It was written around the same time as Dinosaurs and I think you can tell. I was reclusive, apathetic and lost; I guess the song is about how society reflects on the eyes of someone in that mental space. I scrapped this song countless times; I didn’t feel like I deserved to weigh in on the modern pangs of life because in many senses I am so lucky. I guess that just messed with me a bit. Looking back, I am so happy I persevered, but I would not have if it wasn’t for the support from my bandmates and loved ones.

Ten Leaf Clover

This song is about searching for true connection in an age where it seems so hard to find. It’s a modern-day love story — Romeo & Juliet, but with the internet. It was initially inspired by my friend Anna Jay’s voice; I heard her sing and could hear this little duet brewing in my head. Anna lives in Adelaide and so by the time I got to showing her, it had gone from what I thought would be a piano ballad into a high-energy rock song. We ended up leaving it as a band song, but I can still hear a duet when I listen to the song. Maybe we’ll record one day?

It’s a mixture of my own experience and the people closest to me pin-balling around the place, trying to find someone that makes you feel proud to be yourself.

St Leonards

This song is about losing my grandfather. St Leonards is a quaint beach town near Melbourne. It is where a lot of Italian migrants chose to holiday after arriving in Australia and it was where I spent most of my summers growing up. The holiday house has now been sold amongst changes to family dynamics. That place for me represents nostalgia. The sights and sounds are woven into me and so I wanted them to be starkly presented, on top of just a palm-muted guitar. It is in homage to easier times. No frills.

Alchemy

This song felt so strange to write. It was written after the Dinosaurs/Aliens slump and it felt triumphant and celebratory. Things I had never felt the need to write about were swimming in my head. I wanted to sit in those feelings forever but being an anxious person, I always have something tapping on my shoulder. It’s about staying present and seeing the poetry in your day-to-day interactions with loved ones.

Sorry

Pretty self-explanatory. This is about looking at old versions of yourself and realising how ill prepared you were despite your best efforts at the time. It’s about reconciling with the past, olive branch in hand. I wrote it sitting on my bed, staring at the ceiling, playing the same chord progression for hours.

Smile Lines

This song is about disappointing people close to you. It’s about bringing your neurosis onto the playing field and about controlling the parts of yourself you don’t like. I love the way we got the pre-choruses to sound; the lush guitars and big toms. It feels explosive to play live. This song has a menacing element to it – it centres around having a good hard look at yourself. We all need to do that sometimes.

The Butcher’s Window

This song is about my dad. He had a really interesting childhood and I wanted him to have a song that detailed the struggle. He grew up in a boys’ home and left when he was 15 to eventually start his own business and stand tall on his own two feet. I ran it by him a few months ago and he loved it. The title refers to my dad sneaking out and cutting a perfect circle in a butcher’s window with a glass cutter he bought when he was about 10 years old. The window got replaced and he did it again. He found the idea of the butcher showing up to find a perfect circle cut out of the window so funny. I felt it summed up his loveable sense of humour. It feels nice to tell someone else’s story.

Sunburnt Shoulders

The recording of this song was really fun and easy; we put it all together as a band. It wasn’t brewed in the usual think tank of my bedroom but born in the rehearsal room. I feel like it captures a really nice energy where we all were locking in. Lyrically, the song is about letting go and starting fresh.

Song For Shae

My partner’s sister Shae passed away when she was four years old and I wanted a song that celebrated her life. It is a deeply personal song. I sought permission to release it after I wrote it one night after the family got together for Shae’s 30th birthday. I feel privileged to be able to speak about her personality when I never really knew her. It is a difficult story to tell and I find it hard to play the song.

Christmas Lights

This song features our good friend Sam Elliott on keys and was really fun to record because we had never played it before recording it. It was born in the studio and we just built it as we went.

This song is about growing up and viewing your life from a third person perspective. Taking responsibility for things and acknowledging the good — not just the bad. It’s about that coming-of-age feeling: remodeling yourself in accordance with your own proclivity and experience, despite the shape you’ve previously taken from those around you. It’s about becoming less of a victim and repairing the broken things in your life.

Slowly Slowly's St Leonards is out tomorrow, as well heading out on tour. Head to the theGuide for more info on dates.