look, i’m a big fan of good morning. the first time i heard Glory it was six in the morning after getting home from revs. lol. i was pretty new to melbourne, i had no idea what i was doing but i’ll tell you this: i had never heard music like that in my life. it really blew my mind. the album cover - trash presumably pictured by the merri creek - turned crystalline and i experienced what is still one of the most psychedelic moments of my life. that was nearly six years ago. anyway, it’s not important. but i do think it’s a safe bet to say that a whole bunch of people have experienced special, confronting and memorable moments listening to this band.

on Barnyard liam parsons and stefan blair still cling to what made Shawcross and Glory so wonderful - this isn’t a bold new sound they’re adventuring with here - but it’s the most mature record they’ve made. their harmonies are as delicate and emotive as ever, the instrumentation is as tight and considered as you would expect from a band that has been refining themselves for nearly ten years. their songwriting is dark and humorous. each track carries a power to it that, at least for me, is pretty indescribable.

there’s a fuss or something behind the scenes being made out of Barnyard being their first big label release, as if the pair is at once proud and kind of embarrassed by the scale of it all. it’s understandable - they’ve done almost everything themselves up until this point. the truth remains, though, that as the Barnyard train rolls in to closer ‘Country’ you’re going to feel like this is a band speeding towards timelessness. in a city that’s felt hopeless and scary and sad for the better part of two years it’s something that i take great comfort in, you know, that is, well, knowing that there are records like this - a kind of perfect reflection of it all - being made just around the corner.

TJ: good morning! how are you? thanks for answering some questions.

Liam: No problems.

favourite beatles record?

On 9.5/10 days, Revolver, on 0.5/10 days either Rubber Soul, White Album or Abbey Road. 

favourite farm animal?

The Horse if it counts. I love horses so much. Never ridden one, I’d probably be too nervous at this point. 

you can send a single record from the 90’s to the glue factory, what is it?

I truly don’t know how to answer this, I feel too bad. I will be thinking about it all night though, so thanks for that.

tell us in ten words (no less, no more) what Barnyard is about…

Doing life stuff at the end of the twenty tens. 

could you please expand on that?

I think because this album was made at the end of 2019 it’s easier to look back at and pinpoint feelings across it that really date it to how I was feeling that year. A lot of things on it I’ve either analysed a lot more by now or cast out of my mind. I can’t speak for Steffy though.

the album cover is awesome - it juxtaposes the music in a way that’s almost spooky. is this your darkest record?

Thanks! I think it’s actually a bit lighter than some of our other records in a way, but because we’re a bit better at explaining ourselves and our feelings by now, the subject matter is just slightly more apparent this time around. Our older music can be quite dramatic in its sadness and anxiety at times but we were just sort of cryptically saying these sad heavy things to ourselves. A lot of the themes are kinda regular components of the good morning catalogue for sure. 

there’s a feeling of.. not quite resignation.. but helplessness across the lyricism of Barnyard and it’s presented in a humorous but often devastating way. i’m impressed by how you two pair the existential with the deeply personal so effectively with almost every stanza - who were some songwriters who inspired you this time around?

As per usual our listening habits were pretty wide around the writing time. I think I would have been on a big David Berman tip, as well as Cate Le Bon and Joanna Newsom. I had some bootlegs on my phone of early Snowy Band performances that I was obsessed with. All of our friends would talk about how good that band is and how excited we were for the record to get finished. 

Barnyard feels like the culmination of all the best bits from all of your previous records. there’s a bit in the presser about almost leaving the lofi sound you do so well behind for this album. what made you keep running with it?

I don’t think we’ve ever necessarily had a desire to be lo-fi, but we have had a desire to work quickly and do as much ourselves as possible, so the lo-fi thing kinda is a knock on effect from that. With this record we worked with an engineer in a studio for the first time, so we were able to fly through 12 songs in five days without sacrificing fidelity as much. Things will always sound like us I think because we’re never particularly interested in things being overly produced or shiny, at least not at the moment.

there are moments across the album that brian wilson would be proud of. how experimental was the recording process?

We were lucky enough to be in a studio with loads of fun gear to pick up and just mess around with. A lot of the songs were fairly mapped out before we got there but had spaces that were empty and ready to be smothered with other shit. Generally we thought we’d put things on and sculpt some ideas out of it later, but pretty much everything we put on stayed for the final version. Tom who engineered and co-produced the record was very encouraging with finding weird textures and keyboards and pieces of percussion to play with. 

excluding the singles, what’s your pick for the people off of Barnyard?

I quite like the guitar and organ arrangement in ‘Matthew Newton’. It sounds overwhelming and chaotic which is something I want to do more of in the future.

did the pandemic shape this record in any way?

Fortunately we made this record pre-pandemic so we were spared that. It definitely shaped the kind of post-recording stuff, and generally just gave us more time to talk to labels and figure out art and videos and such. Now that it’s finally coming out is the first time it’s really felt like a long time between drinks. We were just happy taking our time.

i get the feeling people in Melbourne really resonate with you guys in a lot of ways. do you have any words about music in Melbourne going forward into the new year post COVID19? 

I think it’s a good opportunity to reassess a lot of the culture around live music and music industry stuff. It can be a pretty weird world to navigate at times and I hope this can almost be a bit of a reset about what people value in music and events. Mostly I worry about the people and venues that have been left behind during COVID and who are struggling to make ends meet. I think our city’s music scene is a pretty supportive one for the most part so I know we’ll make it through and look after one another.