For Sailor Bay, Music Isn’t a Career. It’s Oxygen
Punk Head: ”Someone Who Leaves" is about not leaving. I love that reversal. What made you want to write that song from that angle?
Sailor Bay: I have two kids. My partner and I broke up after 11 years when they were young and I didn’t take it well… I fell apart and got messy — drinking a lot and eventually became suicidal. One night I was invited to their place to catch up, but that day someone that we both knew posted a really awful post about what a shit dad I was on Facebook…. I took it really badly because I desperately wanted to be a good dad… and I ended up getting drunk and wandering off … I was intending to drown myself in the ocean…. Nobody knew where I had gone but I think my so and ex knew what was going on…. So it was a terrible traumatic moment for them that I have never completely forgiven myself for. My own dad was “someone who leaves” — not suicide, but emotionally. This song is my promise to them that I will never do that again.
Punk Head: Ghosts & Pheromones" sounds like it explores the confusion of entering new relationships while carrying unresolved grief. What conversations about grief and intimacy do you think people still struggle to have honestly?
Sailor Bay: Nobody in western society talks about grief…. Not in an honest way at least. I think we have an unhealthy view on death generally…. And this song was a way of packaging up my very difficult experience in a cinematic, metaphorical way … but people just can’t see that grief can be dark enough to swallow even the brightest of stars. That’s how I felt when I met an amazing new person who was totally into me and “us”, who was everything I would have wanted, and yet there was this immense darkness there for me that I couldn’t get past … I guess a lot of it was fear — because my best friend of 30+ years had just disappeared forever and if it could happen to him (the strongest, bravest dude Ive ever met), then anyone could disappear. It was terrifying to meet someone that you might care about even half as much. It’s all so big, so I have been putting slivers of my experience in a lot of songs. People don’t talk about it because it feels so irrational and impossible to grasp unless you’ve been through it.
Punk Head: What would your late collaborator make fun of you for if he heard these recordings?
Sailor Bay: Dan would definitely make fun of me for not tuning my guitar perfectly! I can be a little lazy with things sometimes, but I’m starting to see he was totally right. Other than that, he’d poke fun of my drums and, to be honest, that’s fair too! Other than that… I don’t know… I actually think he’d be proud of how far Ive come with all this. God I miss him though — other than being my best friend, he was also a genius with sound production and engineering.
Punk Head: There's a fascinating mix of the deeply personal and the politically aware in your comments. How do those two impulses meet in your songwriting?
Sailor Bay: I actually try to stay out of the way of anything that feels intentional — I feel deeply about politics and the trajectory of western culture, but I don’t set out to make any statements per se. So I don’t have any clever thoughts about that — each song is just what needs to be said, but not necessarily what I had planned to say … I like it that way. It makes the songs somewhat surprising for me sometimes, and I just hope that makes them fresh, authentic and interesting for others too.
Punk Head: Listening to the story behind the project, I wonder whether making music is a way of preserving the past or creating a future. Which feels more true for you right now?
Sailor Bay: Neither and both! It's therapy and it's breathing for me. So partly I'm offloading the intense noise in my head to try and move forward, and partly I'm seeking to honour and immortalise special moments, and partly I'm seeking to honestly explain myself to others in the only way I know how (because I will people please and avoid the uncomfortable truth otherwise)... and partly it's just breathing -- for whatever reason I don't understand, making songs is my oxygen. If I leave it too long, I start to suffocate. And if that suffocation goes on too long, I end up sabotaging my whole life to get back to a place where I can breathe again. It's always been the most confusing part for me -- because I'm not a talented singer or musician at all.... and yet, I am not separate from the music. When I am making music, I can literally lose days without blinking. It's more "me" than any of the other things that people see.... But still, so confusing to have this insatiable drive, because I feel so ill-equipped to meet the muse and do any of this justice with my meagre innate abilities.
Punk Head: You've described music as "oxygen." If that's true, what happens during the periods when the songs won't come, and what did making Paint Spill teach you about the difference between creating for survival and creating for expression?
Sailor Bay: Yeah, so I've explained that part -- when I don't create, what happens... Beyond that, I definitely feel like I'm moving towards expression and away from survival. I've written some pretty dark stuff previously, and Paint Spill still has some of that, but it was the first time in a few years that I've started to feel like the sun was coming up finally. It's not that I haven't had (and written about) good moments before now, but I think there's a sense of the tide turning in this EP. Maybe it's not obvious to anyone else, but it's there for me nonetheless. I'll always have the oxygen thing -- I will make music until I die, and I will probably get sick and die if I stop making music... there are very few things that I feel I'm "meant" to do, but, despite the confusion I have around that, I'm still clear that this is the thing I need to do to be "me" (whatever that is! haha). The next set of songs are more than half finished already, and I can see how there is some light at the end of the tunnel in those songs. Don't get me wrong, I'm still processing.... I watched Hamnet recently and had a complete meltdown. I binge-watched The Pitt and had another meltdown with all the death and other elements that reminded me of the last few days staying with my mate as he drifted off into the next life.... Real grief is an unbelievably long process -- maybe an unending one.... but if you allow yourself a little grace, you can move forward -- little by little -- and that's where I'm at now... breathing a different quality of air now. I'm a little further up the mountain, and the songs feel a little lighter... thankfully.
It's funny, people might read some of my comments and think that my music will sit somewhere between Elliott Smith and Nirvana, but it actually sounds pretty upbeat really, all things considered.... Making music is a joy to me, even when the song is dark. Plus, I don't want to contribute to anyone else's misery, so I guess if there is one intentional aspect of my songwriting, it happens in the recording/production process -- I do want people to feel a little hope in the back-beats, basslines and weird riffs.
