Melbourne’s new electro pop trio Leisure Suite have just recently released their debut EP. Featuring their two (incredibly popular) singles ‘Great Expectations’ and ‘Ease Away, the EP is an glimmering introspective voyage, brimming with reverb-glazed guitar, undulating synth chords and velvet-smooth vocals.
With the finishing touches left appropriately to the mastering prowess of Andrei Eremin (Chet Faker, Rat & Co), Leisure Suite‘s EP marks the introduction of a band much more talented and evolved than their short time as a band. We chatted to band members Mitch and Bridgette who gave us a little behind the scenes run down of the making of this stunning EP.
Great Expectations
Mitch: “Originally, this wasn’t even meant to be on the EP! ‘Great Expectations’ was more of a means for me to experiment with different effects and tones on the guitar. It basically started when I was messing around with a small bar-loop at uni one time.
I remember Bridgette knocking on the door and having to quickly pause the track out of embarrassment, but she’d heard enough to be curious. I replayed the loop and she pretty much just began to sing what is now the song’s chorus.”
Bridgette: “The lyrics revolve around my final year of studying music where there’s this real unspoken expectation to be in a band or releasing music — and at that point, I hadn’t done either.
I’d dabbled in projects here and there, but things never seemed to eventuate or I found that I wasn’t really happy with what was being written. I hated having this constant pressure on myself; friends and family seemed to always be asking when I’d be “doing something” and I found it all pretty disheartening. The lyrics for this were basically a retaliation to those pressures and a means for me to vent.”
Ease Away
Bridgette: “I probably hold this one dearest to me because of how personal it is. To put it simply, it’s about two people that shouldn’t be in a relationship together.
We originally named it ‘Great Expectations’ because while we were recording, I hadn’t really pieced together the lyrics yet — I just grabbed the closest book to me in Mitch’s room to sing something. We later realised that the title ended up being more appropriate for the first song on the EP and named it ‘Ease Away’ instead.”
Mitch: “The track was actually something I’d half-written and later stashed away in 2010, only to come across it again recently. I remember being strongly influenced by minimal production at the time and the whole idea that ‘less is more’. This ended up working really nicely once Bridgette and I started working together, as I had originally not planned to include vocals. All the space on this track gave Bridgette a lot of freedom to do her thing, which I think worked out really well in the end.
Haze
Bridgette: “This was our feeble attempt at making a dance number. It’s essentially about my love/hate (mostly love) relationship with Boney and the aftermath of every time I go there — which is, of course, usually a haze. So I guess it’s only appropriate we’ll be launching the EP there.
There was actually a big misunderstanding right before I had to record the vocals for it — Mitch told me there was a missing verse or something, so I just went in and improvised the entire second half of the song and spat out whatever came to mind. I think I was channelling my love for Erykah Badu whilst singing that part because in the end it didn’t turn out half as bad as I had imagined. The one thing I wanted to achieve whilst recording vocals for the EP was to try and inject a bit of jazz and soul influence, as that’s where my musical background lies — so hopefully that comes across.”
Mitch: “This song really challenged me production-wise. We’d just written ‘Ease Away’ and ‘Falling Under’ and were hoping to deviate a little from the more broody, downtempo inspired sound of the other two tracks. I wanted a track that people could dance to, whilst being simple and intelligible, which required a great deal of restraint.”
Falling Under
Bridgette: “This one’s also pretty special to me because it kind of marked the beginning of Leisure Suite. Before I was in the picture, Mitch was working on solo stuff and asked me to sing vocals for this one track. It was perfect timing because I had these lyrics set aside which I’d been wanting to use for a while and after listening to it I immediately knew it’d be a fit.
Once we finished the track, we kind of just kept writing together for fun and we realised pretty quickly that we had a great sense of creative chemistry — it was just a really nice, natural progression into what is now Leisure Suite.
The subject matter is pretty on par with ‘Great Expectations’ so it’s nice that it’s first and last on the EP – everything kind of comes full circle.”
Debut EP Launch
Saturday, November 15 | Boney, Melbourne
w/ Lanks, Habits, Rat & Co DJs
For more info, visit the band’s Facebook page.
