In a world of nostalgia and recycled, old ideas, modernity can seem forced and irrelevant when it comes to music.
At times, artists have attempted an unheard sound and fallen flat thanks to the inability to connect to an emotional thread within their audience.
One artist, however, seems to be breaking the cycle. Miles de Carteret brings a new twist to the warmth and familiarity of pop music and is keeping innovation alive with his latest track Honey.
Dripping with sweetness both figuratively and literally, Miles de Carteret’s new single, Honey is ready to take on the world. We chat with him to find out more.
Miles and his team have just dropped the video for Honey in which, Miles finds himself and a team of dancers drenched in litres of the sticky substance which makes for some spectacular viewing. We caught up with him to find out how it all came about.
HAPPY: Let’s start from the beginning. How did you get in to music and what inspired you to learn?
Miles: When I was four I had a sick obsession with learning the demo songs on my groovy little keyboard, this eventuated in me being embarrassingly good at the ukulele by the age of ten. My parents soon recognised this and bought me an electric guitar which fuelled my high school years, listening to all the greats. I do, however, relate to the classic tale of the piano teacher telling me music isn’t for me after I failed to read music on my first lesson – who are these pseudo professionals telling six year olds they can’t play music?!
HAPPY: Your sound is pretty unique and, dare I say it, modern. Is it important to you to innovate when you write?
Miles: Innovation is totally something we think about, but more in terms of making our track represent us as much as possible. With Honey, our aim was to create a warm bed of electronic samples/synths and then layer organic textures from live instrumentation to bring it to life. We wanted it to feel human – take the kick drum for example, its a combination of three separate sounds; two sampled and one performed live in studio.
HAPPY: What process do you go by to create new music, if any?
Miles: A new song is born from a moment in time that has moved either Danny (prod.) or myself in a particular way – we try to capture this in any medium; poetry, a melody, or chord progression. We will workshop this initial idea in the studio and flesh it out structurally. It’s important for us to view everything as evolution and harness the power of creativity without restriction. My collaborator Danny usually takes on the role of producer and his systematic approach to creativity works well with my creative chaos.
HAPPY: Some people may not know, you’re also a member of the notorious Bareback Titty Squad. What made you go solo and how are you balancing the two acts, if you are at all?
Miles: Danny and I were playing in that band for years as an outlet for the rambunctious side of our personalities. Taking on over 100 tracks at a time and smashing them into one huge medley. Now, we’re going for the complete opposite – writing evocative original tunes, and aiming to connect emotionally with our audiences – instead of yelling at them! BBTS has definitely taught me so much in what it takes to make a great video, the strength lies in the concept and not the budget.
HAPPY: Let’s talk about Honey. It’s an amazing track with a pretty distinct focus on lyrical imagery, what exactly is the song about?
Miles: An amazing local author and great friend of mine, Autumn Royal wrote a poem which really mapped onto my life at the time I read it. The poem inspired a lot of the lyrics in the song, which is about loving someone for their shortcomings, and finding the emptiness of a relationship its most attractive feature.
HAPPY: The new music video is incredible, congratulations. How did it come about?
Miles: Our first idea was to fill a huge cement cylinder with honey and 10 people before rolling it down a hill. Obviously we scaled it back! We took it to our great friend Jessica Barclay Lawton who is a gun of a director and she helped us flesh it out. Our intention was to capture the honeymoon phase of a relationship, which can feel so much like getting lost in each other. What better way to visually express that than by entombing five couples in 300 litres of honey?
HAPPY: How long did it take to clean up? Do you think you’ll ever see honey the same way again?
Miles: The five hour clean up was the easy part, we spent 18 hours in the kitchen boiling down 350kg of raw sugar with water! Yes you heard me right, no bees were harmed or exploited in the making of our video – however, we haven’t eaten honey since.
HAPPY: You’re getting a pretty good reception for your music, even though it’s pretty early days; what do you think draws people to you?
Miles: I’d like to think people are attracted to the honesty in our sound, we believe it’s such an integral part of music making. People can smell it from a mile away if you’re just trying to make a hit without any heart.
HAPPY: Going forward, what do you hope to succeed with your latest act?
Miles: We’d love to grow our creative family and use this as a platform to put out meaningful music that we and our friends dig.
HAPPY: What’s next for Miles de Carteret? Should we be excited?
Miles: We’re going back in the studio this month with Oscar Dawson to record our next single, stay tuned!
