It’s been a long seven years coming, but End of Fashion are back in business. Pelican Magazine recently caught up with front man Justin Burford to chat about his new music.
You can catch them live for two very special shows at the Aardvark, Fremantle on the 26th and 27th of July.
Grab your tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/end-of-fashion-tickets-63364496916
(Patrick Roso, Music Editor) I recall reading somewhere that you said this wasn’t even on your radar, what prompted the comeback?
(Justin Burford) The songs. I know the band was keen for new material over the past few years, but my head was elsewhere, and I was keen to pursue other things. It was only when I compiled all the songs, that I had been working on in my own time over the past four or five years I realised there was a decent selection that had that End of Fashion sound. I thought the ideas were strong enough to flesh out and it got me excited about the band again for the first time in years.
Take us through the process for this album. Where’d it all come from? Has your song writing process changed at all?
I set up a home studio in 2015 to begin writing and demoing and generally experimenting with music for the first time in a handful of years. After about a year I had enough music to put an album together for a project I called Coco Blu which has a very distinct sound, lo-fi, vintage futurism. Coco is a very specific character and everything I wrote that didn’t fit into that got sidelined. I was prepping for a writing trip to LA last year when I gave all those extraneous ideas a listen. I could hear classic End of Fashion in a lot of it. I thought it would be fun to begin fleshing it out with the band. I guess that’s the main process difference. Where I used to take an idea straight to the band, I can give myself time at home now to flesh out arrangements and parts so I can bring it to them with more focus. Then we begin working them together so it feels like the band should.
Can we expect the same End of Fashion sound, or something a little different?
It’s the same but different. I feel like it’s much more in keeping with the first album. For me, that record is still the classic End of Fashion benchmark. Our other records have some great moments and Holiday Trip is a record I’m proud of but doesn’t feel like a rock band’s album. I’ve gone back to being a guy writing songs in his bedroom. It’s how all those songs got written for the first album. I’ll take them to the band, we throw some ideas around and we record them. It feels straight forward with everyone there just to serve the song. I’m enjoying thinking of these songs and this album as the spiritual successor of our first one. It’s kind of like it’s sequel with other ones existing outside of official canon.
Do you reckon the music landscape has changed over the years?
It’s changed. The onus is on consumption now. It’s never been easier to produce music and it’s never been easier to consume it. I’m not qualified to judge whether it’s good or bad, it is what it is and if you want to make music, you just must find your place.
Can you tell us a little about your line-up?
It’s the same line up from our 2016 tour and includes Nathan Sproule on drums (Souther River Band), Julian Dudman on guitar (Sleepy Jackson) and Anthony Jackson on bass (Birds of Tokyo).
What are you most excited for this time around?
Playing these songs live for people. Live has always been my biggest passion in playing music. Over the years I’ve come to enjoy the studio process and I love working on artwork for albums and posters and everything else, but it’s always been about the performance for me.
When can we expect to see the new material released?
We’re going to be dropping a single around September. Maybe another a few months after that but if all goes well, we’d like a full album out as early as possible next year.
Interview by Patrick Roso