A Quick Chat with Heisenberg Principle

You began learning guitar during lockdown and have since written more than 60 original songs. What did that period of creative discovery teach you about yourself?

I think it has given me a way to reflect on my life and people I have come across with a degree of detachment, as if writing a song about something allows you to see it from an outsider's perspective as something apart from yourself. I think adopting an alternate persona as Heisenberg Principle helps, as it can allow me to see myself and things I have experienced in a clearer way, as if adding that small amount of distance allows me to perhaps make more sense of things. My life at times has been very busy, and the opportunity to reflect on it in this way through music has helped give me clarity.

Your background is incredibly varied, including jazz saxophone, classical violin, fencing, and filmmaking. How do these experiences find their way into your songwriting?

I think that my musical background has given me a sense of what is needed in certain parts of a song, and what is not. Realising that silence and well-timed pauses or lingering notes can often speak more than blistering solos. Fencing and filmmaking have given me essentially resilience and the ability to see things through from start to finish. Jotting down an idea for a song is only the beginning, tying it all together into a recorded song with a video clip takes a lot more persistence and belief in what you are doing. These characteristics come from my commitment to training in fencing, or producing a film from start to finish.

Icarus was released physically before it arrived on streaming platforms. What made you want to return to that tangible experience of music?

At the moment, I think as we all become more digitally connected, people are becoming more physically detached and distant from each other. Having music physically in your hands is like a way to be more connected to people through the object itself, with its artwork and liner notes. I also have a big vinyl and CD collection, and prefer the warm sound of vinyl in particular, which to me feels more alive than streaming, which makes music more of a commodity than an experience.

Was there a particular song on Icarus that felt like a breakthrough moment or captured something deeply personal for you?

I would say 'Not the end of the world' captured a feeling I remember from my youth, of feeling that everything was so important and seemingly minor problems were far more earth-shattering. Having a teenage son now, I saw my son going through similar feelings, and related this to my own problems as an adult. We sometimes feel as an adult that our problems are much bigger or more important, but at the end of the day, it's not the end of the world, and problems we have overcome sometimes pale into insignificance, no matter how big they seem at the time. Overall, this song helped me to draw on feelings and memories that have become a pattern for most of my songwriting.

How has your family life and academic journey influenced the emotional storytelling on this record?

Many of the songs on the record draw on personal relationships with my wife and children. 'Appreciate' could be seen as me coming to terms with being overly critical at times, and having to check this tendency with my children and be more encouraging. 'She's still existing' essentially relates to a period of my life where I was apart from my now-wife for nearly twenty years, but my mind always drew back to her. 'Chalk and cheese' looks at how me and my wife are entirely different in many ways, but it is these differences that make our relationship work. Perhaps my academic studies have also fed into my songs through giving me a philosophical approach and grounded perspective.

With Icarus now out in the world, what’s next for Heisenberg Principle? Are you planning more releases, live shows, or collaborations?

I am now working with guitarist Leigh Hewitt, who has brought an extra dimension to many of my songs, and we are getting ready for live shows in the Bendigo region and further afield. I am currently recording new material, looking to incorporate some of my other musical influences, including jazz, soul and funk concoctions. Having improved my recording setup and built a backyard studio this year, I am ready to move into the next chapter of my musical evolution.