Bakers Eddy Break Down Every Track On Their Debut Album, 'Love Boredom Bicycles'

Concertina

We were playing around with the chorus for ages but could never find a home for it, and actually even after we wrote the verse instrumental it never really got us excited. Usually, with us, we know pretty quickly if it's a keeper or not once the instrumental is laid down. It was the verse backing vocals and the tambourine that made the song. Once we had those we were like, “Fuck, we’ve got the opener for an album." 

We had this issue for ages where we let different people's differing opinions influence our decision making. Which became a total head fuck after a while and we completely lost direction and belief in what we were doing. Concertina was us voicing those frustrations, at pretty much the exact moment we decided to take back full control. That was the mentality that carried through to the rest of the writing and especially the recording process for the entire album. It was a very empowering feeling and I think this song embodies that.

Hi-Vis Baby   

This was probably the most fun song to write. That day I had a pretty gruelling co-write that was going nowhere. I got off the session and Alex came into the room and started playing this hectic melody then I remember the two of us had the entire song, drums and everything in about 40 minutes and in that time I think we got through two bottles of cleanskins. It was a total outburst of frustration, because I'd just spent six hours battling through this co-write. It was totally an outburst of frustration and you can hear that in the frantic nature of the song.

We were on this mission to have the whole thing finished that evening so Ian was like “write about something you like” and cycling was the first thing that came to mind. I think we talked about changing the lyrics eventually but I like to listen to demos when I ride my bike and this song came on and it felt fucking liberating. So we kept the original lyrics.

21 

21 was one of the first songs we wrote when we uprooted and moved to Australia. We were living in this shitty house in a grim area and we didn’t know anyone and everything here was big and scary compared to Welly. We had just turned 21 too and that in itself is a pretty pivotal moment. So that mixed with all the anxiety and excitement of moving somewhere foreign brought up all these feelings of nostalgia and uncertainty. 21 is about all those things, reminiscing about where we had come from, being an anxious young adult but also being excited by the uncertainty of the future. 

It was kind of forgotten about for two years but resurfaced when we were trying to record what was supposed to be our second EP but we were trying to push it as a shouty punk song and it didn't work. 

Our label actually suggested we put it on the record. We weren't going to but after listening back to the original demos I think we realised it was a pretty important part of our story so we put it in.

Coffee Mate

It’s probably the most unapologetically basic song on the record in terms of it being very predictable and poppy. Which are two things I love from time to time and what I set out to try to make in this case. As a band we’ve always loved banging three-chord pop-punk shit, it’s badass and we were starting to get a bit carried away with jazzy chords and bullshit so writing Coffee Mate was like a little reality check. Like, “Let's not get too carried away with this musical shit that we aren't that good at."

It’s also one of the songs that speaks to the “Boredom” aspect of the album title in lyrical terms. It’s a COVID lockdown song, unfortunately, and I say unfortunately because I don’t want it to be defined by the pandemic because I think writing about mundane shit like boredom is awesome and something I've done for ages but this song specifically is about COVID boredom. Which I think is relatable to everyone. 

However, the chorus lyrics have zero metaphorical meaning. I tried to change them so many times but they stuck. Maybe the chorus is just open to interpretation or something.

My Baby’s Like Cigarettes 

I actually take back what I said about Coffee Mate being the most unapologetically basic song because I think Ciggies trumps it. We are big believers in the “quiet verse, explosive chorus” ethos but this was our first successful turn from that. We’d tried to create dynamically flat songs before but they all fucking sucked. But for some reason this one worked, I'm not sure why but it didn’t suck like the others. It also features the second most percussion on the album which is a stat I'm quite proud of. 

It’s about love in a real sense. Not falling in love or honeymoon period love where everything's perfect, but what it is to be in a loving relationship. Every relationship has its moments where you want to kill each other, that’s just a part of it. But this song feels to me like when it's been a couple of hours and things have settled and you’re both able to laugh about whatever trivial bullshit you were arguing about or even forgetting what you were arguing about in the first place. It’s about the ups and the downs that you get in relationships.

Drinking Mood

We wrote Drinking Mood around the same time as we wrote 21, so pretty soon after we moved over and I was just having a really shit day. Everyone was pissing me off and I was probably feeling super anxious and I was drinking a lot, initially because we just wanted to party all the time but it became a way for me to deal with the depression I was feeling at the time due to not knowing what the fuck we were doing 3,000 miles from home. 

We were also exclusively drinking fortified wine which turned us feral, so not good.

But it’s funny because the song musically is probably the most upbeat and joyful sounding song we’ve ever written, and most people when they hear it think “drinking mood” and assume it's about letting your hair down and having an awesome time. Not crippling depression and alcoholism. I like that about the song though. I’ve moved on from that part of my life so I just see the dark humour in the song and when we play it live I'm not thinking about the sad shit, I'm like, “Yeah! Drinking Mood, let's go!” 

Sober

Sober has been the bane of our existence for two years. It’s been a staple in our live set for ages now and every time we’ve gone to release something new we get all these comments and messages from people being like “cool, but where’s Sober” or “if it’s not Sober I'm unfollowing” so I don't know why but people have had an affinity for it. Which is a really cool thing to know and we can't complain but it was a huge relief to finally put it out as a single this year, so everyone can shut up now.

