Teenage Dads Dish The Dirt On Their Punchy New EP, ‘Club Echo’
On 'Club Echo', Teenage Dads try to untangle the jumbled emotions of life.
“Life continues to move in spite of everything that may be going on in your life,” Teenage Dads frontman Jordan Finlay.
“What’s happened has happened, and whether it was how you intended or you’re stuck living with regret is not up to you. It’s bittersweet, a reminder of the good times but also a reminder that they’re gone and you can’t go back.”
Depending on what your life outlook is like on any particular day, that could be a sobering, or comforting, fact. Life is not one or the other, after all. In fact, it’s a bit of a jumble, which is exactly what Teenage Dads attempt to sketch on their absorbing new EP Club Echo. The Mornington Peninsula four-piece manage to carve a magnetic release out of a handful of tracks — not an easy thing to with an EP — from the relentless push of ‘Cheerleader’ to the punchy ‘Elevator’.
To dig into how it all came together, we asked the band to give us the lowdown on every track.
‘Elevator’
This song doesn’t actually have anything to do with elevators. Like most of our songs, the working titles are random until Jordan lays the lyrics down. After many instrumental and vocal changes we ended up with a lyric that includes the word ‘Elevator’, giving us reason to keep it. I guess you could say the pace of the track compares to the Eureka Tower elevator because it goes really fast.
‘Piano Girl’
‘Piano Girl’s lyrics stemmed from the idea of giving someone a nickname in your head based on something about that person that you like. Whether it’s something interesting they’re wearing, something they say all the time or a skill that they show off, it’s a cute way to remind yourself of who they are if you don’t know their name.
Funnily enough in this song, the titular ‘Piano Girl’ actually plays guitar, but we think that comments on how this can be kind of shallow and it’s always best to get to know someone before making any assumptions on who they are. The song is also written in the context of meeting someone at a live gig, and how the setting intertwines with this interaction and impacts the conversation going forward.
‘I Believe It’
This is the first song Connor tracked at home when the first lockdown started. After hearing the demo, Jordan said that it reminded him of Club Penguin and so it became the working title of the song. We kept the name right up until all of the lyrics (which are about being imaginative and nonsensical) had been written and recorded. Imagine this being played to a mosh pit of puffles.
‘Cheerleader’
‘Cheerleader’ is about indecisiveness leading to missed opportunities and regret. Jord wrote this in 2020 feeling like we had spent much of our time not working hard enough to put ourselves out there and constantly feeling as though nothing was getting done.
“I was in a rut, felt like my life was moving on without me and all that remained were precious memories to keep me motivated for whatever came next,” Jordan says. The irony in this is that 2021 has proven to be as bad a year as 2020.
‘Come On, Cowboy. Fire your Gun!’
This song was written around the time of George Floyd’s death in May 2020, and used it as a way to vent frustrations at the excessive force used and lack of guidance from their leaders throughout this difficult period. It felt very chaotic and very barbaric how it was handled, and we likened this to the idea of Cowboys living in the modern-day era. The song was written in two parts with the main section written first and the outro BANG BANG section written after, and we found a fun way to merge the two songs into one.
‘Cheerleader (Acoustic)’
‘Cheerleader’ Acoustic is about the song ‘Cheerleader’ by Teenage Dads. We were inspired by this song and felt it resonated with our sound, so we decided to create an acoustic version of the song to offer something new.
‘Piano Girl (Alternative Version)’
‘Piano Girl (Alternative Version)’ is a little bit different for us. If you listen closely you’ll actually be able to hear that the lyrics and some of the riffs are directly ripped from a small Melbourne band named Teenage Dads. Don’t tell them.
‘Thank You for the Honey, Honey’
“It’s about being left in the lurch by someone and the struggles of coping with that, and that while you’re thankful for ‘the honey’, you fear the prospect of living an unfulfilling life,” explains drummer Vincent. This quote is from an article about the Teenage Dads single, ‘Thank You for the Honey, Honey’, which explains in this one sentence what the song is about.
Club Echo is out now via Chugg Music
Photo Credit: Ted Min