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Interviews

Morning TV delve into gender imbalance in the music biz, reverb, and nature ahead of Sad Grrrls

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Morning TV fell in our laps on a fittingly sunny day in spring last year with their incredibly charming debut single Golden, a blissful piece of reverb-soaked guitar pop.

Since then they’ve continued to charm us with a few well-placed singles – both featuring the same warming glow that Golden exuded – which has now finally culminated in the release of their debut EP.

The rest of the year will be spent playing some huge festivals like Volumes and Sad Grrrls, no doubt alluring audiences with their carefree attitude to surf rock and their knack for wringing every inch of juice out of a hook. We chatted with the band about recording their EP, the way nature seems to permeate their creative output with ease and playing festivals like Sad Grrrls.

Morning TV

Before they get lost in the back end of 2016 playing festivals like Volumes, Sad Grrrls and basking in the glory of their debut EP, we caught up with Morning TV to chat reverbnature and shifting the imbalance of gender in music.

HAPPY: Hey guys, congrats on finally getting Golden into the world, we’ve been waiting for it for a while. How has the response been so far?

Ana: Thanks so much! We’ve been super stoked to get it out for ages and the response has been great, we’ve been blown away at how many people have been saying “hey I like what you’re doing”, it’s cool.

HAPPY:  Can you tell us a little about the recording process behind the EP? I understand you guys worked with Tim Fitz from Middle Kids – how did you meet him?

Ana: So we met Tim Fitz years ago just through music and all the fun times, and we’d recorded with him with other bands, and we like him. We recorded the EP in his house in Northern Sydney. We had some songs together that we’d had for years and wanted to record them and play them live. So, we started working on them and came to Tim Fitz and recorded them and Tim added his producing wizardy.

HAPPY: When did you guys start playing together?

Ana: Tim and Brit had some songs floating around for years (Golden and Dive are both a few years old) and we decided that we should maybe put a band together and work hard on the songs we had and write some more together, after writing about 10-15 songs we came to Tim and recorded them.

HAPPY: Themes of nature and the outdoors seep into Morning TV, both sonically and aesthetically. Where does this stem from?

Ana: Brit and Tim do almost all of the writing for the band – Brit grew up down the south coast and Tim grew up in the Blue Mountains so writing nature-inspired music was something we really wanted to emphasise through our sound and aesthetics I guess.

HAPPY: How do you explore those themes when working in the studio – do they shine through naturally or is it something you work on quite vehemently?

Ana: Hmm I guess we just look for bright open sounds that go with what we might have been inspired about when writing the songs or whatever. I don’t know! [laughs]

HAPPY: What have you guys been listening to recently? Is there anything in particular that really influenced the record?

Ana: We’ve been listening to Angel Olson, Royal Headache, Bored Nothing, Phantastic Fernature, HANNAHBAND, Beyonce, Rhianna. I think we’re probably influenced by these artists and bands but we try and just be influenced by normal life and experiences with the day to day and nature, its kinda lame to be like “I want to sound like Dave Grohl because I like Dave Grohl”, you should want to write how you write and do your own thing.

HAPPY: What about gear-wise – is there anything that you guys were using in the studio that really inspired you?

Ana: We really love reverb, I think a lot of our sound comes from that washed out effect that reverb gives off. We played around with guitar pedals a lot too. Tim (our guitarist) puts a bit of effort into making the guitar sound mint.

HAPPY: From the get-go you guy have had a really engaging aesthetic with videos and artwork  – who do you work with on the visual side of things?

Ana: We do all our own visuals, we all made that video ourselves. Tim (Guitarist, not Fitz) has done pretty much all of the artwork and photos of the singles and the EP. We think that doing all the art and everything is just as important as doing the songs themselves if you’ve got the skills and ideas that go along with the songs you’re making.

HAPPY: Who are some of your favourite Sydney bands kicking around at the moment?

Ana: Phantastic Ferniture, HANNAHBAND, Middle Kids, Shining Bird, Greenwave Beth, Tanned Christ, Blackwire.

HAPPY: We’re stoked to see you guys on the Sad Grrrls festival too – such a great lineup. There are a lot of amazing events popping up at the moment aimed at championing female creatives in a really progressive way. How does it feel being a part of this wave of new cultural feminism?

Ana: We were really stoked to be asked to play at the festival – not only being part of a stellar line-up but also the whole idea behind the event is something we want to be a part of in the way it looks to champion upcoming female artists and just generally celebrating females in music. It’s exciting to see the gender ratio in the music industry changing, its cool.

HAPPY: Who are you keen to see at Sad Grrls?

Ana: We’re really keen to see Le Pie, Coda Conduct and Julia Why? We’ve all been pretty keen to see them for a while so it should be a cool, fun day!

HAPPY: Have you guys got plans for the near future after you launch the EP – is another EP in the works, or maybe an LP?

Ana: We’ve got another EP in the works that’ll probably come out toward the end of the year or early next year and then we’ll maybe work on an album or something, probably go on tour. There’s things in the works that we’re really excited about!

You can catch Morning TV playing at Sad Grrls fest Sydney alongside Jaala, Camp Cope, Le Pie and heaps more, Saturday 8th of October – get tix here – and Volumes on August 27th.

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