What A Relief!

Photo by Luke Byrne Adelaide’s got a reputation for a few things (good booze, weird murders) but one of them ain’t music. Touring acts can’t be fucked going there and bands from Adelaide move to Melbourne once they’re sick of playing gigs in their grandma’s lounge room. Birth Glow, however, are so busy making their own cool shit that they just don’t care where they are. They’re a lo-fi band; minimal on instruments and heavy on harmony and charm. Their soothing beats, sparse guitar and beautiful voices lull you into such a state of bliss that you don’t even realise that they’re singing about rimming guys, parrots and Paul Simon. Vice: How did Birth Glow happen? Nick: Ellen and I were drunk on goon one night and decided to start a band called ‘summer-dunna-ding-dang’. We laughed for hours then decided Birth Glow was funnier. We finally got together to record stuff and found out neither of us can play any instruments. So we got our housemate Steph to do a drum beat for us and she was amazing and knew exactly what we were trying to do, so we kept her. That explains the lack of instruments. Ellen: I wanted to really focus on the vocals between the three of us and not get distracted by other noise and since Nick and I are instrumentally mute that was not really an option anyhow. Steph can only play so many things at one time before falling over. What do you do in the band? Nick: I’m the mascot, basically. Ellen has the most gorgeous voice in the world, and I make dirty old man noises in the background to give us ‘cred’. Steph holds it all together, depending on how drunk she is. Ellen: That’s ridiculous. We’d be nothing without your incredible sad baritone. Tell me about your music. Nick: We all have very different ideas about music and how we write songs but it just seems to all come together really well. Sometimes. Fuck we’ve written some terrible shit. Worse than the stuff we actually play. I’m a bit of a limiting factor because I really can’t sing and have no sense of timing or pitch AT ALL. But I love that. It means we have to write really simple, direct little songs and that’s what I want to hear. I think if you can’t express something in 30 seconds, then you’ve failed as a songwriter and really as a human being. You can “oooh” and “lala” till the cow’s come home, but did you bone him or not?  Some of your lyrics are pretty funny. Nick: We make each other laugh. When we’re not screaming at each other, or ignoring each other. Or leaving little notes on the fridge. Ellen: We obviously all live together too. Nick’s being dramatic, I don’t think there has been a time that I haven’t died from laughter yet. On all the original recordings there were wheezy giggles and screams at the end of each song, but we decided to cut most of them out. Does having two lead vocalists make for more fun? Nick: My favourite bit before shows is to stand in front of Ellen’s mic. It goes up to my belly button. I laugh every time.  Ellen: I’m short, all right. That’s why I usually wear heels on stage, and that’s also why I don’t generally move on stage. Do you have any weird bonding rituals before playing? Nick: We’re usually all equally drunk, and equally freaked out by the mixer. I think that works for us. Once in Auckland we even syncronised food poisoning. Well, it was either that or the funk-fusion that was playing before us. YULE TIDE
Birth Glow’s mini-album “Ultimate Relief” is out now through Nervous Jerk/Remote Control.