All The Colours Of The Unicorn - Even The Dark Ones

"I was just talking to someone before about it and it's kind of surreal because it's been so long in the making, and yeah, having my first real listen back to it the other day, I was kind of like, 'Fuck, we've actually done something pretty cool.'" At the time of the call we are roughly one week away from the release of Totally Unicorn's debut album Dream Life; the anarchic and attention grabbing record is full of twists and turns while adorning the band with a watermark that sincerely can't be replicated. Vocalist and all 'round cool guy Drew Gardner details the duality between turmoil and creativity that has brought him to this moment.

Dark times were influential on Totally Unicorn, the record and how the members look at themselves as individuals. "The whole vibe of the album is kind of based on the time that we were recording," says Gardner. "It was a pretty shit time for most of the band members with personal things happening, and a couple of family members passed away — and break-ups and some drug related things, you know, so it kind of took a different shift on things to our usual, like you know, 'Party party, let's have a good time' kind of vibe." According to Gardner, the aforementioned influences unintentionally shaped Dream Life's lyrical structure into a decidedly chronological story.

"I didn't know what track order it was gonna be, but it kind of turns out that it is, lyrically from start to finish, the story from chapter one to the last one."

"So it's basically track by track — a story of the kind of things that happened in kind of a sequence of that time, of last year," states Gardner with trepidation. "It's funny because it wasn't meant to be; I didn't know what track order it was gonna be, but it kind of turns out that it is, lyrically from start to finish, the story from chapter one to the last one." Comparisons to Dream Life can be made from almost any genre in metal, but Dillinger Escape Plan, early Mastodon and Agoraphobic have Gardner nodding in the right direction. "Yeah definitely, that's pretty good, I haven't been put with Nosebleed or Mastodon before so that's cool. I think it has a little bit of a punky vibe as well, I don't know, like a bit thrashy, but yeah that's definitely pretty spot on."

Totally Unicorn reportedly entered the studio to record Dream Life with up to 30 song ideas in various stages of completion. Pushing the conversation in that direction leads to a much more intriguing studio story; "Well it's funny because we had all the songs, well most of the songs, written and we were on a bit of a time frame when we were recording the album because our drummer Michael [Bennett] lives in Adelaide." Gardner has a habit of starting stories with "Well it's funny because". "He lived in McLaren Vale, big wine guy so that's the reason he moved down there... So we booked in all this studio time, recorded all the stuff and kind of sat back and listened to it and we were like, 'Ah, yeah it isn't really our best,' so Michael was like, 'Well, you know, I can't re-record my drums, I've got to pretty much go and we've spent all this money so you guys can re-write everything around my drum parts.' So it was a super weird way to do it, but yeah. So they went back and it took about five months or so, re-wrote all the guitar parts and stuff around his drums and yeah, it came out fucking awesome!" In terms of procedure, Gardner has "never heard anyone really do much of that before".

Another story of interest comes from the acoustic moment in Customer Service Station, which Gardner describes as one of the last bits tracked for the album. "Just listening back to that part our guitarist Kerim [Erkin] had one of his first ever guitars that he has owned, and he really wanted to use it in it. It just felt like a cool part to throw that into, kind of mellow and then building up into the heaviness at the end. That song is basically about me and [Erkin] and we work together in a retail place and... we're sure everyone knows about all the trials and tribulations of working retail."

"As a band we like to have fun. It's always about having fun for us." 

As for the excess material from the album sessions, Gardner attests that it won't ever see the light of day. "Um, nah not really, I think with a couple of like, maybe two songs we had we wrote on the spot in the studio, so we don't really have much excess stuff. When we kind of write a song I guess, we're pretty precious about sharing it so we don't really have anything else extra in the bag aside from that." Irrespective of the unpredictable challenges life will throw at all of us, Gardner cites Totally Unicorn's constant drive to have fun as being responsible for their sharp juxtaposition between cartoon imagery and curb stomping heaviness. "As a band we like to have fun. It's always about having fun for us. Even with the songs lyrically and stuff being a bit darker we're still trying to see the lighter side of things. With the imagery and the illustrations for the artwork, all the little pictures that seem fucking crazy on the cover are all based on one of the songs on the album. So yeah, I think that thrown together like that it's in your face and bright and stuff like that to keep it a little bit happier."

Collaboration between High Tension's Karina Utomo and Totally Unicorn has been a long time ambition of Gardner, and it has come to fruition on the vicious track Convict Brick. "I wasn't there for Karina," says Gardner. "We basically had, well, Kerim our guitarist had a couple of riffs and we had some down time in the studio, so he was just fucking around with them and our engineer Tim, he recorded them. So we basically went out and had a beer and a smoke and came back and Tim who was producing our album just made up this song and it was fucking awesome. I always wanted to have Karina on the album, so yeah, I sent her the song and she fuckin' loved it. So she laid down vocals at a studio with Mike, the guitarist from High Tension and it turned out perfect. And it was funny because she didn't really ask me what kind of vibe we were going for and sent me the lyrics and the song and she fucking blew my mind, it was perfect. It fit along with the whole vibe of the album, it was great."

Gardner is also thankful for the mainstream media coverage the band is receiving, which can be difficult to attain for a heavy band. "I'm fucking over the moon, I can't believe how well it's going with the help from our label. I'm stoked, I can't believe it. I think I remember the other day my brother messaged me and said 'Oh, you're getting played on triple j during the day like at ten o'clock, what's going on?!' and I was like 'Yeah, I dunno!'" It sure won't be the last time Aussies hear Totally Unicorn on their 10am smoko break.