Band Of The Week #177 - Varley
This weeks Band Of The Week is indie-trio Varley - who have just released their debut album ‘Smalltalk & DMCs’. Written and recorded in 2020 in the shadow of the first COVID lockdown, the debut album ‘Smalltalk & DMCs’, is imbued with an all-too-familiar sense of inner turmoil: a series of relatable missives for anyone that's ever doubted themselves. They took a moment to talk to us about how the album came together.
Hey Varley, how are you? So your debut album is out now, how does it feel to have it out there in the world?
Hey, we are really good, thanks. We have been buzzing all morning seeing the reaction to the record. It feels slightly surreal as we started working on the album back in 2020 and now it’s here. It feels amazing to be able to share what we have been working on all of this time.
It is called ‘Smalltalk & DMC’s’ - what is the meaning behind that?
DMCs means ‘Deep Meaningful Conversations’ and it’s a line from ‘The Pressure’. The album plays with a lot of contrasts and we loved how this line summed it all up. It felt like the perfect name for the record.
Where was the album recorded? Any behind the scenes stories from the creative process?
Most of the album was recorded in Berlin in the first lockdown in 2020 and there are a few moments that really stick out to us. Writing ‘Disease’ was a bit of a magic moment. Matze had just recorded the guitar lick and put some drums under it and he asked Claire-Ann to sing something over it to get a rough idea of where it could go and Claire-Ann jammed out the whole song in one take, lyrics and all. In the end we took the ‘demo’ vocals for the finished production because there was something magical about them. Another stand out moment was when Claire-Ann and Joschka were in the studio and wrote the bones of ‘Push Pull’ and ‘Feel It’ on the same day.
What are the key themes and influences on the album?
We speak about a lot of uncomfortable topics such as loneliness, mental health, inner turmoil but peppered throughout the album are moments of defiance, strength and admiration for the people we look up to. We tend to let our gut feelings do the talking, at the end of the day it is usually the most honest and has the most interesting things to say.
There are some references to self doubt in the tracks - were there any doubts around putting together a ‘debut album’? If so, how did you overcome them?
Being that we are a trio, if one of us is feeling insecure about something there is always someone to turn to to get another opinion. This is something that has definitely helped to hinder any self doubt regarding the record. All of the topics off the album are incredibly personal and it can be a bit daunting to let people look inside your head but we stayed true to ourselves so we feel that is something to be really proud of.
The track ‘Feel It’ has a huge female empowerment theme around it - can you tell us a bit more about that?
We wrote ‘Feel It’ after a long conversation about all of the fierce and inspiring women that we look up to. Kind of like a love letter and a thank you in one. There are so many women out there who are doing such incredible things and we wanted to shine a light on that and also to say thank you for giving us the courage to go after our dreams.
Do you have a favorite lyric on the album? If so, which one and why?
It changes all of the time depending on our moods but there is a line in ‘Married With Bruises’ which is really resonating with us right now. ‘Year on in, year on out we’ve heard it, my mother’s mother had to follow your orders, she said she didn’t want the same for her daughters’
Now the album is out there, what next for you?
We want to take the new songs on the road and are so excited to start playing in front of a live audience again. We had our first festival last week and it felt so good playing the new songs with our band. We definitely are looking forward to more of that!