A Quick Chat with Mel Blue

What is the inspiration for your new album, nomorejacketsplease?

The main inspiration and theme for our album is about experiencing a new life and challenge living in London – moving from sunny Sydney to a dark and gritty city requires a lot of soul searching and perseverance. What made it all worth it was going out and discovering new music at clubs, house parties, and festivals. Listening to all sorts of dance music like breakbeat, garage, jungle, DnB, and Miami bass sent our heads into a spin and inspired us to write music unlike anything we had done before.

Is there a theme or central point within this record? Where did it grow from, and how did it come about?

The title “nomorejacketsplease” is a sort of pleading with London, and it’s representative of what we were aiming to say with the album. We had planned to move to London for several years, and we’d always heard winters were meant to be hard. Still, in our blue-skied-Sydney-sider bravado we dismissed it like “pfft what are a few cold, grey days, we have those”. By the middle of our first winter though – without sunshine and for what felt like 100 months – we were beaten. It was so alien to us and made everything we were missing about home feel further away. By the end of winter in 2024 (which was when we began writing the album), we were begging London – “please, no more cold, no more grey, no more jackets!”.

Like managing the weather, we thought London would be easy. With navigating a new city, getting 9-5 jobs, being isolated, missing the bush, the ocean, family, friends, and starting from scratch getting involved in a new music community, it was anything but easy. And so we were faced with a choice – keep pleading with London and the weather to change and keep the chip on our shoulder about what London was “supposed to” do for our careers. Or lean in, embrace the change, have an open mind instead of an expectant one. Although we got there through kicking and screaming sometimes, we decided to shift our attitude. We decided that, if we let it, London could be better than anything we’d ever dreamed of.

That’s a lesson that we’ll take with us for the rest of our lives, and the breadth of new genres and influences we were exploring on the album goes to show that.

What was the creation of this record like? Take us through the process!

We wrote the bulk of the album from March 2024 to November 2024. We started in a studio in South London in Brockley, and that set the scene. Heading into the first session we had the attitude of “this is it”, “now or never”. We had come to London to do this. We were away from everything and everyone. We had to approach these songs with fearlessness.

There was a lot of analog and vintage gear in this studio, like a Rhodes, SH-101, Moog MG-1 from 1981, a DX9, and a RE-201 space echo. We had played with vintage gear before, especially the Juno 60 which is all over our first album, but not like this. In those first few demos, almost everything was recorded as audio rather than midi, and this was an ethos that we carried throughout the record. When we did use midi, we aimed to send it to outboard gear.

One amazing moment was when the studio owner, John Calvert, helped us send midi via CV to the Moog MG-1 (released two years before midi din ports were standardised). This was really old school and something we had never done. Once it was working, we played with some knobs and accidentally moved the pitch knob around on one of the oscillators. The harmony that came out was different to what we had programmed in Logic. It sounded amazing to us and that helped shape all of the song “Same As I”. This idea of reacting to how analog gear presented a sound we’d programmed or played in started to shape all the compositions on the album. Again, this was that idea of trying to control things less, and being open to the possibility that it can be better than you ever imagined if you let it.

We moved to another studio in Tottenham, and that’s where the bulk of the album was written and recorded. We would start late in the day, usually on Thursday and Friday, make an idea, have some dinner, then come back to it. Something magical tended to happen around 9pm every night. It was weird. Almost like a witching hour (made especially spooky when we heard screaming and yelling in the church next door at the warehouse we were working at – but that’s another story). I would say just about every song of the album clicked around 9pm. After 9pm, we’d stay in the studio until the early hours of the morning before a long bus ride home, drafting a structure and arrangement. Another rule of ours is that we must have at least something of a structure on day one of the demo, because we never really reach the same flow state when we come back to a loop.

Perhaps it was because we had so much raw emotion processing all the changes going on around us, or because something mystical was graciously smiling on us, just about all the songs were written in the first session we did on each of them. We didn’t overthink it, and we let them be a snapshot of our time in London.

What is your favourite memory from writing and creating the record?

