Chewing the Fat w/ Strange Talk [Interview]

Written by Cassie Lee PhillipsAugust 24, 2016

Melb artist, Strange Talk, released a huuge track called “Young Hearts,” on independent overseas record label Wind-up Records (locally they’ve released for Allday) on August 19th. To celebrate the release, we got down and dirty with Stephen Docker and Gerard Sidhu to find out how, where and what Strange Talk is all about!

So the chainsmokers remixing your material is pretty impressive! Care to spill the beans on how that happened?

This was actually set up by our US label Wind Up Records. We had just finished up the original version of ‘Young Hearts’ and they knew the guys and their management, so they sent them the track which they loved and agreed to do a remix, which they killed! We actually caught up with the guys when we were in NY back in 2014 and Steve tracked a topline for them, but I don’t think they’ll use it.

How long have you been cooking up Young Hearts? We’d love to know a bit about the writing process.

We actually wrote and recorded the original version of ‘Young Hearts’ back in late 2013, early 2014 which we included in the US release of our album ‘Cast Away’. We wrote the song with friend of ours called Marius Moga who we met in LA on a writing trip, he’s actually a judge on The Voice (Romania) and one of the funniest and most talented guys you’ll ever meet. We then produced it with a production team in LA called ‘Captain Cuts’ who did a great job on it. Its actually one the few tracks we have’t produced completely on our own. But last year as we started to change our sound we wanted to update the track for a big US tour we were doing, so we remix it and the crowds loved it. So we decided to release it thats how we got to this new version.

It appears your sound is moving towards a new direction. What spawned this?

Yeah, thats correct. Its heading towards a more electronic/disco/french house direction, but still with those Strange Talk toplines. We actually both come from an electronic/dj background, thats what we did for years before we started Strange Talk. So this is us just returning to our roots, its what we love to listen to and to write. As an artist you’re always evolving and changing to stay fresh and inspired, and thats whats happening to us with this new direction. We completely understand that some fans aren’t going to like it and people are going to say ‘what are Strange Talk doing writing dance music’, but we don’t really care about any of that. We’re just gonna write what we love and what makes us happy and hopefully people enjoy it!!

What impact do you think it makes being an Australian artist?

I think being Australian artist opens a few doors just because of the quality of music that has come out of this country and will continue to, the rest of the world has noticed that and seems to be keeping a close watch on us. This is obviously a massive help when trying to break internationally and get a US or UK deal and agent, but at the end of the day the biggest impact will always come from great music. It just happens that Australians keep putting out great music.

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What are the highlights and lowlights of your careers thus far?

Some of the highlights are opening for artist like Pink and Foster people and being lucky enough to have tour extensively through the US/Canada and other parts of the world. The lowest point would have to be the last few years, having to come back to Australia (after living in LA for a few years) and mange ourselves while we developed our new sound and put together a new team. It was the toughest time financially we’ve ever been through, but as hard as it was we wouldn’t change a thing and now we have great new management, music we absolutely love and a record we can’t wait to drop!

What’s the story behind Strange Talk going from a band to a dance duo?

As we mentioned in the previous questions, its us returning to our roots and writing music we love and want to write. We’ve always been a two piece, with Steve and I writing, producing all the the music but then as things started to take off in the beginning we needed to put together a band for the live show and thats how we met Gil and Trav. They are both amazing session guys and really helped us translate what we do in the studio to the stage, working out live versions and putting the show together etc. But as we started to transition our sound over the last few years, we wanted to go back to more striped down electronic setup and djing, which meant we didn’t need the guys on tour with us anymore. There was not big falling out or anything it was us just us evolving as artist. We are both incredibly grateful to them for everything they’ve done for us over the years, we really couldn’t of done it without them and we do miss them on tour, but we’re still all great mates.

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If you had to improve one part of the industry, what would it be?

Thats a tough one. I think like most artist it would be piracy prevention, we’d all love it to go back to the 80’s/90’s when records actually sold, but you have to move with the times and its all about streaming and touring these days.

What are you most excited about musically at the moment?

We’re really excited about our new record. It doesn’t sound like anything out there at the moment and we’ve had a great time making. We love djing and playing live, so can’t wait to get back out on tour as well.

Where do you see yourselves in 2020?

Still writing music we love and touring.