A Q+A with Telenova
After two EP’s released since 2021, you’re about to release your debut album ‘Time Is A Flower’ - how does it feel to finally have the project out in the world?
ANGE - I feel so ready to have this album out! It’s been moulded in our hands for I think two years total when you look back to the earliest songs written for it. There’s a beautiful anticipation about knowing that soon the album will have wings of its own and go out into the world.
JOSH - I would say I’m very excited but I don’t really get very excited about anything, definitely stoked though, we put a lot of time and energy into it and it’s super cool to have it out in the world. We are already working on album 2, gotta stay one step ahead!
You have already released three singles from the album ‘Teardrop’, ‘Power’ and ‘Discothèque Inside My Head’ - can you tell me more the story behind these tracks? Do you have a favourite so far?
JOSH - Teardrop was a beat that Ed had laying around and we gave it the Telenova treatment. Power was a song we co-wrote with producer Styalz Fuego, you can kinda hear that’s a little different for us, we don’t do a lot of co-writing but it was ace to work with him. Discotheque was a little idea I had that I recorded on my iphone and then fleshed out, once Ange and Ed got involved with it it really brought it to life.
This album was written over 18-months, there would have been many memories (good and bad) throughout this time, did you have any stand-out moments that happened while creating the album?
ED - For me it was working with Chris Taylor from Grizzly Bear in London. Grizzly Bear are one of my favourite bands and when he said he’d be keen to jump on board and help out with some production, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Even as I type this I still think it’s pretty out of control. We worked on two songs called Margot and Tremors together and you can hear his production chops on them. I’ll never forget going to dinner and peppering him with nerdy questions about Grizzly Bear and how they made their records. I think he was probably pretty weirded out by me by the end. Sick.
JOSH - I think slaving away on Disco and January are my memories, I got super protective and obsessive with those songs, they took up a lot of brain space but I’m really happy with where they ended up in the end, I think January is my fave song on the record. Recording with Chris was really cool, he’s a good bud and it’s always nice to work with an old friend.
Listening to ‘Time Is A Flower’, you can’t help but pick up notes from conversations around faith and various beliefs on the topic, can you tell me more about this?
ANGE - Josh and I write a lot of the lyrics together. Sometimes from scratch, sometimes building on an idea or concept or few lines that I’ve written in the studio. It’s interesting that you use the word ‘conversations’ because I would say, to me, the lyrics are often a conversation between Josh and I about the human condition, belief and longing for what more might be out there. Not necessarily that we sit down and go ‘let’s write a song about this stuff’ - but I think sometimes we’re kind of talking to each other through the music as we sketch out ideas and flow from each others’ prompts. I believe in God, I believe in Jesus, it’s core to who I am as a person, so I guess naturally it flows out of who I am and how I see the world. We didn’t set out to write about these particular themes, but it was more in retrospect when we started pulling the album tracks together from a pool of demos from that period of time - we just started seeing patterns in the themes.
JOSH - Nick Cave calls it Jesus smuggling when you write songs about religion and disguise them in poetry, I always liked that phrase.
The album has a combination of upbeat disco tracks like ‘Power’, with some rock tunes like ‘Discotheque’ which has more grunt than previous projects - what was the influence behind this new direction for Telenova?
JOSH - I don’t think there was ever a decision to go in a nude erection (new direction), we just always gravitate towards what inspires us and I think we try not to repeat ourselves because it doesn’t get any of us jazzed. We are onto album number 2 now and it’s definitely a shift again, we just follow what makes us excited.
It was mentioned how Telenova became more committed to the band when fans showed that they really resonated with your music - where do you think the band would be now if this wasn’t the case? Would you still be creating music? If so, do you think Telenova would have taken this more honest and gritty direction?
ANGE - I think if we weren’t touring so much and didn’t have such a big team around us, we’d still be meeting up and writing and recording and releasing music. Just maybe not as frequently, but I think still consistently. Because I think at its core, the project was born out of a songwriting session, and so the songwriting element and the creative chemistry in the studio - that’s the heart of Telenova.
Hard to say whether the honest and gritty direction would have been brought out though - there’s a lot of nuance to that development in the lyrics and songwriting. I think of conversations I’ve had with management around who we are as artists and what we want to express that have probably gently steered things and pushed us in bolder directions without me being fully conscious of it. Same with just all the time we’ve spent together on the road touring - it’s certainly not a normal 9-5 job. I think it builds trust and friendship in a way that allows for more and more freedom in the studio to be honest with each other and be more open.
JOSH - from my experience a band has about 3 years to make things start happening and if it doesn’t it’s probably time to call it quits and start something fresh. We are super lucky that people resonate with our music so it keeps us going. I think also we feel excited abouut new stuff that we are doing so as long as people keep turning uup and we are feeling good about it we’ll keep the ball rolling.
Contributing to the formation of Telenova was the bond you guys had over film soundtrack music, Karen O and Danger Mouse collab and Radiohead - can you dive into this more?
ED - I guess any group of people who get together to create music usually like similar artists. And you discover that the more you work with these people. But the Karen O AND Danger Mouse record Lux Prima was quite literally the first record we all said we were enjoying when we first met in 2019. It was kind of weird, in a marvellous way. We all resonated with different parts of that record, and we definitely referenced its overall steaze throughout the making of our first EP. What’s even weirder is that they just released their first single since that record the day we started working on album number 2. SPOOOKY.
JOSH - I think Ed and I both love Danger Mouse as a producer, he’s done so many killer records and always keeps things fresh while still always being him. We’ve got a bunch of other producers and records we love, Ed is great at finding new things where as I’m a bit stuck in the 90s, ha.
You recently wrapped up your tour with girl in red. What was this like?
ED - That was a really fun tour. All of GiRs fans were extremely respectful and avid music listeners I think. Our show at Margaret Court was one of the loudest we’ve ever played - and we were only the support band. Wild scenes. So yes - it was kind of the perfect tour for us to jump on board. So thank you Secret Sounds. Thank you very much.
JOSH - We had a lot of fun, the audiences were really lovely, couldn’t have asked for more. It’s funny, we played about 4-5 shows but we didn’t meet her once! We did hear her jamming in the green room writing a new song one night, respect the work ethic.
Now you are about to hit the road throughout Australia, Europe and the UK. What can listeners expect from the live shows and what are you most excited about?
ANGE - I’ve been told that the live show is a real injection of energy to the recorded version of the songs, there’s a spirit and dynamic in the room that comes out when the full band is just locked in with each other and playing it all live. It’s very exciting. We have a lot of fun up there and I think that’s kind of infectious (so I’ve been told) for the crowd we get to share the night with. There’s a transcendence to everyone sharing that experience together. I love that feeling.
ED - We’re all pretty excited to hit some regional areas that we haven’t seen for a while. We’re playing our first show in Cairns which I’m looking forward to. Big fan of The Cairns Taipans (NBL). Not the actual snake itself. Live-wise we’ve got a HOT SHIT drummer on board and we’ll be slowly injecting songs off the album into the live set. There are some songs on the album that maybe aren’t considered singles, but I’m looking forward to learning them for a live setting. A song called ‘Tremors, Traces’ could be reallllllly fun.
