If you missed Part 1 in the Josh Pyke saga, you should start by checking out our interview with him here. Now that we have established that my brother looks like Josh Pyke we can continue.
My brother and I arrive at Brisbane’s Black Bear Lodge, to a sold-out room of fans politely milling around the stage, eagerly awaiting the appearance of the affable modern bush poet that is Josh Pyke. It is a fans-first show so only those who have bought the new album But For All These Shrinking Hearts (or are lucky enough to be writing about the affair) are allowed access. It is immediately apparent that if you put all of Josh Pyke’s fans in a pot and boiled them down, this would be the concentrated broth. They have a distinct flavour; soft and sweet with a rosy finish. Even the bartender remarks at how nice they are as I buy my first drink.
Standing towards the back of the room it is immediately apparent that people are staring at my brother. I don’t think they think he is Josh Pyke, but it is a stare of jealousy because he has really nailed that Josh Pyke look (as we discussed in Part One of this adventure, they look remarkably, uncannily similar). In a room of mega fans he looks like the biggest there is, and he fucking hates it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that he doesn’t like the lilting indie music, but if you spend your life looking like someone, it’s pretty uncool to admit to being an admirer. It is better to keep a distant aloofness so you can shrug off any comments with an off hand “Who? Yeah don’t really know his stuff.” If you accidentally start liking your doppelganger’s work, you immediately become the impostor and it’s a dark journey into self-deprecation from there.
As Josh comes on to the stage there is a roar from the tiny room that makes Beliebers seem like fair-weather fans. He soaks in the admiration before launching into an a-dorkable “Are you rrrrready?” followed by a laugh and a lament about his terrible MC work. The crowd respond like they are on the set of a sitcom with appropriately timed laughs, awwws and cheers.
When I notice the performers outfit, I look at my brother in disbelief. They are literally wearing the same thing. You can see the photo evidence below, but there are nuances that aren’t quite clear enough. For example, not many people roll up the sleeves of a long sleeve shirt right to the muscle bulge. It’s a dated but somewhat bold look that they both embrace on their spotted blue shirts with a laissez faire ginger charm. The main difference is Pyke has metal collar cuffs, an item reserved for those that have truly made it. My brother tells me it is unplanned. I take this as further proof they were separated at birth and share weird telekinetic powers.
As the music kicks off the set is an intimate exploration of Pyke’s ten-year career to date. Spanning five albums he hand picks the songs that resonate most with fans, and delivers them with his signature alpine vocals. They climb and stagger from line to line, always journeying onwards and upwards to a fantastic peak. The Summer and The Lighthouse Song from 2008’s Chimney’s Afire are favourites with stunning lyrics that take me on a stirring nostalgic trip. “Time is like the ocean, you can only hold a little in your hands. So we swim before we’re broken, before our bones become black coral on the sand.” I’d forgotten how beautiful the album is but am instantly reminded.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1ABbLlKTlw]
Mid set, Pyke invites friend and musician Jack Carty to the stage to perform hit Make You Happy. There is a shout from a woman in the front row and Josh responds: “That must be you, Bernadette!” I imagine that some of these people have seen these songs in countless venues and cities and really are the backbone of his career. He knows there names and he is grateful and you can really see it. It’s quite touching. As Carty leans into the single microphone the two touch heads as they perform together and it’s another warm and fuzzy moment. I even see my brother humming along. Busted.
There are plenty of tracks off the new album littered throughout the night, and despite being out for only weeks, they seem to have lodged themselves deep in the psyche of those in the room. A lady behind me seems extremely conflicted as the set goes on. With each new song she says something like “this is my favorite on the album”, then the next “no, wait… this is… this is definitely my favorite.” It goes on like this for five or six songs, but the moral of the story is people like them all… a lot. And with good reason. But For All These Shrinking Hearts is a superb record befitting an artist who has fully embraced his sound and has pushed it to new ground.
