Everything Might Be Tenuous But Luca Brasi Are Forever

In 2018, Luca Brasi were on the brink of releasing their fourth album Stay - an album that represented both their biggest sonic shift and most vulnerable writing yet - and frontperson Tyler Richardson was hopeful yet cautious about its reception. 

“We never set out to do anything, and the fact that we get to do anything, it’s just - I say it all the time - the fact that we get to do anything is a bonus. If it was over now, we’d still be so stoked about who we got to meet, the places we got to go, that people cared enough to come and waste their time and money hanging out with us, is just fucking awesome!” he said at the time.

“I guess it’d be different if we set out for all these massive goals, but we just didn’t. We’re really lucky that it has worked to this point. Until the record flops, anyway, and then we’ll be back to square one,” he laughed.

They now walk into the release of their fifth album, Everything Is Tenuous, having had a Top 10 album and an ARIA nomination (Best Rock Album for Stay). 

When asked if these accolades made anything different this time around, Richardson says “I guess it kind of did a little bit”.

“I don't think it really changed with what we were trying to do. But now, it's got to this point, and it kind of feels like, ‘Oh, shit, I hope this record does well.’ I guess it didn't shape what we wanted to do, we set out with the fact that we liked what we have with Stay more. 

“You know, obviously, it was amazing that [Stay] did better than anything we've done. But we just feel like every record is kind of honing what we want to do as Luca Brasi. The biggest effect was that it helped drive home what works with the band and what doesn't work as much over time.”

Now over ten years into their time together, Richardson and his bandmates - led guitarist Thomas Busby, rhythm guitarist Patrick Marshall and drummer Danny Flood - are still learning to adapt, circumstances in 2020 meaning they had to record themselves for the first time.

“We did the first two singles off the record, which were Tangled; Content and This Selfish Love. We did [them] in Melbourne with the guy who produced the whole record, Andrei Eremin. And then everything changed. So, it became a point where it was like, 'Holy shit, we can't really travel to make this work anymore, so we're gonna have to go a different route.' And we've been mucking around with recording ourselves and demoing, that's kind of a process we've been doing [for] ages,” he explains.

“And we were talking to Andrei and he was like, 'Look guys, I think we can do this by proxy'. So the first go was recording some stuff at home, we did the drums at our rehearsal space with our front of house guy, and everything else was done at home. So it was like, 'Ok, is this gonna work?'

"Andrei was pretty confident he could do it and we got the first song back and were like, 'I'm pretty sure this is the same quality as we just got spending, you know, the last five days in Melbourne on two songs.' It was like, 'I think this is possible.' So we just kind of, instead of getting a big advance to go and travel and be in a studio, we got an advance to buy recording equipment, which was really cool. 

"So we kind of just had to learn on the fly. We recorded a bunch of this record at Pat’s house, we recorded a bunch in Busby's spare room, I recorded some at home. It was just such a cool learning experience. And I guess you have to learn when you don't have a choice,” he says laughing.

Luca Brasi have never shied away from releasing emotionally charged albums, but with Everything Is Tenuous it feels like Richardson has hit another level of honesty in his writing. In early press for the album, he spoke about how it centres around the idea of “the fragility of life”. 

“Looking at the themes of the record, I come back to a lot of the same, or similar, sort of stuff in songwriting when I start dissecting what I'm trying to [talk] about,” he says.

“But I know a lot of the themes are tying back to the same thing. It was like, things change so quickly, and so often, like life’s never a linear journey in any sort of sense. You’re kind of watching things as you get older change... Friendships change, and lives change, you know, even within the band, two of the boys have kids. Life rolls on and things rarely ever stay the same. 

“So a lot of the things that I'm thinking about in this record, getting older and understanding yourself and understanding the world and understanding where you sit in it and what you want, and, I guess, who you want to be. Things change so often, and that trying to hang on to stuff is amazing, too, but at the same time stuff does slip and it's not necessarily something to be worried about, or scared about, or wish that the world could just stop, because it's just not gonna happen.”

While not necessarily written about the year that’s just been, the concept certainly does lend itself to reflecting back on 2020 and the world’s monumental shift. 

“The upheaval in everyone's life in the world is just such a great example of what I was just talking about. It wasn't necessarily intended to be about, just this year, but it's just such a great example of things... You don't have control over everything. In one second things are the way they are and then it could be here,” he laughs.

Everything Is Tenuous is out now. Check it out, and find out more about Luca Brasi, via the buttons below.