Interview: Fazerdaze Gives Us The Lowdown On Songs From 'Morningside'

Auckland-based musician Fazerdaze (aka Amelia Murray) has blessed us with the release of her eagerly anticipated debut album, Morningside, a record which is as sentimental as it is wistful. It has almost been three years since the release of her self-titled EP which prompted her to be a one-to-watch. Since then Murray has been on the rise to being an indie-superstar as she has toured with Unknown Mortal Orchestra, opened for Frankie Cosmos, played shows in America, Australia, played the mainstage at Auckland’s Laneway and is currently on tour in Europe and the United Kingdom. Jess Fu caught up with Amelia as she gave us the lowdown on several of the previously unreleased tunes from Morningside....

JF: So Amelia the album is called Morningside. Can you tell me a bit about the album as a whole and why is it called Morningside?

AM: Morningside is the suburb I live in here in Auckland and it’s the place where I could finally finish this album. It’s such a huge body of work making an album and I don’t think I quite realised that when I started. I was really struggling, I was moving flats a lot and changing jobs so much. I had no home base and I felt like such a mess. And then when I moved to Morningside I felt really good and finally felt settled. I felt I could finish this album - and I did - so I called it Morningside. I like the way it sounds as well, it’s like quite sunny and optimistic.

Track One: Last To Sleep

AM: It’s the first song on the album, but the last one I finished for it. I really wanted the first track to represent sonically what the rest of the album was gonna sound like so this song has a mix of guitars, electronic drums and synths. The whole album mix is electronic and guitar so it’s half band, half girl-in-bedroom sounding. I wrote it late at night when I couldn’t sleep which is why it’s called ‘Last to Sleep’. I’m a terrible sleeper, like my whole life I could never get to sleep especially when there are other people in the room. I just seem to lie awake until 5am and so this is written on one of those nights.

Track Three: Misread

AM: Misread is quite influenced by the Pixies, I was listening to them a lot around this time. I wrote and recorded this song in this tiny bedroom in Grey Lynn. It was basically a room off a basement, like it was just at the bottom of the house. I had to go under the house to get into it so it was kinda creepy, very enclosed and small. The track sounds really loud and big I think I wrote it because I wanted space and I wanted it to sound like a cool band not just this really sad girl in her bedroom.

 

Track Seven: Shoulders

AM: 'Shoulders' is the ballad of the album. It’s very much a really late night kind of song or a very early morning kind of song, I reckon that’s the best time to listen to it. It’s probably the most personal one on the album. It scares me putting it on the album - but I’m glad I did because I feel like it adds a different tone and colour to it.

Track Eight: Friends

AM: 'Friends' is another one that was quite influenced by the Pixies. It very much does this loud-quiet-loud thing. I was watching the Pixies documentary around this time and I think I was reading ‘Fool the World’, which is a Pixies book. It’s called ‘Friends’ because I guess it explores and reflects on me being a really flakey friend. Sometimes I’m really naive as to why people are upset at me. Also I’m also the worst people at replying to text and emails.

Track Ten: Bedroom Talks

AM: This is just a jam I had in my bedroom with samples, a beat and some clean guitar I had recorded. I came home one day and I was upset, and after writing this song I felt so much better. It’s not really a song, it’s just a stream of consciousness. I think that’s why I called it ‘Bedroom Talks’ because it’s kind of a ramble by myself in my room. When I moved to Morningside, I re-opened this session, I recorded a cricket in my garden and added it to the front and end of this track to bookend it. Mark and I, [Mark plays in the live band and has his own project called Merk], when we were in New York last year we made a music video for this song and it’s a really dorky music video. We just shot it on his phone on a whim in Times Square and there was so much shaky footage but I like it because it captures our buzz about being in New York for the first time.

This interview originally aired on the Totally Wired show with Jess Fu on 95bFM, head over here to listen to the podcast.

To stream (and buy!) the full record head over to Fazerdaze's Bandcamp page