Hoodlem talk lo-fi in the shed with a dog called Bear

HOODLEM have remained evasive, not to create an illusion of fantasy surrounding who they are, but rather so that the only focus is the music. I was introduced to the female half of Hoodlem by her real name, and while their attitudes towards identity have relaxed, it’s not for me to shape how they are seen as artists.

She has a great sense of humour and a very realistic attitude towards life, at the end of the day hanging out in the shed, and making tunes is where it’s at for these Melbourne locals.

I’m a big Justin Timberlake fan, so I just wanted to discuss that mashup you did back in the day of ‘Girlfriend/Senorita’. Are you going to do another one, do you have a thing for the 90s/early 2000s?

Hoodlem: That was just really random because we just really wanted to do a cover, and then we were just going through like, I don’t know, just old music that we had on our iPods or whatever, and I think I just heard that song and thought this song is so shit [‘Girlfriend’], the bridge in it, and the film clip, there is just so much shit in it that it’s so good. So we just went in there one day, and I think I must have heard it, and then heard our bassline in the song and just thought this could totally work. We just sort of free fell on that, and then we decided to put a bit of ‘Senorita’ in there because, why not. Very random.

Any others you would do like that? 

H: I really like mashups, I really like little bits that people maybe don’t catch on to, I mean that wasn’t a great example because everyone would catch on to the fact that the songs were ‘Senorita’ and ‘Girlfriend’, but maybe I like hiding little quotes almost in songs. We have done another cover, but I’m not going to tell you what it is, but it’s from the 90s. Oh hang on wait, maybe it’s from the naughties. And it’s probably a bit of a trashier song, but one of those songs that everyone has maybe forgotten about, but will love when they hear it again.

When is that coming to ears? 

H: Um it is currently getting mixed in America, it has a feature on it from another artist, which I’m also not going to tell you who is [laughs] but it’s a good one, hopefully it will be released in the next few months.

Your EP was a long time coming, so what were the highs and lows of recording it because it was a long time coming wasn’t it?

H: um, well I was overseas on and off for the last two years, so since we started the project I was overseas basically, and we wanted to be in the same room when in the same room when we were recording, so I guess that was a high and a low at the same time. There was no real lows, like we didn’t fight or anything, but it was good, it was fun and I guess we kind of established our sound from the start of recording, to then moving on and putting an EP together, it got easier to just form something and complete it, rather than coming back to it over a few weeks or whatever. So that was really good. We established our limitations, and what we can get out of recording in a shed, which was pretty cool, our recording set up is super low-fi. I really like it, it’s a really great set up but the shed is super shitty and super old and there is always like creaks, and you can hear the South Morang train line in the background, and the dog the next door, Bear, I think is in every single song that we’ve recorded because he barks.

He should be your album art!

 H: [Laughs] he is pretty cute too. And if it rains, or if it’s windy you can hear everything, so I like that because it makes it sound like it’s been recorded outside. And it makes it really grainy and textured, which is really good.

Were you overseas working?

H: Um I was playing yeah. We did Canadian music week, then played in New York, and then I was left in New York on my own and did heaps of writing and collaborating and then went to Europe and played around Europe, then went back to America and did like CMJ and a couple of other festivals, so it was really good.

How would you describe the EP? To you does it have a particular theme, or is it just what it is?

 H: Um, we’ve tried to sort of, make it a snapshot of what Hooldlem is. So for someone who’s never heard us before it’s sort of like an example of what we do, and what we make and want to make. And then obviously catering to people who have heard us before by putting new songs on there and a couple of different sounding songs. Its sort of a different snap shot of what we’ve been playing and recording so far, and then the next one is much more I guess formed, in the next time of us recording.

Do you have any tracks left over that you might slip in net time?

H: The next EP is pretty much done! You finish one and then you don’t want to do any of the waiting for things like artwork or whatever you want to get straight back into recording again, and we were already on a little bit of a role so we just kind of kept going.

I read somewhere a description of your sound as like a musical love child of James Blake and Lorde, how do you feel about that, and how would you actually describe yourself? 

H: [Laughs] um, I find sound descriptions really funny because I think people just try and say whatever they can that reminds them of something, which is like describing what food tastes like, it seems so irrelevant because it is just what they hear. I mean it’s nice when people can compare you to things that you think are good, I think James Blake is good. I don’t know what I would describe our sound as. I guess its pretty rough and ready, super low-fi, we like to challenge listeners by having to listen to it through headphones so its sort of busy and changing rather than background sort of stuff. I feel like James Blake does a little bit of that too. Um yeah I don’t really know what I would describe it as sounding wise.

Can you put yourself in a genre, and do you want to? 

H: I’ve heard future electronic RnB, which I thought was pretty spot on, and very vague. So I kind of like that because it gives us a boundary.

Obviously, you’re from Melbourne, do you have any favourite local music venues?

H: Um, where do I like…I guess because I’ve been away so much I’ve stopped going to gigs! I feel so irrelevant in Melbourne, like I feel like I don’t do anything in Melbourne except for hanging out in the studio and work. I always love going to things at The Forum. I think that’s a really good display of people’s skills because I find that venue really high pressure, it’s so big and grand that you couldn’t just go and have a bash at The Forum. Yeah I don’t know where else. There are some really great gigs at Howler.

You guys are launching your EP there aren’t you?

