Band of Kiwi brothers Daily J have recently released the first single from their upcoming third album. The video for Happy Slides shows off a montage of their sold-out Slush Honey tour of Australia and New Zealand. However, it is set to a more melancholic and contemplative sound than fans of their psychedelic indie rock might be used to.
I got to speak to Jayden Paul (guitar and lead vocals) and Jesse Paul (synth and saxophone) about the music past, present and future that will finally be making its way to the UK for the first time in August, first at All Points East in London’s Victoria Park, before a short UK tour. An eleven-hour time difference wasn’t going to stop us.
Daily J
Thank you very, very much for doing this. This is the farthest flung interview that I’ve ever had to do. I didn’t know how many of you I was going to be seeing today.
Jayden – [laughs] OK, Johnny, our youngest brother isn’t really a morning person, so he won’t be joining us, I don’t think. But two’s not bad!
You have just released the new video for your latest single ‘Happy Slides’. Sorry that my New Zealand geography skills aren’t up to scratch, but please can you talk me through what that video is, because as it is a tour montage, it shows a lot of locations that I don’t recognise!
Jesse – Yeah. It’s shot over a long period of time. The majority of the summer. We toured last summer and went basically around the whole of New Zealand. I suppose the idea of the song was about touring. It’s about being away from loved ones, and about nostalgia in a way. So what better way to shoot the video than on a handicam, and have a pretty relaxed shooting while on tour.
Going through the song’s lyrics, it does directly mention “tour bus blues”, and you mention being “on 35 by the coast”. Is that a reference to an actual location and moment that has meaning to you?
Jayden – Yeah. It’s about a memory being shot on 35mm camera. That’s what the lyrics mean – a picture of us standing on the coast. New Zealand is such a small body of land with an east coast, a west coast… it’s not hard to find yourself on a coastline. Being Kiwis, we love a good road trip. We love to check out our back yard. It’s so beautiful, so yeah, plenty of memories of the reasons we’re friends and loved ones.
This is your first single from your third studio album. Will we have to wait long for a second single?
Jayden – No, not too long. We’ve pretty much finished the next one, and we’re working on a few as we go. The next song is called Sunday Stitches. It’s a bit more lively and faster in tempo. We’re pretty excited about it actually. It’ll be interesting to see how it goes.
So, a bit more of the joyous and summery feel that I think you’re better known for?
Jayden – Yeah, I think so! It’s classic – it’s your summer right now, and it’s winter for us. We always seem to release summer songs in our winter. Maybe that’s why it’s working well for us. I’ve got my beanie on, and it’s looking pretty miserable out there today.
Even though it’s our summer, it’s pretty gloomy here too. Hopefully, you will have much more luck with the weather when you come for your visit to All Points East.
Jayden – Fingers crossed!
Jesse – We’re super excited for it. We’ve never performed outside of New Zealand and Australia, so to come to England and to play there in London is awesome. A really big move for us boys, which is great.
Jayden – And you went last time, eh Jesse?
Jesse – Yes. My partner is actually from London, and I went over there almost this time last year. I was in London for about two months, and I went to All Points East and it was just such a cool festival.
For those who will be at the festival this year, what can us Brits expect from a Daily J show?
Jayden – Lots of energy. Our music is quite chill and summery as you say, but we just like to be the best performers we can. So we are quite intrigued by how you Brits react to a Kiwi show. Will you guys dance? Will you sing along? Will it feel calm and intimate? New Zealand and Australia are really influenced by the Brits. I guess we all stem from you guys originally, so I’m not expecting a huge difference. I’ve never been to England. I’ve never been to Europe. So I’m going to be both a performer and a tourist at the same time, I think. Taking it all in.
And a little bird tells me that you will be hanging about for few more days too for a few more shows of your own, in London, Bristol and Manchester…
Jayden – That’s right. We haven’t announced it yet, but we thought it would be a shame to come all that way and not play some more gigs. So they will be our first headline shows in England too, so that’s pretty nuts! We’re a family band. We’re all brothers and we grew up together. Jesse is the only one to have gone to Europe before, but for us to be traveling together for these firsts… it’s all “pinch me” moments.
Thinking about coming to Britain, and its importance that you mentioned, is there any artist or group from here in particular that you could call out?
Jesse – Yes, so many bands obviously throughout history. Great rock and roll bands paved the way. But one band that is more recent that we listen to a lot is Gorillaz. They are pretty awesome.
Jayden – Definitely, yeah.
Jesse – I love their music.
Daily J
Damon Albarn never stops working, does he?
Jayden – No. He’s responsible for a lot of great music, isn’t he? Another one for me would be Arctic Monkeys. I love their songwriting. It creates a really cool image in my head, and I think that it’s a very special ability. There’s obvious ones like The Beatles and Amy Winehouse. The 1975, I’ve been listening to them.
Jesse – There are some young, up-and-coming acts as well like Freak Slug. I’ve been listening to Amy Blue as well.
Your new video was directed by Dylan Martin, who also directed the peculiar video for ‘After You’. Please can you tell me how that came to fruition? Did someone say one day “I know, somebody should be dressed as a rabbit!”?
Jesse – [laughs] Oh wow! You’ll probably have to ask Dylan that. I suppose that it was spur of the moment really. Sort of our style of things, in a way. We’re a little bit random. A little bit quirky. We love that sort of stuff. But we also didn’t necessarily want that character identified by a face. Whoever you want could be that character in the story of that video. It is a bit of a weird one, but we do like to go out of the box and make some pretty interesting things.
You also seem to like to dance in your videos. There are choreographed routines in Stay, and Sunshine Hides….
Jayden – [facepalms] I don’t know whether we like it!
Jesse – I don’t remember whose idea they were.
Jayden – I wasn’t actually there for the Stay video. I got COVID on the day, so that’s why all of my scenes are on a television. They were recorded separately. I’m glad I didn’t have to do the dance that day. I don’t think it’s any one person’s decision. It’s just… it needs something here, and you can’t go wrong with dancing, can you? It’s just fun. We might not necessarily like the dance, but… it’s still fun.
Delving back further in your catalogue, I have to ask about Left Me Like Summer which now has over twenty-five million streams alone. What is it about that song that means that so many people connect with it?
Jayden – I think that like a lot of our songs, it’s written from experience. Life experience. I think maybe that’s something that people feel that they can connect to. So we just try to make honest music. It’s also quite a simple song. I actually broke my hand, had to have surgery and could actually only play two chords on the guitar. That forced me to to go back to basics and write something simple, and obviously that song is the most simple of all. I think that’s about all I can say.
Well, thank you very much for your time at this unusual hour. With so much coming up, is there anything else you would like to plug to readers?
Jayden – Yeah. Lots of new music coming out – a few singles and then an album at the end of the year. We can’t wait to see England and meet all you Brits. We’re really excited. Yeah, thanks for having us Nick.
Daily J’s new single Sunday Stitches will be released on 5th September and their upcoming UK tour dates are:
AUGUST
22nd – YES (Pink Room), Manchester
23rd – The Louisiana, Bristol
24th – Omeara, London
25th – All Points East, Victoria Park, London
Interview with Daily J by Nick Pollard
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