High Highs

Aussie expats High Highs have well and truly settled down in New York, with the newly expanded trio having just released their debut album, and finally return to their home country.

Oli Chang, who handles the electronic duties in the band, made the big move to America nearly three years ago, and after putting out an EP in 2011 (released last year in Australia – read the Tone Deaf review here), the band have toured extensively across the US and UK, shows that have “gone really well,” says Chang.

He and vocalist/guitarist Jack Milas originally began collaborating while they were both living in Sydney, but it didn’t completely take off until the pair moved to New York for work at the same music production company.

“We came here initially for work with a studio, but the main focus has been the band,” Chang explains. “Being in Australia is so amazing lifestyle wise, but it’s kind of hard for a band to take off unless it’s somewhere that’s got a huge population. It’s a lot harder to make things work, career-wise, if you’re working out of Australia, just because geographically it’s so isolated.”

The duo wrote extensively during this time, and released their self-titled EP in November last year, on none-other than Elton John’s label, Rocket Records.

As far as differences between the music scenes in American and Australia, the duo have found much inspiration overseas, whilst still missing aspects of their hometowns.

“I think I miss the dancey influence that you seem to pick up naturally in Australia,” he explains. “Coming back to Brooklyn and being in the States there’s such a wide scope of influences, you tend to go more internal with writing, just because there’s so much out there that you get kind of overwhelmed.”“Being in Australia is so amazing lifestyle wise… It’s a lot harder to make things work, career-wise”

“You go to so many shows and every time you see a show you take something really inspiring away with you because there’s so much great live local music. You get really inspired and I think that helps a lot with writing,” he adds.

Both Chang and Milas are very excited to be finally returning home, with High Highs appearing at Laneway Festival across the country, as well as a pair of intimate sideshows, in February.

“While I have a lot of friends in Melbourne, all my family and close friends are in Sydney, and it’ll be so great to see them,” Chang reveals. “I haven’t actually been back for three years, so it’ll be a great way to come back, and it’ll be so fun to see everyone, and exciting to see people in the crowd that I haven’t seen for years. It’ll be really nice.”

While their recorded sound is complex and layered, translating it to a live setting didn’t prove to be too big a problem. “It was a challenge, but it came about naturally just because we kind of built very conscious walls around what we were doing,” he continues.

“We were like: ‘we’re going to have one proper synthesizer, a laptop, a guitar, drums, and two vocals’, and that was all we were allowed to use,” he declares.

“Within those restrictions we had to make it work and we had to get as big a sound as possible. Maybe it doesn’t sound like the EP at all but there’s a lot of scope for us to express ourselves with only those instruments.”

Regarding a High Highs live show, Chang says fans can expect “big washes of luscious sounds in between songs” and for it to be “very minimal… but also layered. Even though at times it can be very intimate, with almost just guitar and vocals,” he continues. “There’s a lot of scope for it to build and have a lot of dynamic range. “

“Lots of mountains and lots of valleys, as well as lots of soft, intimate moments,” he finishes.

High Highs’ debut album, Open Season, was released last week, just in time for the impending tour. According to Chang, its self-titled predecessor is “a good representation” of what to expect.

“It’s not a huge departure from the EP. Two of the EP tracks are on the album, and it’s not going to be unexpectedly different style-wise,” he states.

The band’s relocation and separation from friends and family had a strong influence on the lyrical content of the new album, which is mostly centered around “love and lost love.”

“A lot of it does have to do with what sounds good syllabically,” Chang explains. “Lyrically, nothing is ever cut and dry, things rarely have direct meanings, and it’s all metaphorical and skirting around issues. It’s for the listener to make up their own meanings.”

As for the recording, the process was a smooth and enjoyable one, although it did take a while.“It was a challenge, but it came about naturally just because we kind of built very conscious walls around what we were doing.”

“If I could say one word to describe it, it would be fun, because it was,” Chang says. “While some parts of the process were difficult because things weren’t working, it was always fun to work out the problems and get to the end result.”

High Highs’ unique sound combines Chang’s electronic, experimental effects (he loves the “vintage synthesizers that people like Boards Of Canada use”) with Milas’ more traditional acoustic approach, but this mixture of influences proved to be ultimately helpful in refining the specific sound that they were aiming for.

“That’s what made it really interesting, because I think if you’re writing just electronic music there’s such a huge pallet to draw from, but when there’s acoustic instruments, they sort of ground the synthesized sounds,” he explains.

“If the task at hand is to make interesting sounds that pair nicely with acoustic sounds it narrows the options more. It was easier in a sense because it made some choices easier and the process of elimination easier on what sounds to choose.”

Though Open Season has only just landed, gracing the ears of many for the first time, the duo are already busily preparing for its follow-up, and planning for the year ahead.

“We’re going to do lots of tours, we’re going to do lots of writing, and obviously recording,” explains Chang. “We have a portable studio to take with us on the road while we’re touring.”

“We’ll come back to Brooklyn and write heaps in between tours and that’s it. Touring and writing.”

Open Season is out now through Sony, the High Highs EP is also out through Rocket Records – read the Tone Deaf review here.
High Highs play Laneway Festival this February, details and set times here and tickets are available from lanewayfestival.com.au, they also play two sideshows in Melbourne and Sydney, tonight and tomorrow night respectively. Details below.