H: Yeah I’m really excited. And it’s a good space to have a play around in and do some cool things in, so hopefully we’ll do some cool things there!

Any locations around the world where you would want to make music? Obviously you’ve done America and Canada, but anywhere else?

H: Um, I mean I like doing it anywhere really! I’m really effected by like my environment, and geographical environment. I like being either really indoors and boxed in, or really outdoors and really free. So really anywhere, anywhere where I don’t have to do anything else while I’m making music. I really like Japan, I think I’d love to go back there and do some more writing, because I feel very challenged by not knowing what’s going on any of the time.

In the same way you loved the atmosphere around the backyard shed you recorded your EP’s in, is there anywhere you have gone and listened to all the background sounds and thought this would be awesome to record in and include all the background sounds?

H: Yeah I love big city metropolis sort of sounds in that everything is sort of ugly, and I really like that. I don’t think there is much beauty in the city buzzing. I think that would be really cool to capture what you hear in the city in a song.

Do you think of your songs and your music from a visual perspective at all?

H: Yeah I think I do, as in when we’re making music? Yeah definitely, we sort of see the sounds in colours, or we’ll describe it in movement a lot. But then we both have a musical background so it that fails we can both explain it in musical terms.

We touched on the whole mysterious identity before, it’s obviously not going to last much longer, but if you could keep it going, would you?

H: Nah I think it was just to begin with so there was no face attached to the music because I think so often that governs how people receive what they are hearing, and I think that’s really silly. So I just didn’t want to attach image to it because I wanted people to create their own image of what they heard. And then it just became this thing that everybody became obsessed with, and would try and like seriously hunt down who we were. Like there were some serious emails flying around. It got to the point where I was like let it go! Because I don’t really know enough people in Melbourne anymore that would want to hunt us down and suss us out! But then we got sussed a couple of times through like small communities or friendship groups which was funny. But yeah I don’t know, I don’t think that I would want to keep it like that, but I don’t want to endorse it so it all becomes not about making music. I’d just rather do the music stuff; I don’t really care about the other. I think it’s just through not caring about the other stuff.

So then how do you want people to see you? Just as a music maker, or as a brand or as a particular edge or vision?

H: I don’t know, I just want to be able to collaborate with people, and make music and do my own thing, and not have to obsess about the image side of it, but I don’t want to sound like a wanker who’s like “I just want to be about the art”, but I kind of just do. I don’t want to have to think about whether I’ve Instagrammed today, or whether I’ve shown up to this commitment or whatever, I just want to be making music in my shed by myself [laughs]. I mean I do enjoy it, if I didn’t enjoy it I wouldn’t have released any more music if I hated it. I do enjoy it and I love meeting people and getting out there, but yeah at the beginning I wanted to let people form their own opinion rather than giving it to them.

Do you like live performances then if that’s the case?

H: Yeah, I do quite enjoy it, I really love playing live. We have so much fun on stage and our live set is really fun to play and we do different things live, and the songs are sung a little differently live, so that’s really fun. And it’s always nice to play for people that are really listening, it’s a really rewarding thing to get feedback or share the experience with the other bands playing.

Given all the mystery, what’s the strangest description you’ve heard of yourself?

H: ummmm, we have actually been called other people. I read recently that someone called our latest single a song by Remy, featuring Hoodlem so that was fun. Never met Remy, I mean he’s great but it’s definitely not Remy. Somebody said that we were the side project of…… someone really ridiculous, like massively famous, and they said that Hoodlem was their secret side project. It wasn’t Rihanna, but it was someone with that kind of status, which was pretty funny. So its just people kind of missing the mark on who we are. Oh someone actually thought that it was the project of my manager, Jess, they emailed her and were like “we know it’s you!’. So that was fun too.

Your video for ‘Kinstugi’ has been described as being like the movie The Ring, how do you feel about that because that could be cool, or offensive I guess!

H: I like that people are describing it as like The Ring because they understand that it is horror, so that’s good. But I think it’s another one of those things when people don’t understand something they feel like they have to label it as something that they do understand. I love the video clip. It was made by a friend of mine David Ward who is a horror filmmaker. I kind of let him have free reign with it. I didn’t want it too scary, but I feel like it’s sort of a trailer for a horror film almost. It sort of mirrored the meaning behind the song in a really layered way.

Yeah, the song is kind of a bit…perkier than the clip…

H: Yeah the song is about a broken down relationship. The song is pretty mean. I think the song was very internalised so the video clip kind of just played on what would be going on inside someone’s head.

What have you guys got coming up next? Obviously a second EP, and some sort of early 2000s mashup, but anything else?

H: I’m moving to North America in a month, so I guess that will mean I will be doing more music over there. So EP, hopefully we can polish that off really soon, and then just perform basically, and try and get some more writing and collaborations along the way.

So how will being in North America impact on the wanting to be in the same room at the same time ethos you had while recording your current EP?

H: um, well we won’t be able to be! But the project is probably going to change a little, and involve other people, and um sort of have an opportunity to work as one, two, or five or three and sort of be a bit more interchangeable, which will be good, it will be a challenge, it will be fun. But I’m sure we’ll be emailing back and forth.

Hoodlem's self titled EP is out now. It's being launched at Howler April 16th. The night will also feature Nico Ghost, GXNXVS and Alice Ivy. Tickets are available through Moshtix.

Words by Madeline Kilby

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