Bad Neighbour; Interview with Cooper

We were lucky enough to interview vocalist Cooper of Bad Neighbour as they embarked on a tour across Australia and recently released their personal and emotive debut album ‘Millions’!

Here are a few highlights…

Natalie: How's the tour going so far?

Cooper: The shows have been great so far, we’ve got a little bit of a break between shows now which is good because we had a really… I don’t want to say rough but a tough couple of days. A lot of no sleep and junk food. It’s hard, there's a lot of hurrying and then waiting. We try to take vitamins to stay healthy, but we always get sick there's really no way around it. I just try to keep my voice as good as possible. 

Natalie: If that goes at all you're in trouble.

Cooper: Yeah, we’ve had a couple of times where my voice started to go and we were all worried but it comes back somehow. I will verge on the edge of not being able to sing but it comes back for the last few shows of the tour. 

Natalie: Is there anything you were most excited or nervous about sharing with the debut album ‘Millions’? 

Cooper: I was most excited to share a couple of the heavier songs, it’s not super heavy but there's a couple of songs that get really heavy instrumentally but mainly topically it gets pretty heavy. It talks a lot about life and death, it’s a very honest record. It was very straight to the point and sincere. It’s pretty cool to release some songs like that and some sadder stuff too. Under the context of an album you can get as morbid as you want and that's where we do our best work I think. 

Natalie: Do you have a different process writing an album than the singles?

Cooper: It was really cool to write from the perspective of doing an album and not just writing a single. You want it to be a cohesive body of work. I liked writing for the album because it didn't feel like we had to fit any sort of format or criteria.

Natalie: If you could go back before starting the album is there any advice you’d give yourself now? 

Cooper: I think, not be so hard on myself, just chill out. It was an amazing experience to do it but we were very hard on ourselves. Sometimes the best songs come when you’re not digging for them or looking for them. The other thing is if you’re feeling creative and words and lyrics are flowing out of you, you have to ride that for as long as possible.

Natalie: Did you have any specific influences going into making the album:

Cooper: We take a huge amount of inspiration from a band called Microwave. We took inspiration from a lot. Jack, our drummer, loves the Foo Fighters and Underoath. Liam and Zoe listen to a lot of heavier music. 

Natalie: Do you have any guilty pleasure artists that you listen too?

Cooper: I really like old school country music, I grew up on it. I actually really like Johnny Cash and the Dixie Chicks. I try not to tell people that to be honest. 

Natalie: What do you hope that listeners take away from the album?

Cooper: It's special when people can connect to your songs. I like when I listen to music and someone is explaining something I may have been to and can relate too. 

Natalie: Have you had a favourite to play live so far?

Cooper: I think ‘Carried’. It's got that really heavy breakdown in the middle, we absolutely love doing it. It's a very morbid but very driving, pacey song. It's got it all. 

Natalie: Have you got many post tour plans?

Cooper: We’ve got a couple of songs in the works that we’re going to flesh out. We’ve got something big to announce for January. I can't say what but it's really really cool and it's going to be a lot of fun. 

Natalie: For people who are just discovering your music, what song would you recommend they start with? 

Cooper: I think definitely ‘Slip Away’. The song I always tell people to listen to is ‘Paul Avery’. That's our most favourite song to play live. It’s a very intricate song, I always thought that was the best song we ever wrote and would show people if they wanted to know more about the band.

Natalie: You’ve been releasing music on your own too, how's that been going? 

Cooper: It's been good, I've been doing it all myself in my little home studio - I have no idea what I'm doing. I’m trying to do it lofi and scrappy, I like acoustic music when it's like that. It’s been really fun so far. With the band it takes a long time between writing a song and releasing it, it can be up to a year or two years but with riley I can write a song and release it like a week later. I like releasing really personal songs. 

Natalie: Even if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, sometimes that's the best way and you can be more creative with it.

Cooper: I think the biggest part about writing and recording is whatever sounds good you shouldn’t question it too much and that's how I approach playing guitar as well.