A CONVERSATION WITH…YOURS TRULY
On a typical rainy day in Glasgow, hours before they performed, Alex met with Yours Truly in a tucked-away cosy cafe to truly get to know who they are.
WHEN DID YOU FIRST FALL IN LOVE WITH MUSIC?
MIKAILA: I can’t remember not liking music. I remember being really little and making up songs and singing them around the house because music’s always been a happy thing for me.
TEDDIE: I would’ve been around 10 years old, finding my dad’s old iPod and listening to this Silverchair song and it was just so cool to me. And from that moment on, I knew I wanted to play the drums or just be in music in general and now here we are!
BRAD: Music was always around for me, and I was always listening to it. Then I started playing the drums in year 3 and I was sold.
MIKAILA: You guys all played the drums?
* Chorus of agreement *
SMALL WORLD! IF YOU WERE ANY LYRIC FROM YOUR LATEST EP, WHICH LYRIC WOULD YOU BE AND WHY?
MIKAILA: Probably “Is this what I look like”, just because all the songs are a reflection of trying to figure out who you really are. And we wrote these songs in lockdown and for me, it was a huge reflection. Realising that I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t be in a band performing out for a crowd or be with my bandmates that I tied to my identity. So that line about seeing yourself in a not-so-glamourous light was kind of me realising that this is who I am without everything that I do. Just getting to know me all over again.
TEDDIE: I’m thinking…
MIKAILA: I’m gonna guess it’s “have I lost my sanity” from ‘Lights On’ as well?
TEDDIE: Yeah I mean, I think that’s the one for me. It describes me really well.
LACHLAN and BRAD: Gotta agree with Mikaila on “Is that what I look like” for us too.
MIKAILA: It’s a big thing for us, and that’s why I feel like we go with that lyric for so much. It’s a big wrap-up for what we experienced writing and creating these songs.
it really does show throughout your music and tour so far. speaking of your new tour, how would you describe your new era of music? how does it compare to previous eras?
MIKAILA: I would say this EP is very much us trying to figure out who Yours Truly truly is. Like Self Care was the pop-punk album we really wanted to write and release, and so going into these new songs our whole idea was that we did the best pop-punk album that we could do and that we would love to hear already. So it’s time for us to explore other sides of us and write songs like, ‘Walk Over My Grave’, which is a heavier one… probably the heaviest we’ve ever released, and ‘Lights On’ is more on the pop side of things. And now this is just us exploring the sides of Yours Truly that we were afraid to go to because we just wanted to be a pop-punk band. And now we just want to be the band that we are to our core.
NOW A QUESTION I’M SURE YOU GET ASKED A LOT, BUT HOW DID YOU ALL MEET? HOW DID YOU BECOME A BAND?
TEDDIE: I mean I was doing these out-of-school ‘school of rock’ music programs with Lachlan and then I posted a video online that Mikaila saw and messaged me and said “Oh, come for a jam…”
MIKAILA: We were all still in high school, too.
TEDDIE: Yeah, we were like 16 at the time.
MIKAILA: Yeah and I messaged him and I was like “I like your guitar playing” and I think he had done like a pop-punk cover of a Taylor Swift song which was interesting and then he came over and we jammed together… And then we found Brad on Facebook as well. Facebook was definitely a big joining thing for us. (#notsponsored)
WITH ‘LIGHTS ON’ MIKAILA, YOU’VE SAID BEFORE THAT IT’S ABOUT FINDING YOURSELF OUTSIDE OTHER PEOPLE’S VISIONS FOR WHO YOU ARE. HOW IS THAT THEME GOING TO CONTINUE POPPING UP IN YOUR MUSIC, SHOWS OR ANYTHING YOU DO AS A BAND?
MIKAILA: The whole way we want to portray ourselves is now displaying the idea of yourself that’s authentically you and strong. The next single that we’re working on is about becoming this confident/strong version of yourself when you’re in a situation that doesn’t make you feel so strong.
TEDDIE: It’s really interesting now going on tour, because for me personally, being on stage and playing live is where I’m at my best. After not having that for so long and it’s interesting having all that time for self-reflection coming back to that.
MIKAILA: It’s not taking what we do/have for granted. Not being afraid of self-expression and looking the way we wanna look. When we started, it was like you wear a band t-shirt, jeans, and Vans and that’s the uniform. But now it’s like an era of being bold and unique because that’s what makes you, you. I know for all of us like when we step on stage, we’ve made ourselves how we feel most confident. It changes how the whole show is for me at least.
