GRXCE Sophomore Single ‘Family Traditions’ Interview

Written by Robert Hume

GRXCE are starting off the new year with a new single. Having only just released their debut single ‘Pretty Boy’ last year, this new one shifts the tone a little. ‘Family Traditions’ delves into the complexities of family relationships and the ways they shape our worldview into adulthood. Stemming from lead singer Jamila’s own family experiences, the track nestles the poetic bluntness of Jamila’s lyrics alongside anthemic, driving guitar that inspires you to scream at the top of your lungs. The song lives up to the band’s tagline “sad music that you can dance to,” and is a canvas full of emotion and vulnerability that carries all the way through the track 

I caught up with the band just before Laneway to chat about the song, and what it was like to have it premier on triple j two days before release. 

Rob: Congrats on the release. How are you all feeling?

Alex: Yeah, so we just saw we released our song yesterday called ‘Family Traditions’. We recorded it with Fletcher Matthews, who also worked on Pretty Boy as well. It was super exciting to bring it out into the world because we've been holding it for almost a year and during that time it never lost any charm for us, we all still love it as much now as it did for us back then so it’s nice to now have the world be able to listen to it. 

Jam: I added a TBC date in our band calendar for a Home and Hosed premiere on 1st of Feb and I just kind of chucked it in and I forgot I did it and then when it actually happened on the date that I had down, it was like a keen manifestation. I pitched it to triple j and I actually got the email wrong, but I didn’t even know until Ash from home and hosed emailed us saying she was going to play it. Getting it played, let alone hearing her speak about it and say so many lovely things about it was crazy and was the freaking nicest thing 

Alex: I think as you said, Jam, having it played on Triple J and now the release as well, I think we are all still soaking it in and riding the wave and letting it sink in for us. 

Rob: What is the backstory behind the song? 

Jam: The song is about like how I grew up, my parents weren't together and I think when you grow up in that environment, like as much as you are so thankful for all the love that you were given you can also come to a point as an adult to recognize like how that also skews your view of love compared to friends or other people that may have like not had that experience. I think I always went from extreme to another, where I must have this perfect white picket fence. The dog and the kids and the whole thing by the time I'm like 25 because I didn't have that growing up. 

And then kind of swinging the complete opposite way when I got a little bit older, feeling like I'm destined to be alone forever because I kind of never got to see my parents find their people.

I want to make that very clear like was never meant to be like a fuck you mum and dad kind of thing. I think it was more just like an acknowledgement that I understand and I love them regardless of what was going on but I also recognize that I'm able to grow and learn from that space, and hopefully they are too.  

Rob: One of the remarks that Ash made on Home and Hosed was that she wondered how your parents reacted when they heard it. What was their response to the song? 

Jam: My dad is super self-aware and super funny when it comes to it. He posted online poking fun at it and it was something along the lines of lol, Here's this song about how wack I am. He’s very accepting and aware of the situation. I think my mum took it a little bit harder but I think it's always going to be a bit of a blow to hear your kid talking about their upbringing like that and recognizing things that they didn’t see in themselves. It’s such a weird dichotomy.  

But she’s coming around to it and she called me up and said that she was very proud and very in awe of the way that the themes are explored in the song and my entire family are so supportive, no one hates me because of it, which is great. 

The interesting thing is, as different as my parents are and as much as they don't get on with each other, the one thing that I'm really grateful for is they both have a similar mindset when it comes to raising me. Their relationship with each other may have been different, however when I was in the picture, they both had a lot of the same exact values and are really supportive to me on my creative work as a musician. 

My mum came from a design and visual arts background and dad originally went to school for film and now he plays like Latin percussion now, which is pretty sick. He actually played at Woodford Festival, which is kind of a slay. My dad played festivals before me. 

So I'm really grateful that as much as I may have had to deal with an emotional pull, they were always supportive in that what I wanted for myself was going to be what was best for me. 

Rob: How was the recording?

Alex: I think a lot of credit goes to Fletcher. We talk a lot about how Fletcher, our producer,really helps us. 

How we wanted to build the song and to be more deliberate about doing so. It’s important to think about how you want the audience to react and what the purpose is, and I think that the song always had a bit of a build up towards the end before we went into the studio and recorded with Fletcher but he allowed us to accentuate it more. 

