The Ocean PartyYou can always tell when a band is made up of a group of close-knit friends, where the music's a natural progression from these familial bonds. This holds true for The Ocean Party, and the warm timbre and innocent camaraderie that echoes through their music is a direct result. The band – Lachlan Denton, Curtis Wakeling, Liam Halliwell, Jordan Thompson and Zac Denton – are prepping their third album Split, an incongruous title given the strength of their bonds. There was little breathing time between their first two albums, yet things slowed down after Wakeling travelled to New York. Their refusal to play shows or record until he was back in the fold speaks volumes for how The Ocean Party works.
“When Curtis went to New York we started writing a lot of stuff. It gave us time to focus a little,” Thompson attests. “And Curtis was writing stuff too from over there. There was a lot of sharing around of the process.On the last album I sung all bar three songs, and on Split I only sing three,” Lachlan Denton continues. “Curtis sings three, Jordan sings two and my brother Zac (the band's new drummer) sings the title track. The thing with The Ocean Party is that everyone has their own projects, their own musical avenues and outlets, so that The Ocean Party becomes a collective of friends who are songwriters. We're comfortable in letting that just happen now, we've gotten rid of the ego and focus on just writing the best songs that we can.” The lyrical content has shifted somewhat on Split as the band members have personal experiences that have affected them. “It's all pretty different because everyone writes their own lyrics, but we do have similar themes running through it all,” Denton admits. “Social Clubs still focused on displacement because I was writing about coming to the city from Wagga Wagga, so Split focuses more on everyone's experiences of the city and living day to day more. We all live together so are drawing from the same pool, just from our different points of view.”
With so many other projects in the wind (such as Velcro, Pencil, Stolen Violins and Beef Jerk), Wakeling maintains that there's a distinct The Ocean Party aesthetic. “We instinctively know when something will suit us, but we're pretty open to trying whatever also, so when it came time for the album we had 20 songs to work through. We all put in our own parts from song to song, so they immediately start to take on other people's playing styles,” Denton states.
“The songs start fairly skeletal, and we start to put the meat on the bones,” adds Wakeling. “It's a full band deal.”
