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DIANA RADAR give us the low-down on their lo-fi approach to music making

Diana Radar are a busy bunch. Since February they’ve released three video singles, toured, run a festival and written an album’s worth of material. Their productivity is due to their DIY approach that all started when they moved into their band house/studio in Carlton.

To get the low-down on how it all works behind the scenes, we asked Rory (vocals, guitar) to spill a couple of the band’s secrets.

diana radar

Need a few tips on getting your DIY act off the ground? Suss out how Melbourne four-piece Diana Radar do the trick.

Keep it local.

When Jay and I re-jigged the band we wanted a place where we could live and write music every day. We found a beaten up two-story terrace house in Carlton. It was down the road from where I grew up on Lygon Street. We’d been keeping an eye on it for a while. When it became vacant we jumped at it.

It has a tonne of character, it almost the functions as a member of the band. We lived, wrote, recorded, and shot our videos there.

Early on, we all worked nearby at local pubs or cafes. The Music Swap Shop and Found Sound are around the corner on Elgin Street, and there’s a pub on the corner. So all the essentials were ticked off. And when it came to making our first video, the old house seemed like the right setting.

Below: Sex Sells, released February 2018. Director and DOP Jay Hynse, filmed at the Diana Radar band house.

Obviously your creative environment is critical, and this place was all ours. Our neighbour started shooting band stills for us and then driving for our recent tour.

The activity around the house became a bit of a collective, our friends got hands-on with whatever we were making at the time. They’d hang at the house, or move in while one of us was away. They’re a big part of what we do.

The house also fronted as a spot to play our own gigs. We’d finish a show then head back and do a follow up set with other bands at the house for whoever was keen.

Old gear, new tricks.

Music and imagery are one and the same. We like working in both areas.

We’d shoot our band on an old Agfa Click that used 120 film. The camera helped create the enigmatic images that pair perfectly with our music.

diana radar

Then we picked up a 30-year-old VHS video camera on Gumtree for twenty-five bucks. You have put it on your shoulder and insert a full size VHS tape, then shoot by looking through the tiny eye-piece.

It’s completely impractical, but so great at the same time. That old gear produces images that work really well with the music we were making. To shoot video with it we’d have to run power out of the cigarette lighter in our station wagon. We’d drive along shooting out the window to create dolly shots effect or tracking shots. That’s how we made the Mustard video, driving around the sheds at the Vic Markets.

We totally winged it, learning to shoot and edit on the fly and always grabbing snippets of film of our friends knowing we’d use it somewhere. It’s like home movies, candid, raw and slightly awkward.

Below: Mustard, released May 2017. Director and DOP Rory Trobbiani and Cloud filmed in Carlton, Nth Melbourne.

Bad green screen.

Some of our friends are photographers and film makers. So, working with them and getting your mates to crew makes it a smooth process.

Even recording at our band house and ‘bringing the studio in’ creates a better feel for us. That’s how we made the Growing single and video clip.

We loved the look of bad ’70s green screens. Especially the way it tears up and doesn’t quite do what it’s supposed to. So we worked with Alex Aslangul, our photographer mate, who shot the clip in that style at his studio in Collingwood.

Then we’d play it back and shoot off the monitor with the old VHS camera. The background footage is from archive news events that were what was happening at the time when we were growing up. It’s like a chronology of our lives. Nothing quite works in the video, which is actually really good.

Below: Growing, released September 2018. Directors Alex Aslangul and Rory Trobbiani