Track by Track: Hannahband

The second album from Sydney duo Hannahband gets a lot of emotional mileage out of Marnie Vaughn and NATHAN MARTIN’s cathartic venting. Below, Martin unpacks ‘Retirement’.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

‘Receding Hairline’

We chose this track to open the album because it seemed like a good entry point, a cross-section of the rest of elements of the album. It’s a bit poppy but a bit angry or heavy; it’s also not too depressing, so you know it’s not starting you off on a downer. Lyrically it’s about embracing your middle age, not being too negative about growing up or getting old.

‘G Morals’

This song is the most ‘brutal’ song on the album musically, but it’s just about not being a shithead and treating people in a half decent way. We were quite into the idea of making a ugly song about trying to be a nice person. This is a favourite to play live at the moment.

‘You Have a Beautiful Invoice’

Since our first record we have embraced dynamics a bit more (hopefully), trying to push the quite/loud thing to its extremes. I think we got it OK on this one. My advice to you with this song is: if you don’t like the first minute, ride it out because it changes pretty drastically. The title and lyrics refer to the unfortunate ego and money hunger that exists occasionally within something as small-time as DIY punk circles.

‘I Will Let You Down’

Written a few years before the inception of the band, this was one that I/we kept coming back to over the years, reworking, restructuring. We must have liked it because we ended up making it work. Marnie taking the lead vocals gave the song the energy and urgency that it was missing originally. It has now become one of our favourites on the record. This song, like the two songs before it, doesn’t use verse/chorus structure, more of just solid parts in A/B/C fashion. We’ve been enjoying using different structures lately. I mean, we love the classic pop-song setup, but we really love having to listen back to a whole song just to hear that one lyric or chorus or stop that never reappears.

‘No, No Regrets’

I went into a shopping centre at some point in the last year and saw a youth clothing store peddling these obnoxious shirts and sunglasses with that saying ‘No Regrets’ plastered all over them. It worried me deeply. How are these people going to learn from their mistakes if they’re proud of them?

‘She Came as a Wedding’

This is a straight-up love song: my partner is my best friend in the whole world, and telling people you love them is nice thing to do. The origin of the title has nothing to do with the song: it’s just something I heard one three-year-old girl say to another three-year-old at a dress-up party.

‘I Don’t Know a Thing About You’

A lot of the time we spend with people, friends, family, co-workers, but really know nothing about them, hey? It’s weird. So this song is about that mainly, but also about separation anxiety and FOMO (fear of missing out), which are two things we used to worry about but not anymore. It’s about overcoming adolescent pressure. We reworked this one quite a lot before recording also; it was like a ballad at one point, but we are happy with this version: upbeat big guitar and drum sound with a nice half-time chorus.

Also, this song and plenty others on the record feature the beautiful vocals of Melbourne-based singer/songwriter Jess Locke. You should check her out; she is a phenomenal talent.

‘Retirement’

We called the album Retirement because we found that these concepts of “letting go” and “getting over” were continually popping up. If our first record Honey, I’m a Bad Singer was the sad breakup record, this is the optimistic “I’m gunna make it” record. As a whole our friends are saying this record is heavier and angrier; I think that may be true musically, but lyrically it’s less grim and more optimistic. Does this mean we are happier people? Yeah, probably.

‘Show Them Love’

This was the first song we wrote and recorded for the album, it features Matheson Vaughn (Employment, Michael Crafter) on vocals in the chorus, who also recorded the whole album, alongside Ben Rivers (of Employment) at Dropout in Yarraville in Melbourne. This song is about making sure you just try to spend time with good people, not the toxic ones. It’s about making sure the people you care about know that you love them. If that sounds lame, whatever, it’s important. So to Matheson and Ben, who helped with the album: thanks mates, we love you!

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‘Retirement’ is out now as a name-your-price download, with limited tape and vinyl editions due in March through Lesstalk and Art as Catharsis.