Music interview: Run Rabbit Run
We talk to Run Rabbit Run about their new single and their upcoming debut EP:
Hi and thanks for taking the time out to speak with us at Something You Said.
Hello!
Firstly congratulations on the new single We Don’t Know. To shed a little bit of light on the dark track, can you explain the subject matter behind the song?
Michael: For me its about two people trying to reconnect. When you’re young and experiencing relationship struggles for the first time you don’t have a reference point for comparison. It can be hard to judge your feelings and know what you really want. This song explores that, but I think the line ” We got through this far together ” sheds a little hope in the matter.
You have taken a bit of a sidestep from your alt-folk roots, is this due to an exploration in other genres that interest you or simply an evolution in your sound?
Casey: For me personally in my songwriting of late, it’s a little of both, as well as some life struggles and changes that I think had an impact on the way I write. I think when we wrote our last singles we were big into that City & Colour/Boy & Bear vibe, since then I’ve been getting into some darker sounding stuff, and some more aggressive styles. A lot of our songs still have a very alt-folk sound though, and the EP itself is a bit of a mixed bag in that respect.
With your new EP imminent, what had been happening in your lives leading up to the release?
Casey: A lot of planning actually. We organised every detail of this single tour ourselves so there hasn’t been a lot of time left for many other things in my life to be honest. We’re looking forward to a bit of down time after all this time to write a few new songs hopefully.
Michael: I’m kinda crazy interested in film and media. I try to stay creative and work on some other projects. I’ve been lucky enough to make music videos for local Melbourne bands Self Talk, Slowly Slowly and recently filmed a concert for Indie Artist LANKS. Hopefully I can keep doing more of this work because I love it.
Is the writing a collaborative process for Run Rabbit Run, or largely shared by just a couple of you?
Casey: Michael and myself pretty much write all the tunes, and whoever writes it, sings it really. Mostly we write our own tunes and bring it to each other to help smooth out the rough edges, but there are a handful of tunes we pretty much wrote from scratch together, our first single ‘Down the Line’ was pretty much us sitting in a room for seven hours not talking to each other until an idea came out.
What does music give you that nothing else does?
Casey: Music for me is a fine balance between agonising frustration, and creative release. I’m not a particularly fast songwriter. Writing for me can be a real battle with writer’s block and a real desire to only put down the best I’ve got as a lyricist so it gets the better of me a lot more than I’d like.
Michael: It’s a great source of creative release and something you can always lean on. But on a much larger scale music is fun. A movie is kinda boring without a soundtrack, much like life.
You’re on a run of shows through Victoria and New South Wales. One of your Sydney shows will be an acoustic set, is it a challenge to convey the same message when playing it a stripped back capacity?
Casey: Yeah it kind of is actually. When the whole band is playing together we put out a lot of energy on stage, we’re normally used to jumping around and giving it our all. For a long time Michael and myself didn’t really enjoy doing acoustic shows until Felicity joined the band in 2015. Now it kind of feels like a chance to show off some of the more subtle parts of our songs that I think maybe get glossed over when we’re in full swing.
What does the rest of 2017 have in store for you?
Casey: We’re releasing our debut EP ‘Bloodline’ a bit later in the year, and planning to do a larger tour for the release. These tour dates we’re on now are really our first outside Melbourne, so we’re testing the waters a bit, I feel. The response so far has been really killer though so we’re excited to take it a little further next time.
Thanks for your time!
Thanks.
If you’re in Sydney, you can catch Run Rabbit Run at the following places:
March 4th - Vic on the Park (Support: Stockley)
March 4th – Glebe Markets SYDNEY (Acoustic)
Keep up to date with Run Rabbit Run on Facebook.
Interview by Courtney Dabb.
