‘Breathe You In’ was recorded while you were on the road with Anti-Flag, can you tell us about that? John: It was changed many times, the initial idea of the lyrics that I wrote. I was walking around, and I had had too many drinks. It was cold. The tour was quite unsuccessful for us, we were all kind of down emotionally. We had already been touring a lot that year, so it was a hard slog. I was ready to go home, and I was lonely, I just met my girlfriend a little while before that. I met her on Warped, and it was the next tour after that. I hadn’t seen her in like four months, and it was going to be two more before I’d see her again. I was pretty lost, really down. I was in Newcastle, and all these bars were closed, closing up. I was knocking on the door, asking if I could have a coffee, and they’d be like “No”. I just couldn’t drink another beer at that point, I was going to lose my mind, I was in a dark spot. I guess that’s helped, me, and when I feel empty, there’s something wrong with me, those lyrics are about that initial time. Walking up and down the channel in Newcastle. After that it was good, I saw her. It was nice. We’re still a happy couple! It’s a nice ending.
How did you end up working with Shane Edwards? Callum: He is the key part. He is like the sixth member of Trophy Eyes before anything else. He is pretty much part of the band. We went to him with a bunch of skeleton and half written songs, and he just made it what it is. He didn’t just press buttons on the record, he helped write it, finish it all off. He got the best out of it. Everything else we do is a vote I guess. There’s five of us, so three out of two would win, but that all went away, and now we just try what Shane says. Even if all five of us loved it, we’d be like “What do you think Shane?” and if he says “No, that’s rubbish!” then we’d change it.
John: He is also like emotionally invested. I’d call him one of my best friends. To think that like, you get to go there with these fresh ears, he hasn’t heard the record yet, and he’s like “Wow, yes!” There’s a bunch of things to add on to, change around. With our first record ‘Mend, Move On’, it was difficult, we butted heads a lot, like “this needs to be different” “we like it that way” etc. Then the next time, we were like “Shane has been doing this a long time, let’s trust the professional”. We went down, gave him the songs, and he was like “you should do this” and we just said “okay”. It worked. He gave us a phenomenal record. I don’t think I would of liked it as much as I do, with anyone else. I feel like anybody else would have been like “give me your cash, I’ll record it, cya later.” Shane would get the best take out of you. He’s a perfectionist. We challenged him one time with this riff, and it was so simple, it was like a hammer off riff. Shane said “That sounds rubbish!”, but we were trying to be as diplomatic as possible, like, we really liked it, let’s do it this way. He said “okay!” and he sat there with his hands over his eyes. We were playing it, and he was like “NO”, and he hit the space bar, “I can’t do it, it’s just going to ruin the record!”, and we were like “alright!” we trusted him, as he felt that strongly about it. It was as much his, as it is ours.
Looking back on 'Mend, Move On', how happy are you with this album still, and what do you think it has done for the representation of Trophy Eyes? Callum: It’s got us to the point where we can release the next album in the hopes that everyone will forget about that record. It got us on a platform to be like “here’s a good record!” there are some alright songs on it, and we still play a song or two from it when we can. Because there are people that like it more than others. It was a good stepping stone.
John: It has always kind of been our thing to say that we don’t want to be a pop punk band, or a hardcore band. We just want to play this weird mix of everything we like. Everyone listens to different stuff. For each individual song it has an influence from everybody coming in at a different angle saying “We should try this”. That record was supposed to be a mashup. When it came out, we were disappointed with the song writing, it wasn’t what we were aiming for. But it was still great, and it still got us far enough. It let us keep touring, it got us onto Warped Tour. It gave our listeners something to listen to while we were still touring. It was a good bridge. I think now, ‘Chemical Miracle’ is what ‘Mend, Move On’ was supposed to me. We learnt a lot from that record.
What else can we expect to see from Trophy Eyes in 2017? Callum: We are going to do the whole of the Warped Tour, we’ve got a bandwagon this time, so we’ve got air conditioning! Then a headline tour back in Australia, play a bunch of festivals, and then try and get back to America at the end of the year. Then we’ll probably wrap it up, and go in to record another record.