“The Album Universe Taps Into Ominousness And Sadness”: Kieran Stevenson On His Debut LP

Kieran Stevenson, Brisbane’s glittery pop-forward king, is finally releasing his much-anticipated debut album, After The Call. Releasing independently tomorrow (February 28), the LP is a vulnerable look into Stevenson’s life with a lush and nostalgic exterior. 

Describing the album himself, Stevenson said, “I have always imagined these songs being played in succession on a solo road trip or something. Like you turn out of your sunset-drenched suburban driveway and press play, drive out on the highway, out to the desert, under a starry sky, and each song becomes the soundtrack of all the deepest thoughts and scenarios you can only truly ruminate on when you're with yourself. You keep driving to the edge of night until it's dawn and you can take stock and begin again.”

And, to celebrate the impending release of After The Call, Stevenson is taking The Music through his new album, track by track.

If You Could Read My Mind 

There was a really long period of time where I would write a lot of my songs without choruses for some reason, a lot of verse/verse/bridge/outro chorus structures. I remember hearing Can’t Deny My Love from Brandon Flowers’ second solo album and wanting so desperately to write a massive chorus. This album and song ended up being a massive influence on the album overall, but even down to the timbales and backing vocals in this song especially. 

Need Your Love 

I turned up to a studio session with Cody McWaters (King Stingray, The Chats, FELONY.) crazy early on a public holiday, and nothing was open near the studio so I just paced around this park opposite the studio for a good two hours. I started just humming little melodies, and threw a bunch of ideas into voice notes. When I got home, I started to piece it together and all of the ideas ended up sounding so much poppier than anything I’d written before. Where I would typically shy away or try to make the song darker or weirder, I decided to lean so hard in and just let myself craft a big pop moment. It ended up being such a freeing experience to let myself make something like this, and even as a later addition, it ended up being the first single I shared from the album. 

Down The Line 

The original demo for this song was so synth heavy and it couldn’t have ended up more different. I decided I wanted to keep the same synthy energy as the demo but try diving into some Americana influences I was starting to listen to. A lot of the guitars in general ended up referencing Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac glittery-ness. My dad ended up coming in on this one to record the slide guitar, then the song in general ended up being a family affair; my Nanna line dancing with me in the video, and my mum assisting me on the embroidered suit I decided to make for the video. I love playing this song at shows in West End because that’s where the lyrics went down, so the references to a convenience store and a carpark feel like I’m a tour guide when I sing it. 

After The Call 

This song is the namesake of the whole album and the whole world around the album. It was a really hard one to write, it took me a good 3 years to figure out how to put the story into a song, and even when I started to write it it took a while to get to the bottom of the theme or how I wanted to sum it all up. Ultimately, it came down to just listing everything I could remember from the moment in time, describing the places and rooms I was in and the way I felt, it all led me to needing to be really honest and admitting some regret I’d held on to. Super dark stuff, but I think it kind of opened up the feel and visuals for the album and the album universe to tap into the ominousness and sadness. 

How We Fall 

This is the only true co-write on this album, it came out of a writing session I had with my guitarist Joseph Rabjohns on the Gold Coast. His band Kodiak Empire definitely sits in a heavier/prog kind of zone, which I think came through a little bit in the bridge. We started out with the riff which felt super Springsteen adjacent, who we both love, and we loved the idea of the choruses having a really stadium feel, but then the verses I wrote a bit later on my own, super inspired by The Blue Nile and some of Paul Buchanan’s solo album’s super sparse style of writing. The bridge also features a hectic tom solo by Libby Scott (Pink Matter, Bella Amor). So special on this song too to have my sister singing backing vocals. 

Cut & Run 

I wrote Cut & Run after we were already super deep into making the album. It immediately felt like it belonged on After The Call as a way to start tying off and winding down from the higher energy of the first half of the album, a short little palette cleanser. Initially, it was written to be only a couple of minutes but we decided to extend the outro to just sit in the feeling for a little while longer after the song developed its own little sad DNA. Because we were already deep into studio time, my co-producer Cody McWaters and I were in a really cohesive streamlined zone of working together by the time we got to Cut & Run, so we tracked it pretty quickly, kept the original scratch vocal takes, he ripped some acoustic guitar and it was done.

Memory // Retreat 

This is actually kind of a sister song to Down The Line, it’s written about the same situation but Memory // Retreat checks in a couple of years on from the events of that song. I feel like this is definitely the weirdest little moment on the album, nearing 6 minutes, a vocoder/a cappella outro, and it’s overall a really slow burn. Cody and I recorded these drums (played by Pat Morwitch) in an old Brisbane bar (RIP The Flying Cock) where he used to do live sound, which got us the massive, colourful room sound on the drums. Super crazy to think we would be back there a month or two later to see Cody do live sound for Charli xcx in a secret set after she opened for Taylor Swift. I love the Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel hints in the production on this song, heroes of mine in the world of weird choices in pop songs. 

Limits Don’t Last 

Limits is like a little prayer or something to me. It’s actually over a decade old at this point, which is crazy, but also I think something that makes it so special. I wrote it after realising I was a bit lost and was feeling like I was overgrown in where I was at, and reassuring myself that it’s okay to pick yourself up and move on. I feel incredibly lucky to have some really incredible musicians and friends play on this; Kayleigh Pincott is a phenomenal jazz singer who also did the vocal arrangement, Jordy Polbodetto from Selfish Sons, Tom Cromwell, and Kristin Berardi, Monique Clare, and Uhkirra. They all came in individually to play/sing their parts but it came out feeling like the most cohesive and beautiful string section and choir. The running joke is that this is a ‘montage at the end of the season finale of sad and serious tv show’ song, so this one goes out to music supervisors (put this in your shows/movies) and sentimental emos everywhere.

Kieran Stevenson’s debut album, ‘After The Call’, is out tomorrow (February 28), on all streaming platforms.