South Summit On Their Top 10 Sonic Inspirations

Following on from a year that saw them named as “indie role models for reconciliation”, as well as triple j’s 2022 “ones to watch”, South Summit have well and truly surpassed the expectations placed upon them. Culminating 2022 with a Falls Festival slot in Perth, alongside BIGSOUND, Springtime Festival, Day On The Lawn, Rolling Sets & NYE On The Hill appearances, the unassuming indie-rockers have made a name for themselves across Australia, with a nomination for triple j Unearthed ‘Artist of The Year’, alongside landing #4 Most Played on the station, the icing on the cake of last year’s accolades.

Sophomore EP Creatures provides South Summit the opportunity to bookend this formative chapter of their story, with a culminating body of work pulling inspiration from the challenges and adversity they’ve faced & overcome in the year preceding. Featuring acclaimed singles Promise Me, Tired of Waiting & Runaway, the EP also adds three new tracks, with the release being opened with Yaama (hello) & finished with Yaluu (bye). Focus-track Changes is notable, with frontman Isaiah Reuben diving into personal turmoil, realising that obstacles & change is inevitable; giving in to this and working to move forward, growing into someone stronger and denying stagnation.

“‘Changes’ refers to these songs being their own sound and their own creature. The EP itself is a collection of all these songs we’ve been making as individual pieces, into one body of work. It’s a token of appreciation to the fans who have supported us through a huge year, a release that defines the last year of our journey as a band. Going from a local band in the Perth scene to growing to find some recognition nationally, we’d like to thank all of those who helped us get there.” South Summit

This EP was done in blocks of days in the studio spread out months apart, usually working on 1-2 songs at a time. This allowed us to focus strongly on each song as its own piece of work. The majority of the recording was done with our go-to producer Dave Parkin at Blackbird Studios in Perth, we love his process of recording and it seemed to really click with us as a band. While on tour in Sydney we realized we had a bit of free time in the week so we came to an agreement to record with Callum Howell at Forbes Street Studios in Sydney. We stayed for 4 days to record our new track ‘Changes’. The idea behind recording in this totally new space was to try something different to what we were used to and just see what happens. South Summit

And going on tour…

“We’re so excited to announce that we’ll be heading back for our next tour around Australia in March. We had such a good time on our last tour that we had to come back as soon as we could. There are so many exciting shows lined up, including completely new places for us like Newcastle and Hobart. And of course all the other great cities like Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Byron Bay and Wollongong. We can’t wait to put on a good show for you, see ya there!” South Summit

South Summit’s ‘Top 10 Sonic Inspirations’…

RUNNING – LAB
LAB’s sound is a big sonic inspiration of ours, more so in Runaway. Their punchy drums, big bass sound and skanking guitars really influenced our reggae tracks off Creatures EP. One of the tightest sounding reggae bands out there at the moment.

FLY AWAY – SLIM JIMZ
One of the best local bands out there at the moment. The mix and instrumentation of their tracks is great and we had their songs on repeat while recording Creatures EP. Fly Away is a really gentle yet powerful piece, which is what we tried to bring when recording River Days. Had the pleasure of touring with those boys on multiple occasions and it’s a pleasure sharing the stage with them.

SPIES – COLDPLAY
Coldplay’s anthemic songs is one thing we heavily referenced, specifically in Tired of Waiting. They are a great band for making a catchy, singalong tune which really resonates with a crowd, which is what we tried to bring with Tired of Waiting.

HAPPY SAD – OCEAN ALLEY
Ocean Alley is a big influence in the overall sound of Creatures EP. Happy Sad has a slow build that ascends into a huge ending which is something we think influenced us when writing and recording Yaluu. Our track Yaluu also comes from a very strong emotional place, talking about some very personal issues, so having this sense of emotion come through in the music was very important to us.

WOLFPACK – VANILLA GORILLA
We first stumbled across Vanilla Gorilla a few years back and really dug their vibe. The track Wolfpack is really a really fun, rock reggae tune that is similar to ‘Runaway’ and a lot more we love to jam in the rehearsal room. Sonically, this influenced us because it was one of the tunes we were most listening to while recording the EP.

ALL IS ON MY SIDE – SAM FENDER
This track is another one that was on repeat during the recording process. The guitar tones was a big reference for the solo in ‘Tired of Waiting’, and just the general vibe and feel is something that we really like jamming as a band.

BE THE SAME – MAKO ROAD
Be The Same is a track we all enjoy and influenced the recording of a few tracks off Creatures, more so Changes. It’s got a really nice laid back vibe with clean guitar licks, a beachy atmosphere, just a song that you can really cruise to.

CLOSER – KINGS OF LEON
Closer is one of those tracks that really experiments with different tones. We played around with many similar effects while recording Creatures EP, specifically using atmospheric guitars to fill the sound and mix. This is heard in the solo for Changes and Yaluu more specifically. We also used many unique tones in the introduction track Yaama where Zaya sang into microphonic pickups of a guitar to create that ambient scream which you can hear.

GOODBYE ANGELS – RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
Chili Peppers’ rock vibe is something we’ve always loved playing in the rehearsal room and something that we tried to bring sonically into Promise Me. The ending with the powerful guitars and driving bass and drums has a real Chili Peppers feel to it.

OUT OF PLACE – THE DELTA RIGGS
One of the most underrated bands of our time. These boys tracks always come out with a great mix, and really unique sonically. Another track we were listening to a lot while tracking the EP, where we took inspiration in Promise Me for vocal effects, different tones for instruments and just a general larrikin & rowdy vibe.

South Summit Tour Dates