Although we’ve talked about the seriousness of the album, and how it’s about embracing change and stepping into who you need to become, it’s also really goofy. Silliness and joy are at the foundation of everything on this record. There isn’t a song on the album we weren’t giggling to ourselves about when we were making it (see the bridge of “Diamonds” to hear an Oscar chuckle). SO, there are too many joyful moments to count.

But, that said, I think my favourite moment (I’m sure Oscar and Jacob have their own favourites too) was when we’d written the demo for “None Of That”. Jacob and I, along with a group of our friends, had just been to Outlook Origins festival in Croatia. Here we experienced our first ever drum and bass + jungle event, and it rewired our DNA. DJ Storm, Metalheadz DJs, Sully, and Tim Reaper blew our minds. This was also where Jacob and I parted ways before he flew back to Australia, while Oscar and I stayed in the UK for another six months. It was bittersweet.

Naturally, when I got back in the studio with Oscar in the UK, I wanted to try something faster than 160bpm and with breakbeats. “None Of That” is the demo that came out of the session.

That weekend I got the bus to Bristol to stay with my sister. She had also come to Outlook Origins after suggesting we all go, and she was also the person who put me on to jungle, drum and bass, and breakbeat. Because of that, the demo already felt really connected to her. It was Autumn, and I remember sitting on a rock by a creek near her house, listening to the demo over and over again and then having a long call with Oscar about it. At that moment I felt warm, and I knew everything was going to be okay. That was the moment I knew everything was worth it.

Who/what are your influences/inspirations?

Our biggest musical influences come down to three umbrellas – Frank Ocean, Daft Punk, and Underworld. Emotional, experimental, mystifying R&B and hip-hop; joyful french house; and iconic euphoric electronic dance music. We’re also huge fans of Paramore, 2000s alternative bands like A Perfect Circle and Radiohead, and pop punk like Blink 182 and A Day To Remember. I think we are all drawn to groove-based music, Oscar and Jacob both being drummers and myself being a bass player, and we also all love pretty, moody chord progressions. Those artists I mentioned scratch all those itches.

Like so many electronic musicians, Steve Reich (and minimalist music broadly) is a composer that we draw a lot of inspiration from. My ADHD brain is chaotic and a million ideas over the top of each other at the best of times. But minimalist, loop-based music that slowly evolves allows me to sink in on one feeling. We’re making pop music, but we often take this less-is-more/develop-one-idea-slowly idea into our own compositions.

Family is also dear to each of us and a huge source of inspiration. Jacob and his brother are always showing each other new music, playing DJ sets together at house parties, and their whole family has grown up coming to Jacob’s gigs. Oscar’s Dad is an Australian Musical Theatre star and was in Australia’s first productions of The Rocky Horror Show and Sunset Boulevard. Oscar’s Dad taught Oscar to sing, which is why (I think!!!) you can hear Frank Sinatra in Oscar’s voice. Me, I think every cool song I’ve ever heard was shown to me by my brother or sister, and when I’m making music I’m always making it with them in mind.

What do you love about making music?

To focus on one thing we love; building connections with people around the world who listen and take something from the music. We are very fortunate to make music that people listen to, and we are always blown away by the positive messages we receive from people digging the new music, soundtracking their videos, or including it in their sets. It means the world to interact with these people, and we don't take it for granted.

If you had to summarise the record in one sentence, what would you say?

The album gives you license to have a cheeky cry on the dancefloor.

Your live show has taken on a whole new life – how have the visuals developed alongside the new record and how have you found these new songs connecting live?

At the start of the year, once the album was all but done, we sat down for a few months wondering, how on earth are we going to play these songs live? Through trial and error, and an excuse to buy new gear, we began trying to learn Ableton live, incorporate live drums, and automate autotune and sampling. With the help of Roly Elias on sound and Summer King bringing visuals to life, people unexpectedly walk into an entire sensory experience. The way Summer layers the visuals by VJing throughout the show seems to pull the audience into a trance, and speaking to friends afterwards it's nice to hear all the different songs that meant something to them.

Mel Blue’s sophomore album nomorejacketsplease is out now.
They’ll celebrate the vinyl release of the album with a warehouse party at a secret location in Sydney on Friday 28 November - Tickets

Listen on Spotify or Apple Music