INTERVIEW: Austen On Love, Travel, And Her Single ‘North South East West’

Austen. Photo supplied.

Brisbane pop artist Austen has just released her new single, North South East West, and it’s a charming song about love. Austen’s lyrics are heartwarming, and her vocal performance is set to make you smile.

The track captures that point in a relationship where everything seems easy, and you’re in the honeymoon period. It’s a great place to be, and it’s an ode to new flames. To celebrate the song’s release, I spoke to Austen about the track, her love of travel and retro fashion, as well as a range of other topics. I really enjoyed the chat, so read on!

Ben Madden: Firstly, can you introduce yourself and your music?

Austen: Hello! I’m Austen and I make indie-pop music in my bedroom.

You’ve just released your new track, North South East West, and it’s a track about love. What’s the most important lesson you’ve ever learnt about love?

That loving someone isn’t enough, and it takes lots of other ingredients to make things good. That sometimes it’s better to love someone from a distance if being with them makes you lose yourself. Also, that we should tell our friends we love them more!

The clip features a lot of retro fashion, and that’s something that you hold dearly. When putting together outfits for a music video, do you look to the song for stylistic inspiration, or elsewhere?

I love vintage clothes because they’re often designed to be a lot more flattering to a pear-shaped hip situation. Also because I think sustainable fashion is much more important than hopping on the latest fast fashion trend.

I worked with SoFi Creative to style the clip, and the stylistic inspiration was based around the characters (drummer, guitarist, bassist, frontwoman, etc) - each Austen has their own vibe and personality.

The bassist, for example, is kind of a Karen, with the blonde bob, and she has a lot of anger that she needs to release by smashing her bass. The stylistic inspiration definitely stems from the music but it feels like a different medium to put meaning and personality into, which has a life of its own.

You play all of the roles in the clip for North South East West – when you’re coming up with the idea for a music video, how do you decide what role you’ll play in it, and where did the concept of playing everyone in the clip come from?

The inspiration for the clip was 60’s talk shows, like the Ed Sullivan show, where lots of iconic bands performed live. I love the live aesthetic and the stage setup and wanted to do something similar, but modernise it and mess with it. I guess Covid influenced the casting, because I thought, if I can’t see my band then I’ll just have to superimpose myself into every role! Truly taking “DIY” to the extreme, haha. 

There’s a big nod to the 60s in the clip. What is it about that era that inspired you when making/creating North South East West?

I’m quite inspired by the retrofuturism art aesthetic from the ’60s. It’s very cool to see what they imagined the future to be like. It’s really inspiring to me because it reminds me that we’re living in an incredibly intense, and in a lot of ways amazing time, ourselves, right now. '

We used a lot of songs from that era as references when we were producing the track, particularly in the way the vocals are mixed and in the drums. Mark Ronson is a big inspiration for me because he likes to reference a lot of those vintage influences in his production.

Like many of us, you’re a huge fan of animals. If you could be re-incarnated as any animal, what would it be and why?

A peregrine falcon, so I could soar over some canyons. That seems really peaceful. Otherwise, our foster greyhound, Ally, because she’s very stylish. 

With travel looking more and more likely as we move towards 2022, I know you’ve been itching to be able to go on holiday internationally again. Where’s the first place you’ll visit once we can travel internationally again?

Japan in the springtime is next on my list, and after that Sweden, Norway, Denmark. I’ve also never been to NZ so realistically it will probably end up being that, when the bubble opens! Anywhere they’ll let us go - I’m there.

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Finally, what are your next few steps, both personally and music-wise?

At the moment I’m putting the finishing touches on my EP, which you’ll get another taste of soon. A tour announcement is coming very soon as well, which I’m insanely excited about!

Personally, I’m trying to read more, and relax more. At the moment I’m reading the Bicycle Diaries by David Byrne of the Talking Heads, written while he was touring the world and took a fold-up bike to every country they played in. I also think I might be a bit impressionable because I’m planning to go and buy a new bike this week.

Follow Austen on Facebook here, Instagram here and Twitter here.