Matthew Wright - The Getaway Plan (06/10/2014)
Matthew Wright from Melbourne rockers The Getaway Plan caught up with The 59th Sound recently to discuss crowd funding for their third album, supporting Anberlin on their final tour and more.
First up he spoke about what it was like to support Floridan rockers Anberlin on their final ever Australian tour. “That was great, man. It was really cool. We haven't played a lot of those venues in a long time, we've sort of been chilling out of the Australian touring thing for the past year. It was awesome to get back in front of some crowds that were stoked to be at the shows. All the responses were fucking wicked. Overall it was ten out of ten. We went in not really expecting anything [because] we don't know if Anberlin fans are our fans, or rather we didn't know but it seems a lot of people were into it. It was awesome.”
A lot of bands would have loved to have supported Anberlin on this tour, Matt spoke about how The Getaway Plan came to be that lucky band. “We've toured with them once before, at the start of last year in the UK. We became pretty close with them there and when they decided they were doing their final tour and that they were going to be coming to Australia they asked us if we wanted to join and we instantly were just stoked on it. We were very lucky that that opportunity came around for us.”
The band have been hard at work in recent months writing for their third album, this time however they are going it alone. That is, as an independent band, without a record label. Matt spoke about why they have chosen this path and why they chose crowd funding to help them raise the money needed. “Basically, for the past ten years every release that we've done has been done with the funding and backing of a record label. We've found that there always just comes a point where the label is investing money into something so they feel they have the right to get involved in the creative process and we're very much about having complete creative control over everything that we do. We'd seen a few bands to the crowd funding thing and it worked for them so we decided that if we pulled it off we'd be able to release this record exactly the way we want to. Without the pressure of any corporates on our back. It's been working out incredibly so far. We're so overwhelmed with the response. It's having such an awesome effect on our songwriting too so we're stoked.”
Some of the packages when you pledge include the band members guitars or even for the band to perform at your wedding. Matt spoke about how they chose they various packages. “It was a long process of just thinking about the best things that we could offer people and the most exciting things. We tried to think about artists that we looked up to and experiences that we would love personally to be able to share with them. We tried to think a little bit outside the square a bit as well as opposed to what a lot of other acts do. We think that we've done alright [laughs].”
Even though the album is in it's very early stages, it still has a name. Dark Horses. Matt talked about where that name came from. “Well a dark horse is someone or something that kind of unexpectedly comes out of nowhere and wins a race. I guess it's meant to represent us and this record as a whole. It's a fairly optimistic title but we've kind of taken the approach that we cannot fail this time around. It's given us this drive by calling the album that it's forced us to step it up. We're putting everything we have into this record to make sure that it works out for us.We have thirty two songs written for the new album, it's going to be a pretty gruelling process to try and narrow them down but it's exciting to have so many to choose from.”
The band's early EP's were a lot heavier musically and vocally than the two albums they have released. Matt addressed this. “If there's anything I can give away about the new album it's going to be very raw and a lot less overproduced than our first two albums. We've done the big crazy production thing and we feel like we nailed that on our last CD with the epic string arrangements and stuff and we just wanna pull it back a little bit.”
Finally, Matt spoke about the new acoustic EP Journaux. “That was something we just wanted to add as a little freebie to anyone that was gonna pledge for our new record. It's so difficult, man, asking people for money for something that's not going to be with them for another year. It's a pretty big thing. We just wanted to make sure that people were getting something now to sort of tie them over. We threw it together pretty quickly. We're pretty happy with how they turned out. People seem to be stoked on it.”
Matt Barton
First up he spoke about what it was like to support Floridan rockers Anberlin on their final ever Australian tour. “That was great, man. It was really cool. We haven't played a lot of those venues in a long time, we've sort of been chilling out of the Australian touring thing for the past year. It was awesome to get back in front of some crowds that were stoked to be at the shows. All the responses were fucking wicked. Overall it was ten out of ten. We went in not really expecting anything [because] we don't know if Anberlin fans are our fans, or rather we didn't know but it seems a lot of people were into it. It was awesome.”
A lot of bands would have loved to have supported Anberlin on this tour, Matt spoke about how The Getaway Plan came to be that lucky band. “We've toured with them once before, at the start of last year in the UK. We became pretty close with them there and when they decided they were doing their final tour and that they were going to be coming to Australia they asked us if we wanted to join and we instantly were just stoked on it. We were very lucky that that opportunity came around for us.”
The band have been hard at work in recent months writing for their third album, this time however they are going it alone. That is, as an independent band, without a record label. Matt spoke about why they have chosen this path and why they chose crowd funding to help them raise the money needed. “Basically, for the past ten years every release that we've done has been done with the funding and backing of a record label. We've found that there always just comes a point where the label is investing money into something so they feel they have the right to get involved in the creative process and we're very much about having complete creative control over everything that we do. We'd seen a few bands to the crowd funding thing and it worked for them so we decided that if we pulled it off we'd be able to release this record exactly the way we want to. Without the pressure of any corporates on our back. It's been working out incredibly so far. We're so overwhelmed with the response. It's having such an awesome effect on our songwriting too so we're stoked.”
Some of the packages when you pledge include the band members guitars or even for the band to perform at your wedding. Matt spoke about how they chose they various packages. “It was a long process of just thinking about the best things that we could offer people and the most exciting things. We tried to think about artists that we looked up to and experiences that we would love personally to be able to share with them. We tried to think a little bit outside the square a bit as well as opposed to what a lot of other acts do. We think that we've done alright [laughs].”
Even though the album is in it's very early stages, it still has a name. Dark Horses. Matt talked about where that name came from. “Well a dark horse is someone or something that kind of unexpectedly comes out of nowhere and wins a race. I guess it's meant to represent us and this record as a whole. It's a fairly optimistic title but we've kind of taken the approach that we cannot fail this time around. It's given us this drive by calling the album that it's forced us to step it up. We're putting everything we have into this record to make sure that it works out for us.We have thirty two songs written for the new album, it's going to be a pretty gruelling process to try and narrow them down but it's exciting to have so many to choose from.”
The band's early EP's were a lot heavier musically and vocally than the two albums they have released. Matt addressed this. “If there's anything I can give away about the new album it's going to be very raw and a lot less overproduced than our first two albums. We've done the big crazy production thing and we feel like we nailed that on our last CD with the epic string arrangements and stuff and we just wanna pull it back a little bit.”
Finally, Matt spoke about the new acoustic EP Journaux. “That was something we just wanted to add as a little freebie to anyone that was gonna pledge for our new record. It's so difficult, man, asking people for money for something that's not going to be with them for another year. It's a pretty big thing. We just wanted to make sure that people were getting something now to sort of tie them over. We threw it together pretty quickly. We're pretty happy with how they turned out. People seem to be stoked on it.”
Matt Barton