Nick Allbrook And Amber Fresh On Their Book Together

Nick Allbrook has been pretty busy as of late, the Pond frontman still riding the wave of success that’s come with the band’s latest effort, Man It Feels Like Space Again. He and Amber Fresh, who also fronts local band Rabbit Island and recently spent time over east recording some new music, have been friends for years, and their latest venture came from Fresh simply wanting to write Allbrook a story. Writing is an active hobby of Fresh’s. “I did a book of poetry a little while ago, and helped put together a calendar,” Fresh begins. “I’ve written lots of books, I just forget!”

“[This book] won’t take you long, it’ll take you five minutes [to read],” Allbrook jumps in. The idea for the book, titled The Vine, arose when Allbrook started making illustrations alongside Fresh’s writing. He’s since found he’s enjoying the hobby a lot more. “I’m pretty bad, I’ve always been pretty bad at, like, I need someone to commission me for something to do, otherwise I don’t, but I’ve been a lot better recently; I’ve been drawing every day. Having a space makes everything a shitload easier. I’ve had a little spot the last couple of weeks where I can just lay everything out. It’s been the default where I can just wake up and go there, and stuff happens.”

“There’s this boy and this girl, and they’re just kind of open slate representations of young boys and girls"

Although it’s being touted as a children’s book (there’s a dog named Birdsworth), Allbrook and Fresh believe the openness of the story allows for anyone to take something away from it. “I wish we could show you it. I know it sucks for an interview, but if I tried to explain what I think it’s about... I don’t want to say what it’s about because I want other people to make their own ideas. I have big ideas about what it’s about,” says Fresh.

Allbrook lends a hand: “There’s this boy and this girl, and they’re just kind of open slate representations of young boys and girls. I think it’s just natural for us because we really appreciate and hold very sacred childhood innocence and purity. It’s very revered, that childish excitement, and maybe children have the same thing for adulthood, that maturity – both wanting to be each other, and in that way, they’re both the same... It’s so short and open and vague, and that’s my favourite thing about it. It’s completely up to subjectivity; you take from it what you want, as little or as much as you want.”

The book has been something of a vice for the pair, both being extremely busy with their music. It’s been an obviously enjoyable experience for them, and they’re already looking forward to the possibility of another collaboration. “We’ve got another book that we’ve been talking about doing. We might go drawings first and then write the story after. We want to change the process and let the process guide it. We’ll see what happens,” Allbrook concludes.