Still Some Big Deal is a lovely ballad that explores the depths and lengths of a relationship and stands out in its vulnerability. Be Your Boy continues the sentimentality but has more musical complexity with a pulsing beat played through an iPad, an extremely catchy chorus, and Peter Gabriel-esque vocal heights. It’s bordering on twee but stops just this side of being extremely endearing. I cross all my fingers and toes that he might jump into a cover of Solsbury Hill, but it doesn’t happen. During There’s a Line I listen to the words: “Every time I think I got a bearing on myself, I lose the bearing on myself…” I nudge my brother and say, “this song is about you.” He rolls his eyes.
As the set nears the end single Hollering Hearts has the whole room pulsating in a joyous dance of camaraderie. All of a sudden I understand that these fans first shows are definitely for the fans, but just as much, they are for Pyke. He smiles from ear to ear mirrored by the crowd, completely safe and accepted as he shares the songs he cares so much about. It must feel pretty damn good to be in a room so full of love and free from judgment. Over the course of the night there are more thank you’s than I can count, and in one last show of gratitude Josh ensures he will be staying around to chat with whoever wants to come say hi. I grab my brother by the wrist and drag him to the front of the stage. He harangues me with jibes about how Highlander style “there can be only one”.
When we get there I shake Josh’s hand and introduce them. Call me crazy, but there is a moment of brotherhood. All threats of beheading (aka the Highlander) are gone and they exchange jokes about coordinated wardrobes and the complexity of beards. People look on amazed and wonder what on earth this Josh Pyke impersonator is doing, but the three of us share in the joke as I snap a picture and my brother’s ten year struggle with being likened to the red headed troubadour comes to a head, forever etched in social media history. While they may never become best friends, they are now highly aware of each other’s existence, and if they bumped into each other in the street I like to think they would stop for a beer and regale stories of the twins that never were.
We bid Josh farewell and leave him to swim happily in the sea of adoration, slowly making his way to everyone who wants to exchange a few words. As we file out of the Black Bear Lodge I have a warm feeling of contentment and a knowing that my work here is done.
I should preface this interview by saying that Josh Pyke is not really my brother. In fact we aren’t related in any way, but we do have a long history, whether he knows it or not. A running theme throughout his ten-year career is that he bares a striking resemblance to my brother. Whether it be a photo in a street press, or an appearance on Spicks and Specks, friends and family will double take and confusedly wonder, “is that….?”
Left, my brother. Right, Josh Pyke. You be the judge.
My brother has taken this in his stride, trying to get backstage at Splendour in the Grass a couple of times (unsuccessfully) and accepting free drinks and photo opportunities from fans (successfully). Now, with this opportunity to speak with Pyke I thought it would be remiss of me not to clear the air and make sure this was not a slight to his name. Was it ok for my brother to continue to impersonate him for his own benefit?
“As long as he isn’t saying anything really racist or homophobic and passing himself off as me, then yeah, that’s fine,” he says with a bemused laugh. To repay the favour, I ask if he could use a body double from time to time, and he jumps at the chance. “Honestly yeah there are loads of times. At the moment I am so flat out doing promo but also getting ready to do these fan first shows. I’ve just been back and forth up to QLD and down to Melbourne just for the day this week, and I am also renovating my studio, which was possibly a stupid decision to start that at the same time. So yeah, there are times when I could definitely sub someone in, so tell him I’ll give him a call.”
And while he doesn’t sound much like my brother, the conversation flows easily. Pyke has an easygoing demeanor and a friendly openness to discussing his work. Album But For All These Shrinking Hearts, out last Friday, signals a new beginning for the singer-songwriter in a way, with a new label and a feeling of self-confidence that he is now just finding for the first time.
