Space Interview with ALIBII
Welcome to Space guys!!
Congratulations on your first single “But I”! Briefly present yourself to our Space Travellers!
Thank you for having us, we’re stoked to be on board! We are Alibii, we being Will and Courtney, we’re songwriting partners and Alibii is a project that we made as an output for the kind of music we love to write together
This is your first single! How do you feel about it and what’s the story behind the single?
Both Courtney and I have always been a little hesitant on releasing just any song on to A streaming service. Mostly because we both feel – even before we started working together – that if you’re gonna release something for anyone in the world to hear, it should be as good as can possibly be, which has sometimes held us back from releasing tracks in the past, but we feel very happy with the final result of our song But I.
We actually also had a band put together as a kind of sub category of the project because with both love playing gigs as well, which was made possible with our friends Katie and Ariq helping out on guitar and bass for live shows. But then when covid came back with a vengeance to Sydney in mid 2021 and we were stuck at home again, Courtney decided it was time to finally release something.
We had started working on But I during the first lockdown in March 2020, whilst both living is a seven person share house in Sydney. The song reflects the struggle of being stuck in a small house with a crowded number of people, navigating everyone’s emotions and personalities, especially with the world turning upside in the background.
What kind of direction are you going to take for your next single and when do you plan to have new releases?
We both have such a broad range of music interests so we love that Alibii can be a project where we have the freedom to write whatever kind of songs we want. In the future we look forward to switching up vocal roles, messing around with different genres and we have plans to record a mini EP with songs we’ve written with the band form of Alibii. In the long run we intend there to be continuing themes and an overall vibe across our music, but also look forward to experimenting. We can probably expect another release by early 2022
Where do you take inspiration for your lyrics and the musical arrangement?
Our lyric writing process is usually played by ear, sometimes we write about whatever’s going on in our lives, sometimes those ideas can end up applying to lots of different situations and sometimes we just story tell about things that haven’t happened to us but can relate to things we’ve felt or gone through. Musically, it really is a mix bag, we like to say our goal is a mix of indie rock and electro pop and seeing what comes out the other side. I (Will) can imagine subconsciously I take great influences from the bands that have been big phases for me, such as Muse, Supertramp, David Bowie, MGMT and even high school days of Blink 182 (not saying we are ever going for that sound, but it’s bound to seep through without us knowing from time to time).
How would you describe your sound? Can you name an artist who has a similar sound to yours?
Going purely of our only single But I, someone phrased it as a hyped electronically charged Florence and the Machine, which I’m not opposed to at all. But we are excited to see how the project will continue to evolve in the next year with more releases, live gigs and more building of chemistry.
If you could open a show for anyone in the world who would it be?
Collectively between me and Courtney, our favourite band in common is Catfish and the Bottlemen (Courtney is bordering on Super fan) so that’s gotta be mentioned. But other idols of ours include Billie and Finneas, Muse and Phoebe Bridgers, Dave Grohl also seems like a 100% wholesome being so we wouldn’t turn that down either.
How was starting a project in this period of time? Any tips for people who want to start doing music out there?
Courtney and I met in 2018 studying at a music academy, we’ve been trying to find the project that fits for a while, with many different iterations over time, starting with an acoustic duo, some bands, then an electronic duo, and where we eventually settled was less of a goal of exactly what we wanted to sound like but goal of just songwriting. Flexibility was an important factor in getting us to where we are now, staying open minded and just keep writing. The advice we could give from our experience is find your strengths and if your lucky, find others with different strengths to you and build chemistry, and if you are going at it alone, it still applies, don’t focus on what you’re not good at, just keep writing and you can figure things along the way. If it makes you happy then you’ve gotta do it.
This is a question we ask any artist every time: If you had a time machine, in which era would you travel and which kind of music would you bring with you in the past?
I think the 70s are a criminally underrated decade. Compared to the imagery of the 60s and the hippie culture, and the recent explosion of popularity of 80s nostalgia and synth wave. If you look at the huge difference between the music of the 60s (in both songwriting and production) and the 80s, it’s a total shift, chances are most of the time you could guess when a songs from the 60s or 80s, but the 70s gets to be this mix bag of exploration, some of the best rock albums, classic jazz and blues evolving into funk, early hip hop, punk music, disco! Obviously the 60s had huge amount of experimentation and genre births, and the 80s saw new technology and the digital age take over music. My main point is… the 70s are cool.
However, back to the question, it’d be pretty funny to go back to the Middle Ages with a UE Boom and a David Bowie playlist and just see how they react.
What is the last thing you would like to say to our Space Travellers?
Thanks for reading or listening or whatever way you’ve absorbed this and if we’ve enticed you at all, then stay tuned for some future tracks and content!
Also thanks so much Space Sour for having us and for the damn good questions
ARTIST LINKS:
INSTAGRAM: http://www.instagram.com/alibiiband_
FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/alibii.band
SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1JhpHzDTu6ZIDKBqEhMeJk?si=EhCLsmQcQuygrhduvYPovQ