The four lads who are British India are doing what so many high-school bands dream of — touring the country and sharing their music. With their sixth album released in September, and off the back of a three-month tour including stops in Mackay and Cairns for The Grass is Greener music festival (and a post-festival holiday in Port Douglas!) and it’s safe to say the boys are ‘living the dream’.  

British India – also known as Declan Melia (vocals and guitar), Nic Wilson (guitar), Will Drummond (bass) and Matt O’Gorman (drums) – formed in a Melbourne schoolyard back in 2004 while the band’s members were in Year 12.  Since then, the boys have since released six albums, and over the course of their career have seen eight of their songs voted into the triple j Hottest 100 – which is surely a dream for four 16-year-old school boys jamming in their lunch break.

They’ve created a place for themselves in the Australian music scene, yet as Declan describes it, they’ve been sustained by the elusiveness of success. It’s that constant drive that has kept the boys moving, kept them producing new music, touring Australia and sharing what they do.

In September they released their sixth album, Forgetting the Future, which offers the band’s signature indie rock sound with melodic chaos, trilling guitars, fleeting hooks, heavy riffs, careening rhythms and bouldering choruses.

What progressed British India from the herd of young hopeful bands bred in school grounds and suburban garages? We caught up with frontman Declan.

 

High school bands don’t start with a business mindset. When did that kick in?

It didn’t come until later. When we first picked up guitars it was just purely an escapism thing. It’s not that we were unpopular. I think the four of us, we kind of came from four different corners of high school. I really think music was what brought us together, and a desire to play it and write it.

The business and entrepreneurial aspect is still not our strongest suit. It’s not number one in our minds. We’ve been lucky that we have been able to follow our instincts.

I’m really thankful for the success that we’ve had. But at the same time we’ve never had a number one record, we’ve never headlined festivals, we’ve never played enormous venues. So there’s sort of this next level success that’s kind of eluded us and that we’re constantly aiming for.

 

 

“Touring is actually quite a relaxing process… I’ve given that away, I should probably act like it’s really hard and I work really hard.”

– Declan Melia

 

 

 

How do you find that balance between being an artist, and creating something for commercial success?

It is a delicate balance. Trying to make money and trying to maintain a career through being creative is really kind of paradoxical to begin with. On one hand everything’s supposed to be really free and complex, but at the same time you need to streamline things to make them palatable.

 

Was writing Forgetting the Future a case of all hands on deck?

I don’t think there is any song on Forgetting the Future that any one of us could have written by ourselves. It was really collaborative, but not in a way we’ve done before. It wasn’t four guys jamming in a room like on the first two records. It was more like four guys trying to write the same song. Or to paint more of a picture, it was like four guys wrestling with the same song to try to get their personality into the music.

 

What’s your standout track from the album?

The third track – Just Sing Like Everybody Else. It was the first track we kind of wrote. We’d had a bit of writer’s block and we were writing quite myopic, insular, really kind of self-pitying songs, but then Nic kind of came at it from another angle. He had this track and was really kind of aggressive, and the bass and drums are so compulsive, it’s so exciting. I listen to it a lot when I’m running. I just remember that moment when we reverted from self-pity to aggression in the studio. I remember looking at the other three guys and thinking, ‘yeh this really hits the spot. This should be the direction of the album.’

 

What are your thoughts on NQ?

We just love the north. If I had to pick a favourite part of Australia it would be the north – that Cairns/Port Douglas area…. Right now, I’m in Melbourne, look out the window and see rain and grey skies. I go north and sit under a palm tree.

 

Three months touring – how do you handle it?

What we do is really relaxing anyway. Touring isn’t as stressful as people make out. We fly everywhere, we stay in nice hotels and we all get along with each other. We don’t drink to excess and we eat well. Touring is actually quite a relaxing process…. I’ve given that away, I should probably act like it’s really hard and I work really hard.

 

British India’s Forgetting the Future is out now.