TOWNS Has An Itch They Can't Stop Scratching

TOWNS has long been a staple of local punk-rock. The duo - made up of Dan Steinert and Aston Valladares - has been playing for a decade now, with trademark high-energy performances and a bubblegum sensibility undercutting the heavy sonic landscape of their music. The news that they would finally be releasing their long-awaited debut album, sentimental slowdown, was major.

There is a unique, intimate kind of intensity to being a two-piece. The band has literally become a partnership - Dan and Aston rely completely on each other. TOWNS as a project encapsulates that reliance, that persistent faith in one another. They are, after all, a self-professed “two-piece puzzle.” They are perfectly shaped to fit together.

“I guess that's the thing about being a two-piece, right?” Aston says. “You've only got that relationship with each other, as opposed to, three or four-piece bands where there's a few interconnected relationships.”

He equates the nature of their first ever meeting to that of a rom-com meet-cute. “We met on our very first day of uni - literally the first class. It was quite surreal. Like, that's not really supposed to happen. I mean, it happens in movies.” He runs through that classic cinematic scenario: “You sit down and someone walks near you and goes, Oh, do you mind if I sit here? And you go, Oh, yeah, sure. And then you're listening to the lecturer talk, but you're cracking little jokes at each other, and then you start talking about music and art and things that you like.” He smiles. “We both started getting a bit giddy.”

Dan lived far away from UniSA at the time, where they were both studying a Bachelor of Media Arts. On public transport it was a two hour commute. Aston recalls the first time that he offered Dan a lift home via his own car. “It was scary, taking that plunge.” But that plunge was crucial to solidifying the tight-knit musical relationship that led to TOWNS, as Aston explains that during that first car ride home they took turns playing each other songs they enjoyed, and thus everything “went from there. It just clicked.”

But it wasn’t until a few years later that they actually started to make music together. Aston had just come out of a band he hadn’t felt fulfilled by, and was still trying to find his feet musically and trying to find like-minded artists. Dan was in a similar situation, stuck in a band that didn’t align with their musical sensibilities. The two eventually started a new band with a few friends - but even that, again, was just “not the right fit.”

The two of them hanging out after band practice is what eventually gave birth to TOWNS as audiences know it today. Together, they would fool around and play Title Fight and Citizen covers. “And we just started writing our own songs. And it just blossomed out of that.”

Does it ever get complicated navigating the peaks and troughs of the music industry with just one other person to rely on? Is tension more likely to swell between a two-piece rather than within a band with multiple members?

Aston laughs good-naturedly. “Sometimes my relationship with Dan definitely takes more work than my one with my wife, which is crazy to think about.” He admits, “It took a lot of trial and error of finding out our quirks - especially touring together. But I think me and Dan have spent enough time with each other to learn what ticks each other off and what we need at certain times.”

The two have, after all, been navigating this project together for a decade now. They are pretty well-versed in slotting against each other and becoming that puzzle, when at home or when on the road.

Though TOWNS has been a predominant band of the Adelaide scene for a while, satiating fans with lively performances and regular singles, this debut album has been a long time coming.

“It was more of a financial challenge than it was a creative challenge,” Dan specifies. “Recording an album is a way crazy process that we had never done before. And so I think when we started doing it, we bit off more than we could chew.”

Surely it must be deeply emotional, having a project that has been the culmination of a decade of friendship and work finally come to fruition.

Dan talks about first getting the masters back. “I was listening in my car, I was listening to the first track. By the end of the song, I had the nice, nice tears going.”

They expand on that feeling. “[The album] still hits home, obviously. And there's such a range of songs on there that we've written over time, and so different ones bring out different feelings. Whenever you look at it, it's kind of like a shelf of memorabilia collected over time.”

Aston agrees. “What’s really cool about each of these songs is that they each have their own little time stamp…There’s a song there that we wrote three or four years ago, and there’s a song on there that we wrote two weeks before we went to the studio. So I think that’s what’s kept it emotionally relevant for us.”

Much of sentimental slowdown deals with the push and pull between adulthood and childhood. In a joint statement, the two call the album “an ode to everything we loved growing up and everything that shaped us in our early 20s.” They add, “Here’s to being sentimental and slowing down.”

Aston discusses the balance of being an adult and allowing for growth while still acknowledging the child within. “I know that having fun is important. I know that junk food is important. I know that staying up late and hanging out with friends is super important. But I'm also aware that having adult emotions and learning how to respond to stuff as an adult is super important, too. So it's a full equation.”

Dan says that they are both “really good at staying connected to our inner child and doing things for our younger self. When we set out to record this album, it was almost like we were doing it for the younger versions of ourselves.”

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The album artwork pays further homage to the world they grew up in and the children they were. Aston explains, “The album is very dedicated to suburbia and growing up lower-middle class.”

Dan created the album artwork, scattering it with different “sentimental” motifs and objects that are reminiscent of their childhood and the Adelaide they grew up in. The little boy emerging from the front door of the house - visible if you squint - is in fact a replication of Aston going to school as a child.

Aston says the way that the two grew up “has been super foundational to our songwriting and storytelling. I think it’s cool to have that replicated visually on the album.”

The two are hitting the road to celebrate the release of sentimental slowdown from November 16th - tickets to various tour stops are still available. They are both keen.

“Tour is like a little battery pack to being in a band,” Aston says. “I feel like it recharges that love of why you’re doing it.”

It makes total sense that the two have rushed headlong into pursuing music together. As an adult, music is perhaps the purest, most euphorically childlike form of play that there is. It’s an outlet that is physical and creative and uninhibited. 

And Dan and Aston can’t help but launch themselves into music with everything they have. “When Aston comes over to my house, he just reaches for my guitar,” Dan explains. “We can’t physically help it. It's almost like we've got the worst rash in the world, and we can't stop itching.”

sentimental slowdown will be released on all streaming platforms on November 15th. The vinyl is available for preorder now.