“It’s hard to explain but for whatever reason I finally feel like an established artist. And that might sound stupid after five albums, because maybe I should have felt like this a little bit earlier, but I haven’t and the reality is that Australia is such a tiny market that it’s hard to feel established because every time you release a record you kind of feel like you are starting again,” he says, “But this time it’s just because the last album went really well and the touring for that album went better than ever and to be four albums in and to feel like your touring is the best it’s ever been really gave me a bolster of confidence and it led to me feeling quite fearless going into this album.”
When his last album New Ends and Old Beginnings was released in 2013 Pyke said that it was a bit of a book end to his first album Memories and Dust and his best work to date. He has a similar sentiment to this album. When I ask if this fondness of his work at the time of release is a byproduct of feeling so close to each body of work on it’s completion he doesn’t miss a beat before answering.
“Ever since I set out I didn’t want to rest on my laurels, and it’s a completely subjective thing to feel like a particular body of work is your best body of work, but I always wanted to feel that every time I did a record that I felt that it was my best work, otherwise I don’t think I’d feel like there is much point in releasing it. So it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, but I feel like this is a step up and my best work lyrically and production wise in particular. It’s a good feeling and it’s the feeling I need to have to bother releasing something to the public really.”
BFATSH is a dense forest of themes with ideas and symbols that shine through the foliage of signature Josh Pyke lyrics. He weaves stories around melodies with a childlike wonder, creating whole universes, contained within minutes. The first single Hollering Hearts is full of joy with an undertone of mortality. “The idea of the hollering heart is the manifestation of that idea where it’s like, the song is about following the thing in life that makes your heart holler and gives you that sense of youthful exuberance that you can sometimes lose as you get older,” he says, “But there is always something in your life that gives you that. The idea of the song is you should follow that and try and get more of that in your life.” It’s an infectious tune, and as Pyke says, one of his most established to date. He has found a pop sensibility that allows him to capture the feeling that makes hearts sing in musical form.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElA6zf5OlFU]
The album has some excellent collaborations including Momentary Glow recorded with Dustin Tebutt and Songlines written with Marcus Azon of Jinja Safari. We talk about the collaboration process, and how it works for an artist who is used to working alone and has songs that are so personal. “When I’m co-writing with people I find it almost impossible to write really good lyrics on the spur of the moment. I can’t really do that. I need to spend a long time and figure out what I am trying to say and refine it. And I can’t really collaborate on lyrics, because I need them to be my own personal voice, it’s just the way it is,” he tells me.
To overcome this, Pyke has taken to employing a vocal technique used by Jeff Tweedy of Wilco where mumbled sounds are used to establish a melody and then translated into lyrical form. “So, I would just come up with the vocal line collaboratively and I’d sing jibberish on the little demos that we would make then I’d take them away on tour. So I went across to the UK and was doing a couple of weeks touring over there, and was listening to the songs on repeat and I’d just slowly translate what the jibberish was saying… And it’s a pretty wild process because you start to hear stuff, and you think, “I’m sure I was saying that”. Then slowly meaning starts to emerge from what you are translating and you kind of build on that. Not every sentence or phrase is translated from the jibberish but key phrases are, and that leads to you being able to fill in the gaps with your conscious mind.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7nu2wmpuO0]
It is these new approaches and new takes on creativity that make this album such an enjoyable experience. It has all the things that we would expect from a Josh Pyke record, but also a little shove of the envelope here and there to show the artist from a slightly different angle; a shadow cast where there was light before or vice versa. I ask him if he is ever worried that after five albums the ideas might run out? He mentions how he read about Bruce Springsteen’s struggle with writers block and the wise words that his wife gave to him: “There are more songs in you than you’ll have time to write in your lifetime,” she told him, and it is a philosophy that Pyke has adopted.
“Until recently I did think that it would one day all run out. And it’s only recently that I just don’t think that anymore, I just think that there’s more songs in me and more stories to tell than I will ever have time to tell. And maybe in the future it won’t even be through songs. Maybe it will be through something else. I just believe that the creative process is a never ending well. It’s a well that doesn’t run dry, it’s just a matter of figuring out how to tap into that well. And ten years into my career I feel like I have finally accepted that sometimes your not going to have access to it, but there is ways to get back in there, and I think I know those ways now.”