I'm joking mostly but we do love the song, it’s not fucking around and it's got an “arms in the air” chorus which is a huge win. 

It’s about the struggles and uncertainty of long distance relationships. Looking ahead and thinking “where will I be years from now? What will I be doing? Will I still be in the same place with the same shit?”, while also coming to terms with the mistakes that I’ve made and knowing that trying to mend them drunk is only going to make things worse.

So for a jumpy rock song, it was some melancholy to it, which is a common theme with most of our emotionally heavy songs. 

FMO

This was another really fun song to write. It’s another one where the music contradicts the lyrics. It’s about someone going through a really shitty break up but I'm tracking vocals doing the fucking Rick Astley dance. I don’t know but I feel like because it sounds so infectious and joyful it accentuates the “fuck you”ness in a way. It’s like when you flip someone off with a smile on your face, it sounds like that and I think if you’ve been through a messy break up this song will make you happy. If you're like me and a total percussion nerd this song is definitely for you. We went to fucking town on that shit. Genuinely I think the song wouldn't be half as good without it.

No No No

No No No is probably the greatest moment on the record. It's like 40 seconds of educational, road etiquette fury. 

I genuinely have no memory of when or how we wrote this but I'm pretty sure it was some drunk band practice a few years ago. But somehow it managed to slip into our live set as a set-up for an older song of ours and it became a favourite so we had to stick it on the album. 

I feel for Jamie because he's got this beautiful sweet singing voice and we've just forced him against his will to scream and completely cook his voice for the sake of a 40-second song about crossing the road. 

He's got this weird thing where he can't scream the part unless he's sitting downplaying the drums so Oz (Oscar Dawson) had him air drumming while he did takes. 

The wanky outro we added with Oz is my favourite moment on the whole album. It has zero right to be there and adds literally nothing to the song but it's the best. I was listening to The Garden and The Mint Chicks a lot while we were recording so those bands influenced the decision to add that part to the song. 

Peripheral Vision

Peripheral was a massive turning point for us. We were a couple of months out from releasing an EP we wrote in 2018-19 and we were all feeling pretty underwhelmed and over it. The songs didn't feel like us anymore and it was hard to get excited about. But the idea of adding a few songs to the EP was pitched to us so we could call it an album so I started writing again for the first time in over a year to try to make up numbers. 

The first song I wrote was Peripheral and it was such a huge moment. 

I was listening back to the demo on my pushbike, fucking sobbing because it sounded like such a big departure from what we had been doing for such a long time. It was the first time in years It got me properly excited about my music.

And I think after that moment I started writing differently and the songs started sounding new and more in line with what music I liked to listen to. So we now had all these songs that sounded completely different to the songs on the EP and we made the call to change lanes and start an entirely new album. 

It's my favourite song on the album partly because it represents such a pivotal point in our band's lifespan and also because it's a fucking sick song. It was the first song I'd written that gave me a feeling of nostalgia and I love that shit. 

Space Is Nothing

I have a tendency to write about love in bullshit metaphors but Space Is Nothing is super on the chin. It’s just a good solid song about love. I wrote it after a pretty decent session on the red wines so I was feeling feelings for sure. I'm pretty sure It started when Alex and I finished up drinking and the song was done by the time Jamie was getting up for work. It all flowed super quickly and it's quite “jazzy” for Bakers I think whilst still being a bit cooked at times. I think it's actually really pretty and nostalgic which are two things I've struggled to evoke in the past musically.

I wouldn't go as far to say it's our ballad because it ends up getting pretty hectic at times but it does have that same softer feeling which is very new and unusual for us so I think people might be a little blindsided by it. 

Getting High And Thinking About You 

It’s about making mistakes in relationships, dealing with that with drugs or alcohol which end up making the whole thing worse because all you’re doing is thinking about this person that you shouldn't be with. Which I feel is quite relatable to most people who have ever been in relationships. 

Musically it’s probably the largest song on the album in terms of volume, like at the end it almost becomes anthemic. It also has, hands down, the coolest moment on the record, just four snare shots into the final chorus. The couple of times we’ve played it live Alex and I pop off when that part hits.

The drums are pretty full-on, like constantly tripping over themselves throughout the whole song. I think it feels like the song could just fall apart at any moment.

Valuable Things 

We first stumbled upon Valuable Things when Ciarann and myself (Jamie) had flown up to Sydney for a co-writing session. We wound up needing to kill some time before the first session and jumped into our labels writing room utilising the only thing available that we somewhat knew how to make sound with, a piano. 

Ciarann had the rough melody from a while back and I had a couple of dexies tucked away in my wallet. We combined the two and began to play around with it for a couple of hours until it was time to head to our session. It wasn't until that session where we added a drum track, guitar and built the song from the ground up around the lyrical theme of losing something valuable that the song really had legs.

We workshopped the song a few different times after that initial session even trying it on for size as a double-time punk track. The more we played with it the more we were drawn back to the original roots of the song, slightly more bare-bones stripped back with a somewhat lazy 3/4 swing feel. When we added the drunken chant-like gang vocals with the band and it was like okay this is different for us but we all really loved it. We think it really brings another element of what we can do to the record and it just had to be the closing track.. it just couldn't not be. 

For more details on the band's upcoming tour, click here.