The curiously named lamphead. may hail from Newcastle but they sound like they’ve arrived straight from the middle of the U.S..
The math-punks make music that would fit right into the Midwest emo scene, filled with earnestly emotive vocals, noodling riffs, and the technically efficient instrumentals.
Their new single, ‘Your Yesterday’ comes out tomorrow and it builds impressively on the band’s well-received self-titled debut EP that was released last year. The track comes accompanied by a music video directed by local filmmaker Alyssa Salamon, which you can watch below.
The lyrics find lamphead. reflecting on the difficulty of finding direction in one’s life. “We decided to use the metaphor of learning how to swim, and look at how it’s similar to navigating life,” Darcy Long explains.
“Getting older and seeing your peers be so successful in life whether that be financially, relationships or in a career, comes with a feeling of anxiety and pressure that you’re falling behind in life. We want people to feel like they’re understood for taking their own pace.”
To celebrate the release of ‘Your Yesterday’, the band will be holding a single release show at the Cambridge Hotel in their home city on Sunday, September 4th (find tickets here). If you’re dad likes heartfelt songs at the crossroads of emo and punk, it could be the ideal Father’s Day outing.
lamphead.’s ‘Your Yesterday’ is out on Friday, September 2nd.
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How did your artist name come about?
During lockdown our drummer Damian bought an OP-1 and decided he would have a go at making some lo-fi bedroom pop (it was fashionable at the time). His plan was to release a three-track EP under an alias and he had a drawing of a little man with a lampshade on his head. The name is just drawing on various masked musical acts; daft punk, slipknot, deadmau5 and the like.
The lo-fi songs Damian made ended up never being released but we figured the name and imagery was pretty decent so he suggested it to all of us and it stuck. We feel ‘lamphead.’ has a certain introspection to it that suits the sound we’re going for, so no regrets in that regard.
How would you describe your music to your grandma?
Rock music, but I’m more interested in how our grandmas would describe it to us!
Tell us about a few of your tracks; their titles and what they’re about?
Our new single ‘Your Yesterday’ is about navigating your way through a toxic relationship, and coming out the other side a much stronger person because of everything that relationship revealed about yourself. The song lyrically is a metaphor of learning how to swim/learning how to navigate life and make your own choices to be independent as an adult.
We’ve paired this with a music video we filmed at one of our local swimming pools to reflect the message of the song and it was a bunch of fun to film!
What do you love about your hometown?
Newcastle’s a city but it’s not too big, you can get pretty much anywhere in fifteen minutes. We also love the richness of the music scene here. For example, we’ve all got friends from different genres like jazz, rap, hardcore, alt rock, and noise.
On the right night you could find almost whatever you feel like at one of the great venues around which are in pretty close proximity to each other. Plus we have some amazing beaches here and there’s nothing quite like a Newcastle summer!
Career highlight so far?
A fan of ours got the lyrics from our song ‘Restart My Heart’ tattooed on his forearm. Shoutout to Sam!
Fave non-music hobby?
Rock climbing and eating southern fried chicken burgers.
What’s on your dream rider?
Stone and Wood, a bottle of Fireball and apple juice, sweet chilli nachos, and a jar of crunchy peanut butter.
Dream music collaboration?
We’d love to collaborate with the guys from CHON, but we’d feel like such noobs in comparison, they’re such an influential band to us. Also a Travis Barker or Oli Sykes collab wouldn’t hurt!
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
We’ve all got careers outside of this band, so in 10 years hopefully we’re still doing lamphead., but who knows what will happen. For now the future looks bright as we’re having heaps of fun writing and performing music!
What’s your go-to karaoke song?
‘Don’t Trust Me’ by 3OH!3 to relive our emo days from our youth, or anything by ABBA or Queen usually goes off.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
“Enjoy the process not the product” is a saying that gets thrown around between us all the time in band conversations, and it’s very true to this band. We’re just having fun expressing ourselves through music and the fact that other people seem to enjoy our art is super cool!
What’s one obsession you have that no one would guess after listening to your music?
We’re actually all a bit obsessed with movie and game scores, in particular Hans Zimmer. Hhis musical arrangements are actually quite simple but convey a lot of emotion. Being in a math rock-style band it’s easy to over complicate things and these soundtracks are a healthy reminder to us that sometimes less is more.
