Up-and-coming WA indie-punks Odlaw released their well-received debut album, Regret City, last month, and have been playing a string of shows in support of the full-length in recent weeks.
With two home-state shows remaining on the tour, frontman Mark Neal was kind enough to take some time out from his hectic schedule to reflect on the 12 songs that made it to the album, albeit some more changed over time than others.
But it's better that way; if they hadn't changed with the band, they wouldn't still be honest songs — and honesty lies at the core of Odlaw's songwriting. As Neal writes of fifth track Sport: "Honesty is key."
"That's what this album is: 12 tracks of me trying to help myself with support from a bunch of fucking legends," Neal said of Regret City in a recent statement. "Maybe that's what life is."
Listen to the album and have a read below.
1. Struggle Town (sentimental)
This is kind of the title track for the album. I mean, it’s different, but it has that same kind of meaning. I almost called the album On The Corner Of Struggle Town On Your Way To Regret City, and I settled for splitting it up.
This song’s about being hung over and feeling full of shame and disgust at yourself. I got Mitch [McDonald] from The Love Junkies to sing on the second verse.
2. Maida Vale
I always lived far away from where I worked or partied. Growing up in the country, you get used to driving everywhere, so, when I moved to Perth, living somewhere with cheaper rent that's 20 to 30 minutes away from the city didn't seem like that big a deal. But once I started to get involved in music and going to gigs two or three times a week, driving becomes a hassle, especially if you like a drink or seven.
This song’s written about my realisation that moving closer to the city is probably necessary.
3. Coyote
I thought this song would end up being the opening track to the album. It was our first single, my fave song to play live, and the lyrics are total bonkers. This is one of those songs I write to make myself feel a bit better, yell nonsense at people and see what happens.
4. Better
Paul Kelly talked about this style of songwriting that's kind of circular: it’s the same chord pattern over and over; it's simple, and it's easy for other musicians to jump in and run with it.
This was the first time I've been able to get it feeling right. Chorus feels like a chorus. Verse feels like a verse. But it's the exact same chord pattern the whole way through.
Lyrically, it's about playing music and being part of the scene and feeling like you've never really tried hard enough; never quite made it.
5. Sport
“When all the burritos and beers catch up, I’ll be a fat cunt.” Honesty is key. That’s the chorus. I love burritos.
6. Ryan Adams
I didn’t really like this song after we recorded it. I was having a bad day when I wrote it. Somewhere, I saw something about Ryan Adams, and I vented my frustrations into a song with some words about Ryan Adams. I have no problem with Ryan Adams, and the song’s not even about Ryan Adams. It has four references loosely about Ryan Adams.
When we recorded it, we had fun with it. I had already started to dislike the song, mostly because it felt mean to put someone’s name on an angry song that had nothing to do with them. But also because I couldn’t really remember why I wrote it; I feel the weird frustration in it, but I can’t remember what made me write it.
There’s something kinda special about recording a song that you care little about. We tried fun percussion stuff and I tried some different singing styles, I remember trying to channel Falco from Future Of The Left during the second verse, and ending up sounding more Aussie than I ever have before. I like this song now.
7. Chumps
I’m so happy with how this song turned out. I wrote it after working for WAM during the WAMFest in 2015. I got to witness a bunch of people I admire and respect vent about their frustrations with a certain person who will remain unnamed (because I can't remember their name).
It was at the end of a long festival week. We were all pretty drunk and tired and I remember that moment vividly. A lot of the lyrics in this song are word for word what I heard that night.
This was a fun song to write, and we added this 3/4 time change into the end of the song, trying to sound as close to The Beach Boys as we could. I can’t help myself when it comes to writing dark, psychotic lyrics with poppy moods.
8. Not Now
Playing this song freaks me out a bit. I wrote the song quite a while ago; it was the first tune we started playing after our EP was out. I think we even played it for the first time at our first EP launch.
In the studio, I rewrote most of the second verse, and there's a line in the second verse that had my age at the time. Two years later, whenever I play it, I realise that this song was written over two years ago and nothing's really changed.
9. When A Stranger Calls
We named this tune after a line in the bridge, which comes from the title of a horror film from 1979 of the same name. It's kind of a throwback to the first Odlaw single, Cabins. The song kinda has a similar vibe, and I love using horror movies for lyric writing during the more upbeat numbers. Twisted kinda humour has always been my go-to.
10. 20,000 douche canoes in a field of sweaty flailing limbs
Our drummer, Dane, wrote this track. It's the first time he's written guitar chord progressions for a song with Odlaw. He's good at it. He has a knack for technology, and put most of it together using an iPad. We made it easier for us to play and re-record everything in the studio.
When A Stranger Calls (the original) is a masterpiece in film: super-tense and genuinely terrifying. I'm currently sitting on a plane to Sydney for the first leg of our album tour, watching the Blair Witch remake/sequel. Horror films have lost that tension in recent years, traded it in for gore. Gore is good, but the scariest films don't need it. Kinda like good songs and reverb.
We used heaps of reverb.
11. Luc Longley
When I lived in Denmark (beach town near Albany), I worked at the local IGA as a cashier. Luc Longley lived there or had a holiday house. He was tall as heck.
Jago brought this song to the band when he joined us in guitar. It was a great chord melody and I sang random words to get the vocal melody locked in. “Luc Longley” turned to “look lonely”, but the working title stuck.
12. Balls
When we wrote this song, it felt heavy and tough. We called it Balls as a working title. Working titles just stick sometimes, even if they make no sense. It just becomes the song, and no other suggestion is good enough.
Odlaw launch Regret City on 9 June at Prince Of Wales Bunbury, and 10 June at Badlands bar, Perth.
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