EGOISM INTERVIEW

EGOISM: Chatting with Scout, Olive and Adam.

The dream-pop trio EGOISM made their way down from Sydney to perform at SESFEST. I got to catch Scout, Olive (both co-lead vocals) and Adam (drums) in the green room before their stunning set.

Who is EGOISM and why should we listen to them?

Olive: We’re a local Sydney band. We're friends through the scene, through playing music in Sydney, putting each other's bands on our shows.

EGOISM used to be just Olive and Scout, how did Adam get involved?

Olive: Adam was playing with us for ages but he wasn't officially part of the band or in our band photos. And then we were like, “Well, fuck this, let’s be a three-piece.

Adam not being in the photos? Did Adam feel used? It’s like when you're in a relationship and then your partner doesn’t even post a photo on your birthday…

Adam: I felt like I was being used, just used the whole time.

Olive: No way! We reached out to Adam!

Oh, so Adam was playing hard to get?

Olive and Scout: Yeah!

Adam: Yeah, I’m the only drummer from Sydney, the only one. There’s only one and it’s me. I played for every band in Sydney. 

Olive: We thought we were gonna lose you to all those other guys.

So you were like, ‘We need to commit now.’

Olive: It's like when guys go bald and they’re suddenly like to the partner they have, ‘Alright, this is my wife now.’ 

Wait, what? 

Scout: Guys start realising that they're going bald and whoever they’re with, they’re like, ‘Oh, I can't do better, I'm gonna propose.’

I mean, I feel like some people really thrive once they become bald. 

Olive: They’re definitely guys made for baldness.

Adam: High school teachers, fucking built for that shit. 

Scout: I will say the only podcast that I listen to that’s just two randos talking is ‘The Bald and the Beautiful’.

What is ‘The Bald and the Beautiful?’

Scout: It's really popular.

Olive: I’ve never heard of it, so it can’t be that popular.

Scout: It's gonna sound like I’m talking about something that not a lot of people know. It’s Trixie Mattel and Katya. 

Oh yeah! I used to watch them back in the day on Youtube. 

Scout: They had a really good episode last week. Trixie talks about being called a slur at a McDonald's in Brisbane by two teens who were puffing glue.

Okay, wow haha, so then, what else we listening to? Music? Podcasts? What’s infiltrating the brains of EGOISM?

Adam: No podcasts for me. I stopped my podcasts last year.

Olive: I guess I listen to video essays sometimes. I've got to say I don't like podcasts, okay, because why would I want to listen to a conversation that I'm not in? 

Scout: I agree. 

Olive: Maybe I'm just an attention freak. 

Adam: Yes.

Scout: Yes, you are. 

Olive: Why would I listen to a conversation when I can’t speak too? 

Wouldn't you feel the same about video essays? 

Olive: No, because that's someone telling you a story.

Scout: Lecturing. It's a lecture.

Olive: In a podcast if people are just joking around, I’m like ‘Fuck this. I’m bored!’

Scout: I completely agree but ‘The Bald and the Beautiful’ is my one exception because I think that they are incredibly smart. And the thing is, if I was around them, I probably would want to just shut up and listen. That's what you need to listen to or just someone who's actually legitimately funny.

Olive:  I like listening to a podcast if it’s about music because obviously it’s an interest of mine. Everything else, I just simply don’t care.

Adam: It's interests. It's just interest. Whoever is really good at talking about your interests but in a funny way, at the same time, that's the golden ticket. That's what you need to find but that is very hard to find. 

Scout: In terms of music, what have we been listening to?

Adam: New Deafheaven for me, which is a bit of an intense one but I really like that band.

Olive: We were listening to Hazel English on the way here. Who's Australian, as it turns out. 

Scout: Yeah, but she's been living in America for 10 years, so she's got a bizarre accent.

Olive: She moved to America in her early 20s and just never went back.

Adam: She’s like Iggy Azalea. 

Scout: Holy shit, she’s literally indie rock Iggy Azalea. 

Is that gonna be the future for EGOISM? Are you gonna sell yourselves out?

Scout: We’re not sixteen in the middle of Miami anymore.

What was the seminal year for you guys? The one year where you thought, ‘It's gonna happen’ as a musician? 

Olive: 2019 was like that. We started releasing music in 2019, I mean, we started releasing music properly. We had one song out by the end of 2018 but not much was going on. When it was 2019 we actually started doing stuff, that was also the year Adam started playing for us. If I compare how we felt about music and the band from the beginning of the year to the end of that year…

Scout: It was crazy. 

Okay, so my favourite song by you guys at the moment is ‘Melbourne’. Have you guys been in the position where you're like, ‘maybe we should go to Melbourne?’

Scout: I have a lot of good friends who've moved to Melbourne and they're lovely people. They moved to Melbourne because I feel like for most of Australia, Melbourne is like the creative city. I think what I meant with that song is because Melbourne has that sort of aura, it also can draw a lot of people who are quite pretentious creatives. People who use moving almost as an excuse, essentially. They fuck around everyone around them. They're assholes. They burn their bridges. And then they're like, ‘Oh, I'm moving to Melbourne. It's so dead here. The vibe is shit.’ Well no, actually, I think the reason why you've left is because it's shit for you.

Olive: We have thought about moving but I say this to every creative: never underestimate how much your support network can aid your career. Music is our life; we are doing music every day. I probably wouldn't be able to do that without the support system I have in Sydney. If were to move to Melbourne or London or LA, I probably wouldn't be able to do it. I would regress.

So, EGOISM is a Sydney band? 

Scout: Yeah, I think that because we feel so secure in Sydney, it allows us to do what we want. I think that's another problem with Melbourne. Even though the Melbourne scene is actually really good, a lot of people that have moved try to make friends, they bend themselves to fit into a scene’s mould when they should be following their own true vision. 

Do you feel like Sydney is a different scene? Is there something about Sydney that fosters some sort of authenticity? 

Olive: I think the fact is that most young people don't tend to move to Sydney. I think a lot of people in Sydney have grown up there, or at least have grown up very close to there, like in the Central Coast, or in Wollongong.

Adam: I think it's once you once you know an area really well, it’s just nice staying there. Moving is so stressful. You have to learn the roads. You have to know how to get to places, where your favourite shop is. You have to readjust and that takes time. We know Sydney so well. We grew up there. 

Olive: Also, the music industry is based in Sydney 

Scout: Sydney, I would say, is less scene dependent. On the one hand, it means that in some ways, community can be harder. But it also means that you end up supporting and having a lot of friends who are very different and you're not always trying to bend to each other. It means you end up going to a much broader variety of shows and being around a lot more different creatives. At the same time, it also feels like you have more freedom.

Because everyone's like, ‘Okay, you're doing what you're doing, that's cool. I'm doing what I'm doing’?

Scout: Absolutely, and everyone loves what you’re doing. You’ll play shows with people who sound really different and you’ll make friends with them.

Do you think that's cool when the bill is something that isn't completely linear and cohesive?

Scout: I love that. 

Olive: I love it but I've seen it too much recently. The pendulum swung a little too far, we need some curation.

What about the bill tonight?

Scout: Yeah, I was going to say the bill tonight feels like a really good mix. It feels curated but doesn’t feel like the same iteration of a band.

Is there anything you guys are working on at the moment? 

Olive: Yeah, we got our album coming out. We’ve got our debut fucking album coming out on the 30th.

Scout: Our presales for the album tour just went on sale today. A lot of this is just so much work that we've been putting in for months. We really want to level up the production we do for this album tour. We're hoping to give arena on a $2.50 budget. 

You can preorder And Go Nowhere and buy tickets to the band’s upcoming shows at egoismx.com