Loon Lake get along with each other a lot better than most bands. At the core of the Melbourne indie-pop quintet are the three Nolan brothers, Sam, Nick and Simon.
Added to the line up are old friends Tim Lowe and Daniel Bull on bass and drums respectively. Because of already existing ties between the band, frontman Sam Nolan says Loon Lake really enjoy the benefits of keeping it in the family.
“We’ve all grown up with the same love, we have different tastes but if one of us gets into something it usually spreads through the family.”
Loon Lake copped a bit of radio rotation for their 2012 upbeat anthem ‘Cherry Lips’ and not wanting to waste the attention, the boys have gotten straight back into it.
Having recently released their single ‘Carolina’, the boys are anticipating the release and reception of their first full-length album, Gloamer.
The first single sees Loon Lake project themselves a little differently from this time last year with their breakthrough material.
While their new jam still has an upbeat, punchy hook and a great melody, it has a more rock’n’roll tone and seems to dwell on slightly darker lyrical territory.
“You can probably tell from our music that we’re not too serious or melancholy. Without surfing and being able to go out and get on the piss.”This isn’t indicative of the album as a whole, as the group have definitely held on to their pop sensibilities, combining them with progressive influences.
Nolan says that Gloamer came about during a period of dynamic change for several members of the band.
“Both Dan and I came out of pretty big relationships, Simon was having a baby with his missus, and the band was going from nothing to playing big festivals.”
They then began to write material based on these changes, but the pre-production process didn’t flow as easily as they’d hoped. After running into several creative dead-ends, they booked a holiday house in the coastal town of Johanna.
From this new vantage point, they were able to unwind and take a step back to find another perspective on their music.
“We thought we’d go and surf, get heaps of good food and drink – get away, you know? We just had an absolute ball, and we were happy and having fun together.”
Maintaining healthy relationships within the band is just as important to Nolan as the wellbeing of the band as a unit.
“We were all mates before the band. We’ve got all this history; the band is just a big bonus. You can probably tell from our music that we’re not too serious or melancholy. Without surfing and being able to go out and get on the piss, I don’t know if we’d be able to play and write together.”
The singer acknowledges the importance of being on very good terms with his band mates when speaking about creative clashes in the studio.
“If they were just friends you’d have to treat it with more tact, but with your brothers, you just say ‘this is fucking shit’ and they don’t take it too personally… You can be more honest.”
While the frontman does the majority of the songwriting, the creative process is fiercely collaborative from beginning to end. Much of Gloamer’s production was completed at the hands of his younger brother Nick, who was encouraged by producer Steven Schram to help develop the tracks himself.
The elder Nolan credits his brother Nick with much of the record’s production, “I’d say [he produced] 50%, maybe even more. Schrammy told Nick he should learn how to use ProTools and he could work on the sessions from home.”
The nuanced arrangements that define the album originated from this work of Nick’s.
“I’ll pretty much just write a fairly basic idea on keyboard or guitar,” says Nolan.
“When I had writers block, what I did was listen to heaps of mad, cheesy pop stuff, real mainstream. Bruno Mars and shit like that. It wasn’t necessarily to write like them, but to check out a whole other way of how people write songs.”“Because we live together, he’d go ‘oh, this is great’, and the next day it would be a completely different thing. He’s right into hip-hop and he has different ideas.
“We definitely approached this stuff with more of a pop sensibility. When I had writers block, what I did was listen to heaps of mad, cheesy pop stuff, real mainstream. Bruno Mars and shit like that. It wasn’t necessarily to write like them, but to check out a whole other way of how people write songs.”
With the new album now added to their swag, they will hit the road again to launch Gloamer with intimate shows in five Australian capital cities.
Then Loon Lake are booked in for a big summer. After playing boutique Victorian festival NYE On The Hill, they will join the Big Day Out as it makes its way around the country.
Nolan notes that touring is something that comes naturally to the band.
“We travelled for years before playing in Loon Lake. We all surf, so we make sure we’ve got boards; it goes hand in hand. We’re all used to travelling and going in cars and roughing it, we’re not princesses. It’s all pretty easy for us.”
When asked what exactly a ‘gloamer’ is, the singer explains that “it’s about the time of day after the sun sets and before it gets dark – we coined the term for a person who goes out at that time.
“The whole theme of the album is almost like a night out. Getting ready, going out, and ending up drunk and alone on the side of the road. It’s not a concept album, but it’s got that theme running through it.
“That time of day, it captures everything that has been going on with us, the hopeful time when you can’t wait to go out. It captures hope, basically.”
Loon Lake Australian Tour 2013
Wednesday 9 October @ Spectrum, Sydney
with special guests Tix $15+bf – loonlake.oztix.com.au
Thursday 10 October @ Black Bear Lodge, Brisbane
with special guests Tix $15+bf – loonlake.oztix.com.au
Friday 11 October @ Howler, Melbourne
with special guests Tix $15+bf – loonlake.oztix.com.au
Thursday 17 October @ Flyrite, Perth
with special guests Tix $15+bf – loonlake.oztix.com.au
Friday 18 October @ Rocket Bar, Adelaide
with special guests Tix $15+bf – loonlake.oztix.com.au
Also appearing at BIG DAY OUT nationally in 2014
Loon Lake’s debut album Gloamer will be released on Friday October 11. Listen to it in full below.
