Expatriate - Poetry in Motion

Known for an often haunting electro pop sound, Sydney band Expatriate have recently recorded their highly anticipated debut album in the US with renowned producer John Goodmanson. Taking place in the vast expanse which is the American countryside, the experience added to the underlying tone of displacement and transience in many of their songs, something the band says comes from sharing a common thread of growing up outside the confines of what many consider a typical childhood.

Singer/songwriter Ben King grew up in the rawness of Jakarta, returning to Australia as a teenager, “Because I moved around so much as a kid I have to say I don’t really feel a great sense of belonging to any one place. It’s a strange feeling but somewhat liberating as well. It has definitely affected my songs probably more subconsciously than anything else. That sense of longing does creep into the crevices of most of the songs because it’s always been apart of how I’ve felt about life”. The son of migrant parents from Greece, drummer Chris Kollias was exposed to the contradicting sights and sounds of a naive Australia, “(It was) a rich cultural experience which was and still remains to this day a real mind bender. The music of Expatriate on many levels brings out a lot of these experiences and emotions”

The relatively young band have garnered an ever-growing legion of fans, something King puts down to the honesty of the lyrics “I think its very honest and real songwriting with some drama thrown in for good measure, just like all good storytellers. The lyrics don’t exactly beat around the bush. They take you somewhere and I’m always trying to think quite visually when writing them, for example, scenes on a street, colours and everything in between. I’ve always loved songwriters like Martin L Gore of Depeche Mode who seem to write in a sort of confessional manner. The really want to get something off their chest. I think the best way to sum up the record, lyrically, is that is deals with the politics of the heart.”

Writing about emotional vulnerability and delivering it with a poetic rawness is something Expatriate achieve time and time again – is there a process the band goes through when creating a new song? “I never really know which way the lyrics are going to go. They just happen, usually, at the same time as the music. After that there is a lot of scoping and culling of things to refine it but when it works it works. When we’re in the rehearsal room it’s usually a case of firing up all the tech we have and experimenting our way through sounds to find what really works”.

Expatriate’s other founding member, Damian Press, (the band’s touring bassist, Dave Molland, joined the band after their Seattle trip) has a reputation as being a technical genius when it comes to sound production, (as well as being the band’s keyboardist and guitarist) but as the band is quick to point out, it’s Damian’s own mind which really emphasises the layers in each song, “having known Damian for quite a while now, I’d have to say that his genius doesn’t necessarily lie in the technical world…It’s his ability to drift into space and exist in his own reality that really makes him unique. That dream like quality has really found a space in our music”.

Is it hard to recreate that dream-like quality in front of a live audience? “I’ve been working my keyboard sampler pretty hard lately so a lot of the intricate recorded sounds are being created live. Ultimately live is a different beast for us, we wanna take it up a notch and dirty things up and put across as much energy as possible to the audience”.

That energy is sure to be embraced by the crowd when the band returns to the US to play at the SXSW Festival in Texas in March. With their debut album being released on April 21, it won’t be too long before Expatriate are whisked away from Australian shores to tour extensively. Australia can only hope we won’t lose these expats forever.

Share this article on Facebook