Braves - Seapunk

Hi Mark,

I’m from the band Braves, we hail from Perth, Western Australia and make Lo-Fi pop music akin to early Cloud Nothings, Beach Fossils, PAWS and The Creases.

When I first began this band 2 years ago I couldn’t even play a (non-power) chord, I had a strong sense of what made the songs I lovedgood songs, but the path to that end result was murky and treacherous for someone with my level of technical ability.

To compensate for this I enlisted in the help of a high school acquaintance who was an excellent guitarist and a decent singer to help cover my weaknesses. He had skills, but a lack of understanding in regards to pop song structure and convention, so together, we created a strong writing team.

Together we created songs that showed a lot of the promise we had as a band, but through personal differences, and the general drama that comes from having to spend most of your waking hours with unpredictable, creative people, we fell out. He left the band late last year, and the future of Braves was worryingly uncertain.

He believed the band had no future without him, part of me believed that too. Maybe I had grown convinced, like he was, that he was the one “doing all the hard work”, and that I couldn’t manage to keep the band afloat by myself.

But I had grown in that time, and become more technically competent, my understanding of hooks and choruses was still there, but now i was closer than ever to realising those ideas with my own abilities.

We found a new guitarist / singer, Simon, and Kieran, the bassist, stepped up and together we wrote what I believe are some of our best songs yet. We wrote this new collection of songs as a band; by working out these demos with Liam’s drumming and our instruments in our hands, they feel alive, and fully-fleshed out. The previous material was written as we recorded, hunched over a desk, coming up with riffs as we needed them, playing with sliders and effects we couldn’t possibly re-create live.

But our new EP was born with shouts and strums and the live energy that we always wanted to harness in the past, but didn’t know how. Turns out that comes from actually playing the songs before you record them! It’s almost embarrassing how that revelation eluded us for so long.

We finally released the EP (titled Seapunk) on Friday night at our EP launch. The room was packed and we took our newfound DIY approach to our merchandise as well. A little under 50 CDs were hand illustrated by the band, i’ve attached some examples of our work in case you’d like to take a look.

Everything, from the EP artwork, to the t-shirts, to the limited edition CDs were designed by us. The EP itself was recorded in my bedroom and we mastered it with the help of my brother’s fiance. We hope that you can hear the blood, sweat, tears, and most importantly, love, that we poured into this thing on every song.

We’re currently selling the EP for $3, with True Feelings as a free download. However we’re providing you with a download code to get it for free, and leave it up to your discretion to choose whichever track from the EP you’d like to offer for free download on your website if you choose to post about us.

Our recommendation for essential listening is Seapunk or True Feelings if you’re into the more energetic stuff, and Losing You if you like your eyes damp and your melodies bittersweet.

Regards,

Alex from Braves

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