Jen talks to Jye Batham about his new projects Housebroken and Turn South

Posted on February 6, 2015 in Interviews // 0 Comments

I have had the pleasure of Knowing Jye Batham for a few years now. He is super talented Musician who is always active in improving his skills. He has many projects on the go and we had a chat about two of them, Housebroken, his newest venture and Turn South, a band that has supported Worthwhile and Trophy Eyes. I predict that Jye’s projects will take off and I look forward to seeing him grow as a musician.

“Hi Jye, I have known you for a while now and you have been involved in two other bands and Housebroken is your third project.Can you give us some background of where you have come from musically?”

Well I guess as I’ve grown, my music taste and influences have changed quite a lot. The first band I started playing shows with was Eight Days of Autumn, which was myself and 3 high school friends writing and playing pop punk. We put out an EP in 2012 and played a bunch of shows in and around Melbourne until mid 2013. Our sound was influenced by a lot of the bigger pop punk/pop rock bands (All Time Low, You Me At Six, Motion City Soundtrack, etc), stuff we’d been listening to throughout high school. Once we left high school, the band started to fizzle out a bit. I think the band really relied on us seeing each other really frequently and being able to get each other excited about shows by talking about them at school.

Tell us then about your second Band Turn South.

Turn South came about towards the end of 2013 when I dropped out of my Uni course. My musical influence had shifted somewhat and I found my writing reflecting that. I’d been listening to bands like Title Fight and Balance & Composure for a while and became more interested in labels such as Run For Cover, No Sleep, Topshelf and Melbourne’s own Poison City. So that’s where I was doing most of my listening and where a lot of my influence came from. I recorded a really DIY EP with Michael Murrell at Modern Demo Recoding Studios which was released in April last year and after scoring an opening slot on The Sweet Apes show at Wrangler Studios, I quickly got a band together to play those songs. We’ve been playing shows pretty regularly since, but have recently become a 3 piece as our second guitarist left. At the moment we’re in the process of writing and should be recording some new martial pretty soon, so keep an eye out.
We will do!
Housebroken is a bit more of an oddball project. It’s basically just a few songs I wrote in a small space of time on my acoustic guitar that I wanted to give a name and a release to. I sort of wanted to give this project a much more stripped back, minimalist feel to it than anything I’d done previously. Music that gets right to the point. The songs are shorter and there’s less going on. All though I did experiment with some synth, the demo is just acoustic guitar, bass and vocals, done in as few tracks as possible. I wanted to present a raw, unadulterated sound without any enhancements.
I drew inspiration for Housebroken from a lot of the same influences as Turn South. Bands like Tigers Jaw, Elvis Depressedly and Matt Kerekes’ (Citizen) solo work have all influenced the sound and production techniques of the demo.
There is nothing wrong with oddball, however you express your self musically is an art form.
In terms of live shows, I hope to replicate the minimalistic sound of the demo by performing on my own with just my voice and an acoustic guitar. Keep an eye out as I hope to be gigging as much as I can locally in the coming months.

“In regards to all the other shows you have played with any band what was a highlight?”

We (Turn South) recently opened for Worthwhile (USA) and Trophy Eyes at Wrangler Studios which was really cool. We had a really good audience and were stoked to be able to play on the same bill as some of our favourite bands in the country, let alone an international act. So that was a pretty rad time.

“What was the worst gig you have played?”

When Eight Days Of Autumn was still going, we played a show at Bar Open in Fitzroy with some rockabilly and punk bands. There wasn’t an awful lot of communication before the gig and nobody except the headliner brought a full drum kit. And we ended up having to play without our drummer just cause the headliner’s drummer wouldn’t let anybody else within 10 feet of his precious kit! So that was pretty lame. Communication is important!

It sure is! That is not fair on your drummer!

“What do you do the moment you step off stage?”

Rehydrate myself! And hi five my mum.
That is so cool! As is your mum being there to support you.

“How often do you rehearse?”

We try and rehearse once a week if we know we have shows coming up. Otherwise at least a couple of times a month.

“What does a typical rehearsal entail? In the garage? Pizza and beer?”

Hahaha. We usually book a rehearsal studio on a weeknight at either Pony Music in Hallam or Band Booth in Dandenong. It’s pretty good value and the rooms have got full pa and aircon. And plenty of instant coffee to keep us going.

“What is in store for you now? Any news to tell us?”

Well I’ve just released my demo on bandcamp. You can check it out at here and download it free. But I’m actually heading overseas in a month for a while so I won’t really be playing many shows until I come back. My band Turn South are looking to put out some new material soon as well so keep an eye and ear out for that!

Thanks Jye for your time. Look forward to the new music and wish you well on our overseas trip.

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