While writing and releasing any music is already something of a task, doing so on a steady timeframe is another level of commitment. However, now more than 18 months into the project, local noisemaker JUAN has made the process seem simple with a new track out every month. Although his previous work has tended to lean towards electronic/indie realms, ‘Anything' finds JUAN flipping his sound on its head and the outcome is just as exciting.

Following an explosive drum-fill, ‘Anything’ bursts open into a wall of noise, built from layers of sprawling guitars, a driving rhythm section and a heap of energy. The track quickly shifts into a classic pop-punk mould, with JUAN belting lyrics about bleachers and sneakers over muted chords, immediately brimming with nostalgia and playfulness. ‘Anything’ never feels formulaic or uninspired though - rather, as the song pounds away and JUAN drops hook after hook, it’s like being teleported into an American high-school movie, a testament to JUAN’s versatility as a musician.

To celebrate the release, we got in touch with JUAN to get the story behind ‘Anything’ and and find out what's coming up next.

TJ: Hey Juan, for the uninitiated, tell us about yourself.

J: Hi, I'm JUAN, from Melbourne, Australia, and I love watching CBS' Survivor. While I've heard great things about Australian Survivor, I'm not yet ready to commit myself to three to four episodes a week. It's just too much. Besides that, since January 2017, I've written, recorded and released a new song every month, which would make it one of the longest commitments I've ever made in my life.

What's the story behind ‘Anything’?

Every day before my real work job, I have my regimented routine: I shower and get ready from 3pm until 3:25, and then leave the house by 3:30 to get to work at 4pm. If you don't stick to the plan, you're gonna be late for work. On one particular day (It was September 12, and it was 3:13pm - the video of the demo is time stamped), and I was already running absurdly late. I'm in this group chat with some amazingly talented rappers from all over the world (check out Atwood if you ever get the chance), and they were saying to me that they much prefer my pop-punk songs to my electronic rap stuff. I wasn't really feeling like making pop-punk, but as we were chatting, I looked at my guitar, thought to my self, "I wonder if I can do something and I hope I can do something good because I'm late as shit", and then I just played four random chords, and started singing this nonsense melody. The lyrics just flowed out, as whenever I think about pop punk, I always think about high school romances. I'm a sucker for that romanticised bullshit. I was just thinking of American high school things like bleachers, lockers, track teams, varsity and all kinds of crap. I immediately sent the demo video to the group chat, got a mild as fuck response, and thought, "Nah, you're all wrong, I gotta flesh this shit out". The next day, I actually produced an entire version which sounds like a top 40 pop song, but the group chat kinda veto'ed that one. I usually get a lot of shit as an Australian for romanticising the American way of life, but a lot of it is really inspired by a year I spent living in Eugene, Oregon. Oh, and somehow I wasn't late for work. The gods of Hoddle St were good to me that day.

Over the last year and a half, you've released a song every month - what inspired this project?

Ummm. I've been making music for a long time, but I just never gave it any serious thought. At the end of 2016, I was looking around at what some of my friends were doing, and they weren't releasing albums, but they were dropping a new song every week and getting some amazing responses. I kind of looked at the idea of doing an album and saw how nonsensical it is these days. If you're a new artist, you can spend a year obsessing over 8-10 songs, and then release it on Soundcloud or where ever, only to have 100 listens on the first song, and like 20-50 listens on the others. No one has the attention span to run through an entirely new project of some completely unknown artist. Even I'm a shitty person like that. So, I figured I'd write and release a new song every month, and try and build and maintain some semblance of relevancy. It's kinda worked?

How does your process work?

I dunno. I'm kinda a creature of habit and routine, I guess. I just sit at my desk every day with the intention of doing something musical, whether it's mixing an old song, writing a new riff, playing with samples, or a new synth or something. I don't really find it hard to start new ideas, and I kind of find the idea of "creative block" to be complete bullshit. When people get writer’s block or whatever, it's not that they are literally blocked, and can't make anything; it's more so that they aren't making anything that they're happy with. That's kind of what making "creative" shit is for the most part: 80% of the stuff you make is junk, and you'd never ever use, and the rest is salvageable. The thing is, you've gotta fail a whole bunch before you make anything that's good. And those are the most valuable moments too because you're learning something every time you fuck up. I've got 153GB of complete fuck ups on my hard drive, but I cherish them all. The thing is, as long as you show up and work on anything, it's better than doing nothing. You can't make a masterpiece every day.

What's coming up next for JUAN?

Well, as I write this, it's 12:50pm, so I suppose I'll be eating some lunch. Apart from that, I was a bit ahead of schedule this month, so I'm already onto the next song, which has the tentative name of 'Bear Eyes' for some reason, and I've never been so excited to show people a song in my life. I've also been spending far too much time doing a stupid Instagram Stories "show" called "Review with Juan", where I basically review things like the concept of silence, air, washing baskets, and all kinds of crap, so follow me on @basedjuanempire if that sounds interesting to you. I'm also really trying to break into writing songs for other artists. I love the idea of writing pop songs, especially when it comes to toplining and writing melodies. So, if you know anyone who can help me with that, lemme know.