“It’s about ticking off that bucket list and living out your idea of being a musician, and living that dream.”
After a successful U.S tour which took in places like the Viper Room, Whisky Au-Go-Go and the Rainbow Bar Australian rock outfit Midnight Alibi should have been riding the euphoric success all the way back to Melbourne and into their next album cycle.
Instead, as it did with the rest of the world, COVID interjected and threatened to derail the fast moving rock machine that was quickly gathering momentum.
Rather than bemoan lost opportunities or sulk at what might have been, Midnight Alibi instead focussed their energies on the one thing they retained control over.
A new album.
That manifested itself with Higher Power, an album born of isolation but fuelled by determination.
Recorded straight out of lockdown, Higher Power was released earlier this year, but such is the quality of the material on the record that Midnight Alibi are still releasing singles more than six months later.
The most recent of which, Where We Belong, was recently premiered via HEAVY, with James Oswald joining us to talk about the song and other developments in the Midnight Alibi camp.
“With this album, it was the first time we’ve had a release where we’ve been able to plan the whole album out,” Oswald explained. “We’ve done EPs in the past and with them, we ended up getting signed with Universal Music Australia at the time and they wanted an album, so we compiled the two EPs together to release as an album. Even though it flowed really well, it was all done by the same producer in the same studio. We weren’t able to really plan the flow of the album the way the band would always want to do it. With this one, when the pandemic happened we just said what can we do? We got together when we could and started working on tracks and going for certain vibes and give a lot of space in the music and let things breathe a bit more and not try to go too hard. This new one “Where We Belong” has a cool vibe to it and at the end of the day is a good rock song.”
In the full interview James talks more about the new single, fleshes out the album more and what the band was going for with it, discusses touring the US and playing some iconic venues, getting back out on the road, future music and more.
