Tangled Magazine

Pick Me Up - An Interview with Dash and Will

By Jamie Evangelista

Dash and Will have been referred to as Australia’s Tegan and Sara or the new Veronicas. But they’re more like Rilo Kiley if Jenny Lewis was multiplied into another. They’re named after what they would’ve been called if they were boys. This 18 year old duo from Melbourne, Victoria are latest slew of new artists that are making way into our radios and TVs with their infectious first single ‘Pick Me Up’.

They met on the first day of Year 4 where they were both attending a new school. However, they didn’t exactly hit it off straight away. “It was a very small school so there were only about maybe fifteen kids in our class,” says Charlie (Thorpe - Dash) reminicising about meeting Josie (De Sousa - Will). “There wasn’t like a huge variety of friendships to choose from. We hung out on the first day with some other kids and we did not get along that well. We’ve had a pretty long love hate relationship but we’ve known each other a lot and now we’re very close. We also seem to annoy each other more than the other person [laughs].”

Years later, they befriended each other again after going through the same primary and high schools together. Then they began writing songs. “I think it would’ve been around Year 7 when all the ideas started, continuing something into music so we were singing and writing together in music classes in school as the practical side of things. I think it was in Year 9 when it really started to happen because we applied for a grant from the Government to do some demo recording. We got like $2000 or something, to go and do some demos in the studio. That was sort of when it started that we could continue to do this as a career.”

Charlie knew that she wasn’t going to be a Uni student and that music was it. “For me I knew I never wanted to straight into Uni after school and study a course. I wasn’t really into that. Music was something we kept as a hobby and something that would always make us happy.”

The girls signed with Barry Palmer, formerly of Hunters and Collectors and Deadstar, on his independent label Gigantically Small. Getting a major label to help them out was just around the corner by signing with Mecury Records through Universal. “It was very, very exciting. It was something that we’d been hoping to happen for quite a while so it wasn’t unexpected. We’d been working towards with Barry Palmer, an independent label with him recording and our aim was always to get a bit of further back up from a major label to help us get out there. I guess it’s lucky that it happened so quick and easily for us.”

They’re both grateful for all the help Barry has given them every step of the way. “He’s definitely been a bit of a mentor. He’s also very prominently there all the time because he co-produces our record. He’s definitely like a mentor because he’s been with us since we were 16 when we signed with him. Our music has grown from working with him and seeing him in the studio, seeing how he works and has taught us everything we know about music. We still have a lot to do with him every single day and we got to go back in and finish more B-Sides for the album so he’ll be doing them with us. He’s a bit of everything for us. Bit of management, bit of our production. I think he more takes a bigger part in our, not so much the management side but the creative side of things. He’s great. I don’t think we’d be where we are without him.”

On the brink of finishing Year 12, they had the dual life of being in a band and finishing high school. “It was definitely hectic. We got to go fly to Sydney, do a showcase, go in the studio, do a bit of recording and miss out on quite a bit of school. It was difficult but the teachers were all very supportive of us, kept us up to date constantly and told us not to worry. It was fine. It’s just exciting. We were just waiting for exams to finish so everything could take off because we really couldn’t do nothing until they finished.”

While recording their debut album, ‘Up In Something’, they went back to the some of the songs they recorded a few years ago to spruce it up. “It was the end of Year 11 we might’ve been in when we recorded those songs. We just revisited them after school finished then went in to do the the rest of the album.” Doing the whole album was definitely unbeatable. “It was an awesome experience. It was going straight into something full on after finishing exams and all the other kids were having a break and going partying and we’re just like straight into touring and straight into the studio so it was pretty full on. Definitely an awesome experience, we love being in there.” But did it have some drawbacks. “None of us did Schoolies but we did have a week and a half in Queensland to have a bit of sun before getting into the studio.”

