True Disappointment

"We really wanted it to be a bit wilder and a bit more us – it was all about showing more personality,” Michael Strong begins. “On the first EP we were really trying to get back into the industry's good graces.”

Weird Peace, the band's second and newest EP, follows last year's Stranger and sees the band attach a more authoritative and driven sound. The extra work has paid off splendidly so far, with the EP's first single, I Disagree With Myself, gathering national attention as it worked its way into triple j's summer rotation. For Strong, this seems a far cry from a couple of years ago, when morale was low after releasing a somewhat undercooked solo album. “I and the others had done a couple of flat releases with our older bands so we just wanted to come together and learn from that and to show we were serious about what we wanted to do. I think we got that message across this time around. We had a lot of fun in the studio and I was at the tail-end of an audio degree so I was really geeking out with all that stuff. It was really a great time.”

Aside from making the record more personable, the band recognised they were going to have to be harsher when picking songs, and that's played a huge part in creating the good vibes within the band. “Stranger came from our very first batch of songs that we put together. This time around I think we wrote about three or four dead-end songs before we got to the good ones – it took a while to warm up to writing them. It was a challenge paring down everything we had on the table and cutting out all the unnecessary stuff, but as a result I think this is the first time I've felt like the songs we've made are really The Disappointed. The process of writing it was basically a matter of trying to reflect the dynamics of the band, and now we're really sure of who we are and what we're doing together.”

Strong feels as “pumped” as he'll ever be for what's ahead: a national tour and plenty on the agenda once they return. “We've rehearsed this set for months to the point where we're going to get up there and we won't even be thinking about playing; we'll just be having as much fun as we can. As for what happens next, we've got a split seven-inch vinyl coming out with Dexter Jones, who're from Adelaide and playing our EP launch with us, and I'm hoping to get the first two EPs – Stranger and Weird Peace – on vinyl as a twelve-inch and release that as a special edition sometime. We're also hoping to get working on the third EP or the album, depending on how this one goes, but for now, we're just trying to have as much fun as we can.”