Exclusive Stream + Track By Track: Jesse Davidson - Lizard Boy EP

The Adelaide young gun gives us a sneak peek at his new EP.

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South Australian-based artist Jesse Davidson is on the verge of releasing his second EP, Lizard Boy, out this Monday the 19th October via Create/Control. Not only were we very lucky to have him send us a few words about the EP's creation, he's even given us an advance stream of the release to get you primed for its official release.

He's had a pretty great year thus far, kicking off with a St Jerome's Laneway Festival appearance and a killer triple j Like A Version of Childish Gambino's Sober, which comes with his music racing towards 2 million plays across Spotify and Soundcloud and collaborations with other neat Aussie artists like Japanese Wallpaper and Luke Million.

So he'll have plenty to celebrate when he takes the EP on tour over November/December, check the dates once you've had a listen to - and learned about - Lizard Boy below:

LAIKA:

Okay, so I wanted to write a bloody jam. There’s nothing wrong with writing a bit of a jam. The lyrics are not as important in this song as the others I would say, but I’m still fond of them. I had just discovered cheesy synthesizers and was absolutely bloody loving them. I played the majority of instruments on the EP myself and I kind of used this as an excuse to have a big drum solo at the end of a song. Coincidentally, I did that with two of the songs on this EP, because I have no self control.

Here’s a fun fact: the jabby guitar sounding part in the second verse is actually a mandolin. This song was called Raleigh St Clair (like the character from The Royal Tenenbaums) for a really long time, but I copped out at the last minute in fear of it sounding too esoteric or something.

DARLING:

This song more or less just started off as an experiment with writing a song completely on bass. I was mostly just interested in how a lack of guitars and keys and other instruments like that could change the composition of a song and create a lot of space for the vocals. I ended up adding guitars and keys later anyway because I don’t know how to stop myself, but I think it turned out for the best. I was considering using this song for a single but people were hesitant because of the whole drum solo/mellotron jam at the end of the song that makes it a bit over four minutes. I was too attached to it to see it go though, makes me feel too good inside. Unlike the rest of the EP that was recorded in a studio called Lightship 95 in London (which was a converted boat studio), the vocals for this song were recorded in Adelaide by Luke Million, who I collaborated with on the song Fear The Night. What a scoop!

CHAPEL CHOIR:

This song was called Morning Light for a really long time but I had to change it because the last song on the EP actually uses that phrase as a lyric throughout the song and it was kind of confusing. This is by far the folkiest song on the EP by a long shot. I’m unsure as to whether it feels out of place with the rest of the songs, but I’m not sure I care too much. At the very least I think it works well as a sort of interlude between the other more band orientated songs. I was very happy with how the harmonies turned out as well.

LAGOON:

his song started, weirdly enough, as a piano ballad. I can’t really play the piano so I just wrote it down on the computer and it later became a synth line. When I came up with the drums I wanted to give it a sort of hip hop feel to it. The bass guitar was deliberately held off until the final chorus of the song, so that when it finally comes it’s a kind of a release for the song, like holding it in when you need to pee and then finally letting it all out when you find a tree. I lost a few days of studio time thanks to a trip to Germany and a mild ear infection, so we had to record the vocals in my producer Jake’s bedroom.

WILL YOU FIND ME?:

This is the cheesy ballad with a big release at the end. I’m quite fond of it though, despite its cheesiness and simple structure and what-not. It’s one of the more emotive songs on the EP I’d say and it makes for a great song to finish a live set with. We recorded the acoustic guitar normally initially and then decided to re-amp it with a diamond vibrato pedal running on it to give it that wobbly, woody sound. It’s a good song though, I’m quite happy with it. It’s unashamedly uplifting and I kind of like that about it, reminds me of an old Paul McCartney song or something. Not that I want to be so arrogant as to compare myself to Paul McCartney but I’m totally doing that so deal with it.