And really when it gets to that upbeat kind of last chorus where it is quite dancy, it does make you want to jump up and down even though right before it there is, you know, quite a sad, you know, little bridge section. 

Jam: The old version of the song was literally like three verses that all kind of built to a similar point and that was it, so massive credit to Fletch for being so good and sat down with us dissecting and reconstructing the sonics of the song. I think working with him in general gives me a lot of permission to not get so attached to how I write and be able to change, deconstruct and not feel so attached to the words and it can have the same if not more meaning and value afterwards. 

Rob: The song was written a long time ago and it was a quite personal one. What was it like bringing it to the band? 

Jam: Family Traditions is super personal and prior to this I had always written about love or crushes and I think that's something that's so like palatable and everyone so aware of that in indie music and pop music that you don't really feel guilty or weird about it, but when you're delving into things like family it's a totally different experience, so I think that's where I got a bit nervous was, I was like I just didn't want people to take it the wrong way. 

I withheld the actual lyrics for quite a while, but the instrumental of it was how Jono joined the band (before it was even a concept). It was the piece that I quizzed him on and asked if he could learn it by ear. 

I actually think it got brought to the band because it was that one song that Jono actually knew already because he had to learn it by ear, which allowed for a natural way to introduce it and the lyrics that were hidden behind the instrumental to everyone else. It was really liberating and authentic and bringing it forward was really important for me because it’s a topic that doesn’t have much written about it so I want to write about it so the other people who have been through similar experiences to me can have a song they can relate to. 

Rob: I love the bits that we’ve seen of the music video, it’s very grassroots. What was it like filming and creating it all yourselves?

Alex: With the music video for ‘Family Traditions,’ we wanted to take a different approach this time compared to ‘Pretty Boy’ since it was so slick and this time around, we wanted to impart more of ourselves into it and be more involved and going with a DIY home style video that plays on each of us being the part of a nuclear family was the ultimate decision. 

We all contributed to the storyboarding and everything and Emily and I did a lot of the directing and then I just edited the video and everything and I think we're all pleasantly surprised by how well it turned out. 

But yeah, so I think that we're all pretty happy with how it's turned out, and I think it's very playful and I think it mirrors the energy of the song quite well without giving too much away.

Jono: After having a music video on our debut single being so polished, I was at points worried that doing it ourselves wouldn’t look as good. Talking about this now, I remember we had this discussion and it was never meant to look like what ‘Pretty Boy’ looked like as it was its own project and has this beauty that is that it's just like a home video. It really suits the song and doesn’t have to be exactly perfect. 

Jam: Doing it ourselves was a real endearing and hands on bonding experience for all of us all. Alex, being the mum and Emily being the dad was partially like haha lol that would be so funny but it was also us saying we’re taking this into our own hands and creating it ourselves. 

And even though the music is quite like sad and serious and really sincere, anyone who speaks to us or has been to our gigs knows that we're just like the most fucking chaotic people running around each other, so it's like, kind of bringing that out a bit and not taking ourselves too seriously either. 

It is such an us thing to have Alex put on a wig and a dress and be able to show that cheeky personality even though it is a sad song. 

I think that that wasn't actually planned on our behalf, Alex, when he did the editing was like I'm just going to put the bloopers in at the end and that actually turned into the best bit. 

Alex: One of the things I kept in mind when editing it was that the song is quite an emotional topic, but it does have an optimistic kind of yeah temperament, especially towards the end and I think that having me in a dress and Emily in a mustache kind of makes it more approachable and doesn't make it so sappy and it takes the edge off the raw emotion that the song has, which I think is really valuable because the music video doesn’t have to perfectly mirror the song. And when editing I added the outtakes towards the end to reflect the moments where we fool around since that’s such a good representation of what a family can be like. It can be messed up sometimes but in the end it’s not so bad. 

You can listen to ‘Family Traditions’ now and be sure to catch the awesome DIY music video when it lands on Thursday!

GRXCE are also about to launch into a tour of NSW and SEQ, so make sure you catch them when they are near you. Check out tour dates and grab a ticket on their socials!