Image: New Estate – supplied.
Author: Melody Menu
‘Sugary Drinks’ is the ridiculously fun second single from New Estate’s fifth album, simply titled 5. It is a playful homage to the humble party starter of whatever beverage gets you sweaty and ready. Containing the line ‘we’re crashing all the parties just to get them started’ alongside nostalgia-tinged guitar lines, the song captures a brightness that harks back to a time in your life when you felt indestructible (or just really hyped up on sugar).
Made up of songwriters Mia Schoen and Marc Regueiro-McKelvie with Chris Gorman on drums and Toby Dutton on bass, New Estate have been around for two decades. Mia is a creative force, making much of the band’s artwork including album covers and tour posters alongside guitar, keyboard, vocal and songwriting duties. In creating the video for ‘Sugary Drinks,’ Mia worked with artist Emma Homfray to make the band’s hyperactive video set at your mate’s kitchen table underneath a Cannanes poster. Here, Mia shares the band’s vision for the video, their creative process as a band with two primary songwriters, and hanging out as a musical family.
How would you describe New Estate’s sound?
Big, beautiful, like flying.
How does it feel to be in a band for 20 years?
It feels like family where you can be yourself with people that you love and trust and who’ve known you since you were a baby.
What is your proudest or favourite moment on 5?
Getting the album into the world at all is my proudest moment for 5 – it was a long journey in the making. Like everyone who is involved in creative endeavours that are activated by being with other people, the lock-downs sapped momentum and it seemed like an impossible dream for quite some time.
What is your creative process like with two primary songwriters?
For New Estate, Marc and I bring fully formed songs that we’ve written individually to the band then Toby and Chris add their magic and it becomes a new New Estate song. Marc and I both write all the time whereas Toby and Chris are way less activated in this direction, both are amazing songwriters and we’re trying to encourage them to do more.
Tell us a bit about the video for ‘Sugary Drinks’. What was it like to create?
The plan was to have an increasing hyperactivity feel to the film as the sugary drinks are consumed. Much footage was collected of the band hanging out and of Marc playing a game of Connect. The drawn elements to the video are by an amazing artist Emma Homfray, she animates her drawings based on stills from the footage in a drawing program called Sketchclub and I edit it all together in Imovie.
I really like your album and poster artwork. What does the relationship between music and art mean to you?
Music is energy and interaction with the unpredictability of what others bring to the shared ‘force’. In my practice, art is solitary where I’m fully responsible for every decision. Both these things I feel I need in my life for balance.
What is your favourite sugary drink? How about your least favourite?
Plain and simple beer is the only sugary drink for me. I had recently run out of this type and resorted to drinking a can I found in the fridge left by my friend Shane. I can’t remember the name other than it said beer and something like ‘sour grape jelly’. It had jelly lumps in there and was hands down my least favourite beer of all time.
New Estate ‘5’ will be released on Thursday July 13 2023 through Kasumuen Records, pre-order through Bandcamp here.
Melody Menu 