Ellen May - Sound In The Signals Interview
I recently had the opportunity to interview Matt Branton of Ellen May. We discussed new song “Bombs Away”, lyrical inspiration, artwork, and more. Check it out below.
First, thanks for the interview.
Thanks for having us again!
Your new single “Bombs Away” just came out. Can you tell me about writing and recording it?
Bombs Away is the first track we’ve written as a full band. It was just Matt (bassist) and myself for the first two releases and our writing process was very different with it only being the two of us, so we had to shake things up a bit for this one.
I actually came to the boys with this song idea a fair few months back, just as we’d got a new drummer (Pete), so it kind of sat on the back burner whilst we worked on getting the set sounding great for the gigs we had booked.
Writing Bombs gave us a really good idea of how we all work on music individually and together, and has made me really excited to see where we’re going to go next and what we can do together. The boys and I took my original idea apart and put it back together and it just came alive.
Mike (guitar) and I both have home studio set ups so it became a bit of a back and forth with recording new ideas and sending it to the others to do their bits and flesh out a demo. Mike then spent what must’ve felt like weeks locked away in his studio, working his magic, before sending it to me for a final mix down. It was a lengthy process, we gained a lot of positive experiences and learned a lot of lessons from it and how to do it better for the next bunch of songs.
You’ve had some line-up changes since we last spoke. What can you tell me about the newer members and did they contribute to this new song?
Well …there was only two of us last time we spoke, it was a bit lonely. In the couple of years that Matt and myself have been working on Ellen May, we went in and out of practice rooms with different people a few times. Nothing really felt right though, we really struggled to get the right mix of people for a long time, nothing was gelling.
Then Tim (guitar) turned up and brought his drummer friend with him, and it worked! Matt reached out to a good friend of his, Mike, and convinced him to come play second guitar for us and boom, things were clicking! We finally got the right people and it felt great!
Unfortunately, our old drummer couldn’t commit for personal reasons and decided to part ways after our show with Luca Brasi and Spanish Love Songs. So we reached out to another guy that had contacted us previously but hadn’t been able to jump in at the time. Lucky for us, he was available and came down to a practice. Pete joined the band!
So our current and hopefully long time line-up is….
Matt Branton (me) – Vocals
Matt Matusik – Bass
Tim Brocas – Guitar/vocals
Mike Shalley – Guitar/vocals
Peter Quinn – Drums
I’m absolutely stoked with the line-up we’ve got. All the boys are incredible musicians, and I can’t wait to see what else we can do together! They had a huge hand in bringing this track to life!
Do you have a favourite lyrical or musical moment from the song? Why?
The lyrics are quite personal to me, but I feel like anyone could relate. The song is about overcoming the obstacles of life as you grow older. It’s about feeling like every time you take two steps forward, you take 3 steps back but not losing sight of your goal and keeping your chin up.
Unfortunately, guys talking about their mental health is still a bit of a taboo subject for a lot of people, well …this song is a small glimpse into my mental health …which has taken a beating over the years. I’ve often found myself wondering if there’s something wrong with me, wondering if it’s my fault I’m finding myself in the crappy situations I end up in, blaming myself for things that are clearly not my fault and out of my control.
The lyrics are also a reminder to myself to keep on trucking and to not lose faith in myself because I know I can overcome anything I put my mind to. Which is something that’s very easy to forget when you’re going down the rabbit hole of self-loathing.
To answer the question …the entire song slaps! The guys did an incredible job of taking my idea and turning it into the banger it is. I’m still hearing new bits every time I listen that I didn’t realise were in there. Tim’s backing vocal on the bridge blows my mind every listen, the dual vocals in the last section put a grin on my face, the bass lick in the chorus is just cool as fuck. Everything is awesome! …in my very biased opinion!
I am also very fond of the line ‘I’m sorry I’m broken’. It comes from a very deep down, personal place. We also put it on the merch! PS go buy some merch!
I really like the artwork. Who came up with the concept for it and designed it?
The artwork was one of my weird brain children. Once we named the song, the image of Sad Boi riding a bomb that was being dropped on Perth just seemed funny to me.
Is this a one-off single or can we expect more new music soon? If so, what can you tell us so far?
Bombs Away is a stand-alone single. It’s the first thing we’ve written and recorded with the current line-up and it was more about exploring where we were all at musically and how we would work together.
Rest assured, new music is on the way, we’re hoping to release a few more tracks in the new year and we are already in the thick of writing them.
Thanks for taking the time to answer the questions. Do you have anything else that you would like to add?
Thanks for talking to us again and thanks to everyone for your continued support. It blows my mind that people want to listen to the tunes we write. We do this because we love writing and playing music, we never thought anyone would really pay attention to what we do. Seeing the play counts tick up and watching people singing our lyrics back to us at shows is insane and I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it. So yeah, thank you so much.
Our next show is going to be our first headline show and the launch party for the new single. It’s Friday, 13th December at FourFiveNine in Perth and we have some great artists playing with us!
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