Hello, thank you for your time, please introduce yourself in a few words!
Hey, I’m Tommy and I’m from Sydney alt-rock group PLANET. I play guitar and am also one of the songwriters
Please give us an update about – new single, new album, tour dates, new videos?!
So we’ve just announced our debut album! Finally! It’s called ‘Information Overload’ and it’s out 11th March 2022. It’s our first major body of work and we’re so excited to get it out there after over a year of writing/recording. We’ve already dropped a couple singles, ‘Resign’ and ‘Ship Won’t Change’ and I think there’s a couple more to come before the album drops. We also just announced our first UK headline tour in over two years. We’ll be heading over May 2022 with a fresh arsenal of album tunes and a bigger live show.
Name 5 things we all should know about you as a band?!
Matty & I are the main songwriters
We record the majority of our songs at home
We love touring
We are a pretty reserved bunch
We’re all dog people
What fashion style or brand would best describe your music?
Pop Punk
What’s your songwriting process?
The process for me has changed quite a lot over the last few years. I demo almost everything start to finish in my shitty little home studio, usually starting with either a drum loop, guitar riff or more recently, some sort of synth or piano part. Towards the end of our recent Sydney lockdown, I realised I hadn’t even picked up a guitar properly to write a song in months. I was focusing a lot of time on learning to play piano and deep diving into mixing. With songwriting, I find I tend to lean a lot more towards the sonic qualities of the song as a whole, rather than building a song on a lyrical platform. I’m crazy for how an array of slightly different parts can blend together and compliment each other to create something huge and evocative. I’ve also become a bit more comfortable with my singing voice so that’s helped with pumping out melodies on the fly at home and piecing the songs together a bit more.
If you could change anything about the industry, what would it be?
I would bring everything back in time to when the majority of artists didn’t have to rely so heavily on modern day things like social media. For me, social media is something I have tried so many times to get away from but as we all know, it’s pretty well ingrained now. Being in a band that needs to be very aware of what’s happening on all the various platforms and also stay relevant can be a pretty challenging thing and I feel that takes some of the magic out of writing, recording & touring.
Tell us more about your songs! Topics! Message!?
I can’t speak too much on the topics and messages behind our songs because Matty writes the majority of the lyrics. But we’ve spoken at length about some themes in our forthcoming album. There’s definitely a big focus on relationships, mental health and navigating those thoughts and feelings that sometimes cloud your mind. Sometimes our songs can have a sort of happy sound but if you dig deep in the lyrics, there’s something a bit heavier there. And sometimes they can just evoke that heavy feeling sonically. My favourite is when you can listen to the track and immediately have that connection and feeling to the message in the lyrics without needing to dissect them.
A question you’d like to answer, but never been asked in an interview before?! + Answer pls
Why do you write music?
I’ve thought about this a lot and I think the answer changes as I get older. I’ve found I write the most during periods of extreme stress and anxiety so it’s safe to say that’s the way my subconscious deals with those emotions. The strange thing is that songwriting can also contribute to those feelings creating a bit of a loop. The best songs I’ve written are when I’m deep in that loop. I write music in the hope that it’s one day released and people can experience in their own way what I was experiencing when I wrote the track.
Instagram: @planet.band