With the album out and fans wildly devouring it, Pyke is about to head out to perform fans first shows in intimate venues around Australia. The shows are reserved for those who pre-ordered the album, and is a way for Pyke to thank those that have supported him since the beginning.
“It’s really just a way for me to acknowledge that without fans you don’t have a career. It’s my way of saying thank you to the core supporters that always come to the shows and jump on the opportunity to buy the new record and pre-order it. I always try and keep them in intimate venues so it’s a cool casual affair, and we have a chat afterwards and hang out a bit. It’s my way of reconnecting with the people that have always supported me and who I owe a lot to, who I basically owe my career to.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWP9MT_huxw]
I tell Josh that my brother and I will see him at the Brisbane show and he laughs, “I can’t wait to meet this guy. I’m just anticipating that he is going to be taller, and have a better physique and be younger and better looking than me.” I assure him that my brother has spent many years living under the umbrella of being the less talented, less famous Josh Pyke so there is nothing to worry about. “He’s going to deck me isn’t he!? He is going to be like ‘fuck you for looking like me’,” he asks a little apprehensively.
It is unlikely, but only time will tell. Stay tuned for Part Two when we head to the Black Bear Lodge to bring the two bearded gingers face to face for the first time.
In the meantime head over and buy the album.
I love it when albums have a story or theme behind them. No song seems out of place and they all link together, portraying a single strong feeling. That’s exactly why Josh Pyke’s But For All These Shrinking Hearts was a complete winner with no questions asked. The emotion poured into each song, through both lyrics and music, was undeniably admirable. We felt Pyke’s love and pain for this girl he was singing about with every note.
The album opened with an interesting intro to the first track Book Of Revelations. The sinister sound flowed onto a slow, chilled melody, embellished with little yet interesting details – the sound of chimes at the end, for instance. Late Night Driving was one of my favourites; a little violin is always a good thing, and the stellar harmonies did a great job at communicating the raw emotion of the descriptive lyrics. Beautiful words, such as “If we don’t do it, we won’t do it at all” and “You will always be a secret to me”, perfectly explained the problems within their troubled relationship and the fear of commitment that was the main thing holding it back.
From that, we went straight into the electro-pop intro of the first single There’s A Line. This track had a light, vibrant sound to match Pyke’s harmonic voice. The beautiful lyrics, wrapped in harmonies, show what a great songwriter he is, using clever descriptions to explore the idea of the great journey that is love. His second single Hollering Hearts also has a bright little melody led by an acoustic guitar. The folk roots really shine here, allowing complete attention on the importance of the lyrics. They open us up to the idea of young love and the initially fluttery feelings that take hold. It’s almost like our hearts are the first to know when we’ve found love, even in the darkest of times. I know this one’s going to be stuck in my head for a few weeks.
Still Some Big Deal was another stand-out track. I thought the piano sounded like raindrops, which was a nice touch to the incoming love song. This song was full of thankfulness and appreciation for everything she has done for him while she carries “the weight on her back”. It’s always nice for a girl to hear these things in such a genuine way, and shows that the love between Pyke and the girl in question was real. The final track Someone To Rust With was a great way to end the album because it shows that the story isn’t over yet. The guitar intro is light, like a music box, leading onto the true star of the album, Pyke’s lyrics. He sings that he is “looking for someone to rust with”, meaning he is either lost in love or he still hasn’t found the right girl yet. It was the perfect ending to an album that has so much more to say.
I finished the album wanting more, and I think you will too. Give the two singles a go first, then buy the album. It reminded me that love is real, even if times are tough. We are all just trying to find that person “to rust with”.
But For All These Shirking Hearts is available now via Wonderlick/ Song Music.