Leaders Of The Pack

How did you finance your nominated album/EP?
Nick Murphy (aka Chet Faker): Because I did it all myself it didn't cost as much money. I didn't have to pay for studio time or a mixer or an engineer or session musos or gear or anything… It just cost me in time.

Joe Sukit (Royal Headache, bassist): The LP didn't really cost us that much to make, can't remember how much we actually spent all up but it was probably around $1,500 or something – just saved up the money [we earned] from shows we'd played.

Please describe for us the recording experience.
JS: We drove down to Melbourne to record with a friend in a rehearsal space he recommended, set up our gear and basically just played for a day. That was it, pretty much; all of the instrumentals were done live in one day. We ate some Chinese food from across the street and listened to Internal Rot practise beneath us.

What's been a highlight in your artistic life within this past year?
NM: There's not so much one specific stand-out, but just meeting other musicians that I respect and look up to and actually having a conversation with them about music and having them understand what you're saying and listening and learning from them. Even just being in America and having someone saying, “Hey, man, love your music.” That's just like, “Woah!”

JS: None of my life feels very artistic, so there aren't too many highlights.

How about something that's been a drag?
NM: Probably touring… I'm mildly obsessed with songwriting, like, actually recording a finished piece: an actual song. So touring was really hard for me, because I'm always writing music so to be away from my studio and travelling around… I felt kind of anxious.

JS: Biggest drag would be getting denied working visas for our second tour of the US because we were deemed to not have enough “international appeal”, after we spent a good chunk of the year organising/financing everything ourselves in between working full-time jobs. That was a shitty time.

What does being an independent artist mean to you?
NM: Releasing through an independent label, an Australian one, for my first release was something that I was definitely gonna do because I did have nibbles from all sorts of places but I just wasn't interested in going straight there – there's no rush, you know? And I've still got a lot of growing to do in my own music.

What would you consider to be some of the benefits and limitations you've encountered through releasing independently?
JS: I would say the major benefits are we don't owe anyone money for anything we do or have done as a band. We're still together as a band because we decide when we want to write or record or tour and who we play with etc.