Some of the most exciting music in years has been emerging over the last six months, and few acts are quite so promising are Melbourne indie-folk five-piece, Playwrite. No, really. Just check out their latest single ‘Animals Housed’ and tell me I’m lying. These guys are incredible, and with their debut album only months away, they’re about to get a whole lot more noticed. Though as guitarist Patrick Holcombe explains, this isn’t going to stop them from hitting a house party near you.
“We have the single launch in Melbourne, Bondi, then Canberra,” Holcombe says. “But in between, we’re going to do a few house concerts. Sometimes a traditional venue isn’t the best solution, so having 40 people in someone’s lounge room can be pretty great. It makes a huge difference, especially when you’re trying to build a crowd in areas that you can’t get to very often. “It means instead of playing at a pub where you might get to say hi to some fans after, you’re actually in their house, sitting around and having a drink with them. That’s kind of why we do it. It makes more sense to try and make friends as well as make fans.”
Though Playwrite are in a strong position to move on to great things, it hasn’t all been wine and roses. A deep tragedy lies at the heart of Holcombe’s writing, and while there is great seriousness behind his words, his experiences playing with the band have brought a fellowship and celebration to the songs that is hard to rival.
“It’s easy to hide in a song,” he considers, “and in a lot of ways that’s the point of songwriting. A lot of it is allowing people to get whatever they want from a song. At the same time, most of my content… in 2009, my parents passed away in the Black Saturday bushfires. I started playing with this band almost immediately after that. That was a huge part of everyone in the band. A lot of us knew people up there [in regional Victoria]. That was where I grew up, so I had a huge connection to the forest there, the landscape.
“There was the huge house my dad built that burned down, and my folks and our family dog – there was just so much stuff that I needed to say that I didn’t have another outlet for. And that provided a really safe place. Not all of the songs are that direct, though. So there are ways of hiding in a song. It’s also incredibly heavy material to drop on a room of people who want to have a good time.”
He chuckles. Holcombe comes across as an incredibly resilient man, and the fact he has found a means of growth and expression in the face of such sadness is extraordinary.
“There’s emotion still attached to them all, but there’s also so much joy that has become attached along the way. We’ve played a lot of these songs now in the freakin’ Opera House [supporting Elbow last year], and the joy that we’ve had as a band has made them a whole other family that I have now. When we’re playing a rock show, I don’t talk about that stuff, it’s about the energy. But at really intimate, acoustic shows it’s really important to talk about the songs, and it allows people to connect much deeper. I enjoy that process, but I gauge it show by show. If I don’t feel like it’s the right place for a song, I certainly won’t. I need to feel like it’s right.”
Playwrite play The Filth at Beach Road Hotel on Friday July 31.
