A Quick Chat with July Morning
Tell us a bit about July Morning - how did you all meet and come together?
Owain - I’ve known Jesse for over 25 years but we became good friends in High School. At some point I started teaching him the guitar and this then evolved into us writing music together and forming July Morning. For quite a few years it was just the two of us playing live as an acoustic duo. When Jesse and I first decided to flesh the band out, Gideon was one of the first bassists we jammed with and he’s been with us ever since. He’s been a pretty good musical matchmaker too. Apart from our first drummer, Gideon has been the one connecting us with drummers.
Jesse – And when Cy left to move to Austria after recording the album, we needed a new drummer to bring our album to the stage, and Gideon came through again by finding us Dom so quickly who has been a delight to play with.
The Colours of Darkness moves through so many different genres and textures. What has inspired you to weave so many sounds together? Do you each have favourite genres or particular influences that have driven the direction of your sound?
Owain - I don’t think it was really planned…It’s just how we write. We all definitely have our own favourite genres and artists, with some overlap in there of course, and when you put all of that together, with how long we’ve all been playing, there’s always going to be a lot of sounds coming out. I do think though that as a band we bring them all together into an exciting, cohesive sound that we can call our own.
Some good examples of our personal influences shining through are:
Gideon’s bass work on ‘Fruitless Pursuit’. When the back half of the song kicks off, he really drew from his funk/soul influences for the bass line. Something that Jesse and I would never have thought of doing when we originally wrote the song.
Cy’s drumming in general. His jazz influence can be heard throughout the album. All the little things he does on the kit to make his beats have that something extra.
Gids – One of the qualities I love about July Morning is the ability for different textures and genres to creep in while still feeling solidly “July Morning”. I found approaching the track ‘Fruitless Pursuit’ to be a true journey. I had ‘Let It Be’ in my head the entire time recording this, even during the guitar direction in the studio (check out the Glyn Johns 1969 mix, that George Harrison solo is my Roman Empire). So, I wanted to bring that gospel/soul flavour to the solid drumwork and cruisy guitar chords, with a little Motown inspiration. Many, many takes on that one, it was a real shed it til’ you shred it session.
What was the recording process like? Do you find yourselves adding new and unexpected elements into the tracks while recording, or do you tend to stick to what’s been created in the writing process? Or, are they directly intertwined?
Owain - The recording process was so much fun. Very long, but that’s going to happen when you only have a few days a month to work on it. We tracked drums, pianos, mellotron, sax, and some vocals at Parliament Studios. Everything else was recorded at my home studio which definitely stretched the timeframe out as we knew we had extra time to get it done.
We worked both ways. A lot of the parts were worked out, jammed, and written beforehand and have remained quite close to those original ideas. We were however always open to moments of inspiration when an exciting new idea popped into our heads, or just randomly fell out of our fingers while playing. The keyboard, strings, and sax parts were probably the most spontaneous, or at least the parts that were furthest removed from the initial writing of the tracks.
Jesse – For me, I don’t necessarily want to go into the studio knowing exactly where every instrument will be playing every note in every section: the chance to be creative in the studio is as vital to me as having the song’s framework worked out before hitting the record button. I think we did a pretty good job of this for our debut album, but I think we’ve learned some things through the process to get better and certainly more efficient at knowing when to stick to what was already written, and what could benefit from fresh ideas introduced during recording.
Jesse, we hear you study creative writing! How does this inform your songwriting, and your approach to music overall? Do you find it helps or hinders the process?
Jesse – I don’t imagine it hinders my songwriting, or at least I hope that it doesn’t hinder it. There is some overlap there, some conscious, most not, between my creative writing and my songwriting: my lyrics contain a lot of literary allusions and I experiment with structure, imagery, and techniques in what I write in both songs and in fiction. When we were in the studio, our engineer Phan found out that I am a creative writer and said “Yeah that doesn’t surprise me” after having listened to the lyrics we were singing. While the crossover is probably inevitable, for me it doesn’t extend too far. If I think about how I have sat down to write any of the fiction I have had published, little of the creative process feels similar to how I pick up a guitar and write melodies and lyrics. Even the topical ideation process is vastly different to me, particularly when it comes to scope.
What’s one thing you’d most love people to know about July Morning?
Owain - We’re just 4 boys. Standing in front of you all. Asking you to love us and come to our gigs and buy our album please.
Gids – You’ll find a lyric that means something to you somewhere in the album, or a lick, or a chord change. We’re just boys in motion with emotion.
Jesse – Despite what the two above have said we are actually men, not boys.
We hear you have a listening party and a launch show on the cards - what can you tell us about these events? Do you have any surprises in store for punters?
Gids - We’re really going for that multi-faceted, Willy Wonka Experience, Bridgerton party, Barbie Dreamhouse vibe. But seriously, we’re incorporating evocative live art, charity raffle of merch and creative works, a hosted Q&A and maybe even a July Morning DJ set. And of course all the friends you could ever ask for.
Jesse – We’re hoping to raise some money for a mental health charity at the listening party as well. That’s the day after the album comes out, on the 18th. As for the actual launch show, we’re headlining Low302 on May 15th with Sydney locals Jean Elliot and PJ Orr, and we are hoping to have a few extra surprises there that we wouldn’t ordinarily have at our live shows.
What has been your favourite live show to date, and why?
Owain - That would have to be when we played Yulli’s Brews in Alexandria for their Halloween party last year. It was a show of firsts. Our first show after a very long break, first show with our new drummer Dom, and the first time playing some of the songs off our debut album live too. It was just great to be back playing live as a band again. The pumpkin beer was pretty good too.
Gids – We recently played a half hour at the iconic Hamilton Station Hotel shoutout Spencer Scott on an incredible 10 years as their music booker, and there’s always something so exciting about playing to a cold crowd in a cold city, picking your most high-energy tracks, rocking out and feeling like you’ve conquered the world.
And finally, what’s coming up for July Morning once The Colours of Darkness is in the hands of listeners? Any more exciting plans for the rest of the year?
Jesse – We want to play to as many people as we can and get our tunes into as many interested ears as possible. We’d like to expand our line up if the right person comes along, and we’d also like to get back into the studio again if our funds permit, because we have a ton of material we want to develop and are excited to share.
Owain - My daughter wants us to be playing Taylor Swift sized shows by the end of 2026. So if we can manage that, I’ll be pretty happy.