A recurring piece of fan feedback shaped Sons Of The East’s second album: “I love your recorded music, but seeing you live is a completely different experience,” keyboardist/vocalist Nic Johnston recounts to Apple Music. “So we wanted to get the record a little closer to what it might sound like to come and see us live.” Accordingly, the Sydney indie-folk trio recorded much of the album together in the same room rather than tracking their parts separately. There is, Johnston says, “a little more chaos, a little more liveliness. In a very broad sense, that’s one of the big things we wanted to bring to this record.” Similarly impactful was the fact many of the ideas were formulated while touring. Some came while walking around empty venues before doors opened, guitar in hand (“Hard to Tell”); others while noodling on their instruments en route to the next show. “That’s probably why so many of the songs feel so good when you’re driving in a car, because a lot of them came about in those circumstances,” says guitarist/banjo player Dan Wallage. The resulting album moves from anthemic indie-folk (“Rescue Me”) and indie-rock (“Recognise”) to pastoral folk (“10 Days”) and ’70s West Coast grooves (“Pour the Wine”), tied together by the trio’s lush, CSNY-inspired vocal harmonies. Here, Johnston and Wallage take Apple Music through SONS track by track. “It’s Alright” Dan Wallage: “The basis for that song came from a jam in the studio. It was one of those songs that just made all of us smile.” Nic Johnston: “Lyrically, it follows that sense of everything’s relaxed and vibey and we’re having fun. We just wanted to keep it light and enjoyable, open the album on not too heavy a note.” “Sweet Thing” NJ: “Definitely a heartbreak song. I remember sitting in the studio and playing these chords and Jack [Rollins, guitar/vocals] came up with this melody over the top really quickly, and it was quite seamless. Then we worked on instrumentation, trying to pair Dan’s arpeggiated acoustic guitar with the organ.” “Rescue Me” NJ: “The lyrics are quite emotional and sad and hinting at impending heartbreak, but it’s also quite hopeful as well. It came from this jam we had ages ago and I kept coming back to it, like, ‘There’s something here.’ The original recording is complete chaos—us going hell for leather on all our instruments and singing different lyrics. It took us quite a while to home in on what the song’s about and what it all meant.” “Pour the Wine” DW: “It was keys, banjo, guitar, just us sitting in comfy chairs, very relaxed, with a bunch of mics on us, and we just jammed through the whole song. Let’s not worry about being completely perfect or playing to a click, let’s just create a vibe within those three instruments. I’ve always wanted a song where we go from Jack to Nic or Nic to Jack singing lead. It starts with Nic on the lead vocal then switches to Jack and then, the chorus, you don’t know who’s doing what. I love the chaos in that.” “Recognise” NJ: “It’s a bit of a standout for us in terms of the band going in a slightly new direction. This one makes me think of being on tour in America, or just generally being on tour. It’s got this traveling feel to it.” DW: “We’ve never gone, ‘We have to be a folk band, we have to be blues country.’ We all like different types of music so we thought, ‘Let’s try and create something that feels like Sons Of The East, but has elements from all different genres.’ It’s got the driving drums and banjo and synth together, which is a unique flavor.” “10 Days” NJ: “It’s definitely the rawest song on the record. For a while there it was quite hard to listen to. Lyrically, it’s a massive question mark over where a relationship is going; that feeling of something slipping away but you’re not quite sure how it happened and where it’s going. It’s very vulnerable and close to my heart.” “Time Will Tell” DW: “It kind of falls into a similar boat to ‘Rescue Me’—it delves into similar tales of hope and resilience and rolling with the punches and getting to the other side. We wanted to take it back to how we started Sons Of The East, which was one of us playing acoustic guitar and then maybe some piano and some vocal, and then have this ending where it’s very upbeat. You want people to sing the chorus even though it’s somber.” “Wish I Knew” NJ: “This was another one where we wanted to replicate that live experience a little more. We just wanted this to be a big sing-along. Lyrically, it’s a pretty universal feeling of sometimes you just have no idea where you’re headed. That idea we’re all in some way, shape or form making it up as we go along. And that’s OK.” “Get Even” NJ: “I remember being on tour last year and we were going through this tiny town in Nevada. And we stopped at this little servo [rest stop] that was selling these cheap cowboy hats. There was something about the combination of it feeling so foreign—we were so far from home, surrounded by massive American road trains and truckies [truck drivers] and these big truck stops—paired with then pulling up FaceTime and calling loved ones back home. That set the scene for where this song began.” “Oh My My” DW: “Once again, these overall themes of persistence and strength and freedom come into ‘Oh My My.’ One of my favorite lyrics is ‘Taking on water but I’m bailing it out and it’s my life.’ Just that idea bad stuff’s going to happen and we’re all going to have our ups and downs, but sometimes you just have to see it through to the other side.” “Head Above the Water” NJ: “It was written as a song to a friend who was going through a hard time. It’s basically, I’ve got your back. Quite often those songs are written in a relationship context, and it was really nice to write something that was just for a friend. Love between friends is not showcased quite as much and it’s such an important part of all our lives, that support network we have around us.” “Hard to Tell” NJ: “That first riff came about in Atlanta in a venue. Quite often we’ll just grab a guitar and walk around an empty venue and strum ideas, and there’s something about being in that context that is quite conducive to letting your mind wander and coming up with new ideas. To me that song is nostalgic of that very first tour we did in the States. And I think it’s reflected through the vibe of the song.”