BEAUTIFULLY SAID. WITH YOUR LATEST MUSIC VIDEO FOR ‘LIGHTS ON’, CAN YOU SHARE ANY INSIDER DETAILS ABOUT WHAT IT WAS LIKE FILMING IT? HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE IDEA FOR A MURDER-MYSTERY VIDEO? IS THAT INSPIRING YOU FOR YOUR NEXT MUSIC VIDEOS OR ARE YOU JUST HAVING FUN WITH IT?
TEDDIE: It was very cold filming it- we filmed it right after our last tour in October. It was coming into winter and we weren’t quite prepared for running around Brighton in winter.
MIKAILA: Yeah, I wasn’t prepared for running around freezing in a skirt and singlet. But we didn’t have any other choice because Australia before we had come over for the tour, had come into lockdown. So all of our plans were basically moving everything we wanted to do in Australia and doing it in the UK. And we didn’t want the song to come out without a music video, so it was interesting seeing what we came up with. The whole idea was for it to look like a movie. I always love seeing music videos, if you took the music off, you could still follow along with the story and it visually looks like a movie. And I had just watched Big Little Lies…
I LOVE THAT SHOW!
MIKAILA: Yes! Same, so the whole concept of flashing back and forth I really liked. And the line in ‘Lights On’ with “If I told you, I’d have to kill you”, we thought it’d be really sick if the music video was us running away from some crime we’ve done but people don’t know what’s actually happened.
TEDDIE: Exactly, we don’t show the crime and let people come up with their own interpretation of it. It’s our little secret.
MIKAILA: Maybe I just had a really bad nosebleed who knows? It was too cold so…
IF SOMEONE HASN’T HEARD YOUR MUSIC BEFORE, WHAT SONG WOULD YOU RECOMMEND THEY LISTEN TO FIRST TO UNDERSTAND WHO YOURS TRULY ARE?
CONSENSUS: ‘Siamese Souls’, because while it’s an older song but it covers what we’re more into now. It’s a fav song to play live and its energy of it makes the venue come alive.
WHAT INSPIRES YOU ALL TO SHARE THOSE VULNERABLE MOMENTS OF YOURSELF IN YOUR MUSIC? WHAT HELPS YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE DOING THAT?
MIKAILA: I think it’s the people that write to us and come to the shows and that they relate to the songs. Writing about your personal experience can be putting your whole life out there… Like people you personally know reading the lyrics and knowing what it’s about and it’s sometimes a bit daunting. Growing up and listening to bands and relating, I just think being able to relate to artists helps you. That’s something that I’ve wanted for our band to connect with people just through the music. It’s just really important.
TEDDIE: When people come up after the show and talk to us about it, it means a lot. It warms my heart and makes doing so much more than worth it. Like it’s one thing to play music because that’s fun and exciting, but it’s a whole other thing to benefit the same way you do from other artists. It’s a really special thing.
MIKAILA: Like growing up, there was a handful of bands that had female vocalists as well and having my own is really special to me. If I can be an extra voice to other women that wanna relate to the music and tell the story from a side they relate to a bit more, that means the world.
IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU CAN SHARE ABOUT WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOURS TRULY?
MIKAILA: So the next single is coming out in May, and the feature on it is the singer from one of my favourite bands. It’s a huge, HUGE, thing for me.
TEDDIE: It’s a band me and Mikaila bonded over when we first met. It’s very exciting. We haven’t told anyone about who the artist is or what even the song is about because we like keeping the secret.
MIKAILA: It’s an artist I never thought I would be able to work with and I ran one of Australia’s most popular Tumblrs about this band so I’m fangirling. I haven’t told them yet cause it’s kind of embarrassing. We shot the music video and I had this moment of “Oh my God, this is real.”
WHAT WAS IT LIKE FILMING THE MUSIC VIDEO AND RECORDING THE SINGLE WITH THEM?
CONSENSUS: It was really fun watching them perform and perform alongside someone who’s done this so many times before and learning from them. Being a part of the recording process was so much more different than just them sending a song to us, it was cool being a part of it all.
IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU WANT YOUR FANS TO KNOW?
MIKAILA: I just hope everyone likes the songs. I know they’re all very different but it’s really just us trying something different. Music, and art overall, are really about self-expression and creating things people like and can connect to. It’s really good to have feedback like yeah, you are creating something for yourself too but it’s really 50/50 for fans and us.
CONSENSUS: And for people to let us know what they enjoy, and what people really think about the music. And Brad’s been making videos for the last three weeks and been filming vlogs basically. Head to our TikTok if you wanna see all that chaos!