Egoism

EGOISM began when Scout Eastment and Olive Rush started catching the same bus together in high school. Their regular morning arguments about music became the catalyst for them eventually deciding to collaborate with each other. Scout and Olive were soon learning how write songs and make music; constantly running melodies and lyrics past each other. They discovered that they had a shared love and a philosophy on how music should be made while hoping their songs could one day be played live to people that wouldn’t hate it. Scout and Olive answer a few questions for Hi Fi Way: The Pop Chronicles about their new single Enemies.

How has the tour been going so far?
Pretty good, the highlight was playing in Brisbane for the first time. So many good dreamy bands!

Do you think the band is starting to make some serious inroads?
Well we’ve been in putting a lot of work and I think been getting better as a band so it’s really nice to feel like we’re getting some good responses from it. ·

Sonically, how would you describe Egoism sound?
Dreamy harmony fuelled guitar pop ·

How did you all meet?
We met on the bus to school and eventually started talking about making music!

How did the band name come about?
We were originally called Ego cause Scout did psychology for a week at uni. Then it changed to Egoism after some DJ sent us two cease and desists!

What is the story behind the single Enemies?
The entire song was written backwards. The initial idea was the big “my enemies” section at the end. Next came the chorus, then the middle 8, then the verse, then finally we wrote the little guitar riff at the beginning.

Did you have fun making the video clip?
Oh yeah loads of fun. Ari KC, the director, got a bunch of talented people to dress the downstairs room of a bowling club. It was a bit of a shock when we arrived; we immediately knew it was gonna be a cool video.

Did the band have total control on the direction of the video clip?
It was a collaborative process with Ari with a few coffee fuelled meetings prior to the creation of the video. But it just started with us telling him the vibe we were going for, and then Ari came up with the whole idea of air conditioning ducts connecting 2 mirrored rooms. Ari and Darwin, the DP, pretty much took care of everything from then on. ·

What did you think when you heard your song on Triple J?
It was unreal, made me feel like a ‘real musician”. Which sounds silly, but Triple J is how so many bands have gone from obscure local bands to headlining festivals so yeah, very appreciative.

Is the band building towards an album or EP?
All we’re gonna say is that we have a lot of songs, some recorded and some not. You’ll definitely hear more music out of us this year!

Who are the biggest musical influences for the band?
Scout: I’ve been listening to a lot of indie rock/emo/pop stuff I don’t really know how to describe it but people like Japanese Breakfast, Sasami and Snail Mail. I think that’s been influencing my guitar playing particularly.

Olive: I keep having these massive weird phases of listening exclusively to the 1975 and a whole lot of emo trap. I’m just a sucker for pretty guitar pop.

Are you looking to tour more extensively including Adelaide?
We’d love to! If you’re reading this, send us a big big gig offer and we’ll be wherever you want us to be!

What is the plan for Egoism for the rest of the year?
Pretty simple, just keep releasing music and playing shows!!

Interview By Rob Lyon