Having spent the past 10 years working in the corporate world, Mike Waters shocked his colleagues, friends, and family when he casually revealed that all this time he’d been secretly working on music in his spare time. Penning beautiful songs in his bedroom.
His first demo quickly became the number one most-played track on triple j Unearthed and industry interest, gigs, including a residency at iconic The Espy and several prestigious festival dates, soon followed. Now, Mike continues to live out his dream with his Life EP.
“Frankly, this EP is the thing I’m most proud of achieving in life. I’ve owned a house, I’ve finished a degree and I have 10 years experience working in various industries, but putting this whole thing together has been an experience that I never thought I’d get to have,” says Mike.
“Being a musician was always a pipe dream for me, and I never pursued it as a teenager so I never thought I’d get to experience it at all. It’s been such an awesome thing to put my spare time towards creating something that means something to me and I’m really looking forward to doing a whole lot more of it.”
Mike recently took Tone Deaf through his debut EP, which he describes as “a real little insight into what it means to be me”, recounting what each inspired each track, when it was written, how it was recorded, and what it means to this talented, up-and-coming songwriter.
Daisy
This was actually the first song I wrote. Not just of the four songs on this EP, but the first song I ever finished and gave a title. I had played around with songwriting a little bit before this, but nothing had ever come out of it. This song came together really naturally and it just felt good, so it was the first song I ever decided to share with anyone. I guess it’s fitting that it’s the first track on my first release.
At first it’s a song about a dream girl. The sort of perfect person that you can imagine, but that never really exists. At it’s heart though it’s a song I wrote about wanting that so badly but feeling inadequate and unworthy of it. An unrequited, imaginary love. The title and the name Daisy is a bit of a tribute to the character Daisy Buchanan from The Great Gatsby.
It’s one of my favourite novels and one that really captures the concept of yearning for the idea of someone or something over the person or thing itself. I’ve always thought that is one of the most powerful feelings that you can experience, and I think that this song is sort of my acknowledgement of my own emotions.
Gambling Man
‘Gambling Man’ is not so much a song about taking chances as it is about feeling like a fraud. There’s a heavy dose of self-deprecation in here. Around the time I wrote it I had spent a lot of time feeling like I wasn’t actually the same person on the inside as I tried so hard to appear on the outside. But there’s a lot of that in everyone, I think. We all try our best to appear better than we are, and these days I think that’s a part of being a human being.
Of the four tracks on the EP, this was the first one to be recorded. I’d been learning a lot more about how to use Logic Pro in the months prior and I’d put together what I now consider a terrible demo of the track that ran for over five minutes and carried the same drum beat the whole way through. “Relentless” is how (producer) John Castle (Vance Joy, Megan Washington) described it when I spoke with him on the phone the first time.
But he was sure we would find the right elements to really make it work and we managed to find a few days in the studio together shortly after. It was my first time in a real studio, and a gorgeous little studio for it. The speed at which John worked really surprised the hell out of me, and his ability to use Logic Pro. Having never seen a producer at work it was great to see where I’d been going wrong and learn things that I could apply at home. I asked a lot of questions so for that, John, I’m sorry.
Feels Like Home
When I wrote ‘Feels Like Home’ I’d already written five or six other songs, but it had been a month or two since I’d hit on anything I really liked. I had this chorus hook in my head that I couldn’t stop singing, but I was having a really hard time getting anything else out of it. I didn’t know what to write about and I spent weeks trying to expand upon it, but got nothing.
With that in mind, I’d managed to get tickets to Splendour in the Grass (2014) so I left the song at home, hopped on a plane and disappeared into the Byron Parklands for four days. I spent a lot of time really enjoying being part of the crowd and connecting with the music. Watching the way that the crowds interacted with and boosted the artists on stage was hugely inspiring, and I just felt like I could write again.
I was so energised by the whole thing when I got back, so I wrote about that. It’s about feeling like maybe I don’t have anything to inspire me, maybe I won’t be successful, maybe my best songs are already behind me, but then I’m reminded of why I’m doing this, and that I feel my most comfortable when I’m a part of something like Splendour. Maybe one day I’ll get the chance to play there.
Dreams
Jack Arentz produced this track too and I think he did a stellar job. From the beginning he really wanted to maintain the acoustic nature of the song and supplement it with natural sounds and subtle harmonics. We sampled various hits, taps, and scuffs on the body of my guitar and from that he produced the percussion section. He added harmonics as promised and I really couldn’t be happier with his work on this track and on ‘Daisy’.
He’s an incredibly talented producer and just a fantastic person in general. I thoroughly enjoyed all the time I spent in his studio, and I’m just glad I had the chance now before he’s well out of my price range!
I wrote this song about my mum who passed away when I was 15. I often dream about her, and it’s this weird sort of dream where she’s suddenly back in my life. We have a whole lot to catch up on, but we never have enough time to get through it all before she has to go again, or I have to wake up. My mum was a huge influence in my life, as most mothers are. She introduced me to a lot of music that influenced me and still influences my style.
She taught me how to love, and be loved, and what it means to be a good human being. I miss her a lot every day, and this song is really the one on this EP that is closest to my heart. She died from a cancer that she only found about four weeks beforehand. It was sudden, but long enough that she could say the things she wanted to the people she loved most.
I remember one night after she found out about her cancer, she came into my room after I’d just gone to bed and laid down beside me. She told me that her only dream in life was to have a family and raise kids, and that she was living it. I don’t know exactly why, but it took me a really long time to take that as advice. Happy to say I’m now pursuing my own dreams.
