BRIDGE THE BORDER // They Confront Because They Care

For all the pop-punk vibing and tail-feather shaking Bridge The Border do in EP Congratulations Everybody’s Gone, it’s merely a veil for some particularly heavy subject matter.

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New single Congratulations is a prime example of the deeper levels to be experienced by the Melbourne alt-rock outfit. Disclaimer: the video for Congratulations depicts some very heavy imagery of drug use, overdose and struggles with inner demons. This track harbours a dark edge on their otherwise truly rocking sound, and it wasn’t a subject Bridge The Border easily approached. “I think when we were composing it we had this idea of the song being an intervention, a call-out,” says drummer Darcy Handley.

“’I acknowledged there’s this complex theme, it’s not just straight up cut and dry – I don’t like to shame anyone but I thought it was less about that kind of problem and more about the kind of people who go out and get wrecked every weekend and then complaining they have a lot of problems in their life, [people] who find themselves unable to stay on a productive path.

“But they’re not acknowledging that maybe if they didn’t blow themselves out every weekend they’d have a more positive situation, their brain would work a lot better. That’s what the song is about.

“The video clip takes it further,” Handley continues. “We told the guys from Abele Video Productions what the song was about and they conceptualised a lot of the narrative. We didn’t expect it to look how it did and when the shots came out, we were like, ‘Wow, this is very confronting – we were happy with it! But we were sitting there, especially when she injects with the needle, we were like, that’s very upfront!”

Us as people, we’re pretty laid back, we don’t really take life serious – but when it comes to the music, we take it really serious. That’s where we balance out.
[HARLEY]

That’s exactly the word for Congratulations–confronting. It makes you feel uncomfortable. Bridge The Border aren’t about sweeping the issue under the rug, they’re bringing it to light—it’s a discussion many would otherwise be uncomfortable to have without the awareness such as music allows. “I think sometimes you need a confronting message to get your message across,” lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Harley Nobelius chimes in. “Sometimes if it’s shrugged off and people don’t look into it, but when it’s brought to your attention like this, you’ve got to look at it.”

Bridge The Border’s music and meaning isn’t out to discuss any one issue as it is anything and everything – their EP is definitely the kind of soundtrack that can be ascribed to anything in life where someone might be taking a, shall we say, frowned upon route to feel better, to ignore negative issues. Bridge The Border have only written this music based on observation, however, and not personal experience. “We’ve had friends who’ve done it [drugs] and they whined about why their life was going nowhere,” Nobelius trails off, seemingly a little uncomfortable. Handley provides the words where his band mate can’t, saying, “Outside of talking about drugs, accountability in life and all the kind of thing, I can relate to that. Which is why it was good for us to write that one song, it was almost a reminder to be accountable myself.

“I guess we wrote it with a literal mindset about drugs but now we’ve listened to it, now we’ve evaluated it, it can be about more than that, too.”

In this five-track collection Bridge The Border have created melodies that are cathartic and therapeutic, despite the gravity of their content. “They’re all different,” says Handley, “No one song is the same. Harley did a lot of heavy lifting on the writing so a lot of it is him speaking.” Though Nobelius is responsible for lead vocals, each member of Bridge The Border undertakes the duty throughout their EP, shaking up the texture big time and providing a pretty solid delivery – you might say that when it comes to what the band are talking about, they speak with one voice, one mind. “We’re all one the same page,” says Nobelius, “Where we want to take it, where we want to go – Congratulations is a harsh song but the others are different.

“Us as people, we’re pretty laid back, we don’t really take life serious – but when it comes to the music, we take it really serious. That’s where we balance out.”