Foley Go Track-By-Track On Their New Album 'Crowd Pleaser'

What Got Into You

This track is from the very earliest sessions for the album before we knew what the project was or how to approach it. Unknown to us at the time, it really set the tone - chaotically creative and a try-everything-once kinda attitude. This is a screenshot from the video of the moment we ran the entire track through (producer) Josh’s pedalboard! It’s how we got the bridge and chorus to sound so weird.

Killing Me Babe

Killing Me Babe was the first track we released off Crowd Pleaser, and we were quite nervous about how it’d be received by the fans, as it was a big departure from our previous tracks!

From the start, we knew it would be really important to build a visual universe around Crowd Pleaser - to showcase the intricacies and themes properly, and to guide fans along the journey.

So this is taken from what ended up being the first music video shoot for the record. We’re tied together with masking tape and wondering what mess we’d gotten ourselves into. It’s a funny moment, but I think you can clearly see we weren’t fully used to embodying the Crowd Pleaser energy just yet.

Smooth It Over

These are the legends Julia Karlsson and Anton Rundberg who co-write this track! There’s a certain euphoria when a song comes together, and I think this is the exact moment it clicked. Smooth It Over is a fun, bouncy song and every part of it was conceptualised to this day. Love love love.

Tongue

Contrary to the ‘Killing Me Babe’ video shoot, this really shows us hitting our confident stride with the visuals. This is from the Tongue visualiser shoot, and you can see all the reflections, lights, mirrors and equipment in the background that made it a really tricky one to shoot. Shoutout to director Connor who finessed a glass factory to shoot in (and Allied Glass Onehunga for building the set & lending the mirrors).

Visualise

Okkkk so I still dream of these empanadas and tacos that Sweater Beats and Rafa bought us during the session. This was the first session on our LA writing trip last November, and our first time back stateside since the pandemic. What an incredible welcome back - it’s impossible to write a bad song with food this good.

Heal My Heart

Originally this track was an upbeat funk-pop track, but then turned into the vulnerable, emotional heart of the record. We’d done five sessions for the original version, but this photo is from the first day of rewriting the song completely. In the background, you can see all three of the acoustic guitars we used to re-track it, and Ash is cutting the vocal on the couch to make it as intimate as possible.

Nothing

This is a screenshot of messages from my (Gabe!) Mum, offering equal parts encouragement and threat! Fun fact, when we started Foley we weren’t sure who would sing, and it just happened to end up being Ash through the first few tracks and onwards! Nothing is the first time I’ve sung lead, and it felt really natural to do it in the writing session, but at this point, it was uncharted territory so we weren’t sure what to think! So this was the push we needed I reckon.

Lost In The Garden

I love this photo because it reminds me of the time when (producer) Harry once convinced me that his piano was left-handed... with the treble on the left and bass on the right. Oh, how I fell for it. Harry tracked a decent amount of the bass and guitar for Lost In The Garden, as he didn’t have any right-handed guitars for me to play. Mans has the sauce too!

Coffee feat. Tim Atlas

I think this really captures the energy of the ‘Coffee’ video shoot & the chaos of the track itself! This is the team setting up for the intro shot, trying to steady the rig and figuring out how on earth we’d shoot it. Ash had to hold this pose for several takes while getting driven around, fast, in circles. It was very very funny and very very challenging, but anything for the shot right?

On The Rocks

Famously, we have no visual documentation of the writing sessions for this song - apart from this screenshot of a TikTok on the day we wrote it! Enjoy this dog getting out of the pool. It’s very important.

Foley’s new album, Crowd Pleaser, is out now. You can listen to it below.