Dash and Will’s first introduction to the music scene is their very catchy song ‘Pick Me Up’. “[I think 'Pick Me Up' we chose it because] it’s a song that really represents all the strong qualities that we have in Dash and Will. It’s got a very youthful sound to it. I think it’s fresh, extremely energetic, bouncy and I think it has a little personality in the song. That’s what we really are. We’re just young and bouncy and what we’re like on stage performing. We wanted to sort of open up into the industry showing, creating a direction for ourselves rather than coming out with something that we could’ve thought may have gone better on radio, but we didn’t want to be shafted into any other pop song so we tried to come up with alternatively and show them that it’s us that’s been doing it and not put together by a label.”

Inspiration plays a big part on any artists, Charlie points out that she admires the work of the older musicians. “We’re not majorly obsessed with any artists, with more like for me, I go by songwriting. I just fall in love with certain songs by artists whether they’d be really old ones but probably some of the older musicians that have influenced me are bands like The Pretenders, Elvis, Elvis Costello, Smokey Robinson, a lot of the lead vocals from those bands like Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders, Chrissie Amphlett from The Divinyls which have really influenced us quite a lot and definitely Courtney Love from Hole. I love Hole and the songwriting in Hole is just incredible.”

The comparison to Tegan and Sara and to the Veronicas is evident but not the same. “I love both of them. If we seriously got anywhere near as much success as they have, we’d be happy. I don’t think we’re really that similar. It’s just because it’s the two girls.” Furthering the comparison is the genre of their music, calling it “edgy pop”. “Because it got the same traditional style as pop writing. It’s not really American pop or anything, like think of it as new age, modern, edgy pop. It’s energetic, fresh, bubbly, bouncy [laughs].”

Their music has taken a big change since they first began, “I guess the songs were pretty bad when we started writing them in Year 7. We’d written a few of the songs that are on the album when we wrote when we were 13 before we got signed so we just revisited them. I guess as you get older, you think about things differently so your song changes and it becomes different. I think we’ve become more advanced lyrically and just being able to work so much in the studio and it advances our writing quite a lot I think. We just know more about how to write songs, how to make them good, how to do those little funny bits. It changes as you grow older and I’m sure our writing will change and we’ll write a lot of different songs. This is just a stage that we’re in at the moment.”

What is it about music that they love? “It’s something that we both share and that we can bring together and we absolutely enjoy doing it. It’s almost a therapy for us and it’s great because other people seem to enjoy it at the same time not just us but get a kick out of doing it. I guess it’s something we can all enjoy, that’s what we love about it.”

As for working together, things do hit the fan but all in good name. “We clash all the time, every time we see each other but it’s sort of just what we’re like. It’s all in good humour. It’s just like that. I’m sure it will continue to be like that. It’s kind of normal when you think about how much time you spend with one person. I spend more time with her than I spend with my boyfriend and my family combined so things are going to get nasty at times. But nothing serious. Nothing that would stop us from doing what we’re doing. We like each other a lot [laughs].”

Recently, they have joined Rock The Schools Tour and currently doing The Boost Mobile Schools tour where they hit high schools to promote the importance of music. “I think the touring is the best part of the job and it’s also the most difficult. It tends to mess you around quite a bit like leaving, coming away from home, leaving the people that you care about so much for quite a long period of time sometimes. Really the live performances is what it’s all about for us because anyone can buy a CD and listen to it but playing live it really allows us to show who we are and we love it. We get such a kick out of performing live. The Rock the Schools tour was amazing. We were on it for nearly a month, three and a half weeks. I was really not looking forward to it at all because we just finished high school and I was like ‘No way, I’m not going back in there!’ But we did it and it was just awesome. The most receptive and awesome audience that we’ve played to so far because they promised a crowd of 700 everyday because the whole school would come and the kids just got so into it. They were afraid to dance in front of people so it turned into one massive mosh pit. I think it went down pretty well because it’s easy pop which is easy to get into straight away not sort of quality of music that you have to listen to where you think over it, it’s just instant. It went really well.”

The question is, are they ready for the success that will ahead of them? “I am. I hope the success is going to be there but I think we’re both pretty down to earth and grounded. We don’t really have any massive expectations. Just hoping everything will go well. We’ll be fine.”

Visit Dash and Will’s MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/dashandwill

CLICK HERE to download ‘Pick Me Up’ for free