FEATURE: The Daisycutters Hit The Studio For New EP

Words: Matt Innes

It’s official: Gold Coast rockers The Daisycutters are hitting the studio to record a new EP, due for release next year via MADCAP Global Music.

The excitement is palpable at Daisycutters HQ where frontman Cameron Wilson has entrenched himself to prepare for entering the studio.

“Mate, I’m ecstatic,” Cameron exudes.

“It was probably the last thing we would have been thinking about a year ago, to record new material. Not that it was ever out of the question, it was just not on our radar. To have the opportunity to record an EP and put it out with MADCAP Global is great.”

Cameron goes on to say that the upcoming EP (as-yet untitled) is an all-new approach to writing and recording for the band.

“We have never in our history ever written six songs from scratch to record, which is what we’re going to do with this,” he says.

“It’s a brand new experience; we’ve never had to learn six new songs – it’s always been a song that filters in and we play it live and we get time to live with it. But we’ve never sat down and written six brand-new songs for anything ever in all our time.”

Embracing that dedicated writing process involved returning the immense vault of ideas Cameron and his bandmates have amassed over their years of songwriting.

“I had ideas sitting around, and Giles [Hamwood] the bass player and I have co-written over half of the EP together and that was good, that’s some we haven’t done a lot of in the past,” Cameron says.

“We’ve co-written things but to start from scratch with ideas in notebooks from over the years and then flesh them out into finished songs, it’s been really good.”

In turning to the old to inspire something new, Cameron discovered a well of inspiration just waiting to be explored.

“There were a couple of songs that just had a chorus from ages ago that were never finished,” he says.

“Then a lot of it has come brand-new, just getting to that mindset of sitting down to write and get creative. It’s good to know we can still do it too, after not doing it for so long. It’s good to know that whatever is in you is still there.”

In our previous interview with Cameron, he mentioned the inclusion of a ten-minute ‘epic’ track.

“I’ve lied,” he confesses.

“It’s a 12-minute epic,” he laughs. “It’s called ‘Sleeping With Your Ghost’. There was discussion in the bandroom about the length and we were all in agreeance that after a couple of decades in the music business, we have earned the right to do a 12-minute epic.”

It’s a far-cry from the way The Daisycutters write songs back when they were vying for radio airplay.

“We’re a different band now to what we were 20 years ago; we’ve grown as people and songwriters and performers,” Cameron says.

“I remember we wrote the first album – we actually wrote songs to a stopwatch, where we had to be in the chorus by the minute-mark. We set that discipline for ourselves and if we weren’t in the chorus in the first 60 seconds we would go back, chop things out and make it lean.

“At the time we were into early pop songs, like the early Beatles songs that are over in three minutes, but it doesn’t feel rushed. we had this discipline where we wanted every song on the first album, apart from one, to be a potential single.

“It was really great to do and then after that we threw the watch out the window,” he laughs, “especially for this one. There’s nothing under four or five minutes on this EP, so it’s great.”

Though still untitled, Cameron gives MADCAP Global Music the world-exclusive on the EP track titles.

“It starts off with a song called ‘The Longer We Do This, The Easier It Will Be’,” he reveals.

“‘It’s People Like You That Make Me Hate People Like You’. Giles has written a great song called ‘Last Shake Of The Bag’, which is the first song Giles has brought in all-but finished.

“There’s another one called ‘I’m Not The One Who Just Wants To Be Friends’. There’s ‘Sleeping With Your Ghost’, and the final track is ‘I’m Tired, I’m Leaving, Thanks For Believing, Goodbye’.”

Let it never be said that Cameron Wilson of The Daisycutters can’t pen a song title to save his life.

“I’ve always loved a great song title,” he chuckles.

If the last thing Cameron thought he would be doing in 2020 is recording new music, the prospect of playing live shows must have come as a complete shock.

The Daisycutters will be hitting the stage with legends Lime Spiders for a series of COVID-safe live shows at the end of October.

“I can’t believe it in 2020,” he exclaims.

“We had one show booked at Vinnie’s Dive Bar for November and we thought that would be the only one, but then these ones came up and, of course, we grew up listening to Lime Spiders and respecting those guys and thinking they were awesome.

“So, man, the fact we’re doing four shows this year and three of them with Lime Spiders is great. Who would have thought in this crazy year you’d be doing any shows? They’ll be interesting shows because people will be sitting down and social distancing.

“More restrained but that’s great too, we’re just happy to be playing live. We love recording but at the end of the day we are a live band and that’s what we do. Our strength has always been that we’re a live band; in the studio we get away with stuff but playing live has always been our thing.”

The Daisycutters will spend the summer recording the EP with an expected release for early 2021.

With new music in the works and live shows on the horizon, Cameron is relishing the unique position The Daisycutters have established for themselves.

“The great thing about this EP is that it’s opened the doors to others,” he says.

“We’ve got more songs that haven’t seen the light of day, more songs in bits-and-pieces we can finish off and new ones we can write. It’s opened up a whole lot of ideas. We’re already thinking of where we go for the next one, but we’re going to curb that until we get this one locked away.

“At this point in our career the pressure is off and it’s a great way to approach it. We are going to put stuff out as we feel we need to, and if we’ve got something to say and songs we think are good, we’ll record them.”

Stay tuned to MADCAP Global for updates on The Daisycutters. Click here to view their discography.

Lime Spiders (with The Daisycutters) perform at:
Kings Beach Tavern 23 October
Mo’s Desert Clubhouse (Burleigh Heads) 24 October
The Outpost (Brisbane) 31 October.

Working Locally, Thinking Globally – MADCAP Global Commodities & Agri-business