pinstripe hysteria
Oct
17
1.48pm

PINSTRIPE // Rockin Out Of Western Australia


Take a little bit of grunge, mix it with 2000s rock, synths and punk and you get You and I – the second single from Perth’s Pinstripe.

MORE: HARD ONS: Now With Added Tim Rogers // MINISTRY: Snapshot Of Dystopia REVIEWS: ICE NINE KILLS: The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood // TRIVIUM: In The Court Of The Dragon // ASKING ALEXANDRIA: See What’s On The Inside // WAGE WAR: Manic // TWELVE FOOT NINJA: Vengeance // THE BUOYS: Unsolicited Advice For Your DIY Disaster

It dropped earlier this month, and has since enjoyed rave reviews (read our review here) and airplay all over the globe. We caught up with frontman Scott Mackenzie to dig into how it came together, its music video and more.


halloween hysteria


Hysteria: How’d the band come together?

Scott: The band started in the small town of McKinlay back in 2021 with a different lineup. A couple of members moved to Albany, we got a few more members in, and then we kicked things off as a cover band.

How’d you find the transition from covering other tracks to writing your own?

It was basically because of COVID. We couldn’t play anywhere (laughs). Once things opened up, we started jamming and writing our own stuff and found a producer/engineer overseas. We got excited by what we were producing and started whipping it out. The transition was relatively easy, just because we couldn’t gig.

Let’s dig into what inspired the new single, You and I.

I had a birthday party, and went out to this American style cabin with a few mates and the band. We took all our music gear out there, and we basically wrote the song out there. We had that relaxed attitude towards the song, and then lyrically, it reflected on a couple of relationships I’ve had with family members and past girlfriends. Timelines can be quite different, but sometimes they hit the same mark. You can see that in our verses, they’re a bit dark and distant and as those timelines start to meet again, the song becomes a lot more emotionally driven. The chorus shares that connection but also that understanding that those timelines can move apart again. If you can imagine two waves intertwining with each other, that’s the inspiration behind the song.

It was raining as well, and we had electrical cords going through the water. We were worried about getting electrocuted, but the whole experience was amazing (laughs).
[Scott Mackenzie]

The music video must’ve been such a standout experience. How’d you find that?

Yes (laughs). It was our first music video. We hired the Kennedy boys to come down and film, but we did a lot of the setting up, scenes, lighting and stuff like that. We had pre-programmed it, as we do in our cover shows, so we understood that. So we filmed with the water tank, and lit things on fire and had the volunteer fire service there as well.

It was raining as well, and we had electrical cords going through the water. We were worried about getting electrocuted, but the whole experience was amazing (laughs). It was also four degrees. Albany gets quite cold! We couldn’t control the elements like the wind. We probably picked the worst day to do it (laughs).

Going back to that earlier point on sending You and I off to be mixed and mastered in London by James Auwarter. What do you feel they brought to the track?

If you heard the demo (laughs). We worked with Philipp Krätzer in Germany on our first single. He’s a musical genius and does his own mixing and mastering. He couldn’t quite get what we wanted though. We had James on that single as well, so he worked on this one. Hearing the level it was at, and then the level James took it to was insane. He just layers things so well in production. The guy’s won a GRAMMY and been nominated for 32 others or something. I guess because of COVID, everyone was a bit more accessible to the unknowns like us. We did a lot of research, and now we’re quite close to him.

He’s pretty fast too. We’d be on calls, he from his London studio and us in Albany, and we’d listen to the track and go through bits and tweak – it was great. It shows you how much things have changed with technology and how quickly you can access people from all around the world.

You’ve released this single so soon after your debut, Everglow. But can we expect to see even more tracks soon?

These two will sit separately. These being our first releases, it was hard for us to know what we were doing. We’ve had to learn the promotion thing, the PR side, the streaming, the algorithms and all that stuff. Last night, You and I played in England, Italy, Germany, The US and more – getting us in the ears of people overseas takes time.

Now that we’ve learnt all that, we’ve started writing an album. We’re about seven or eight songs in. They’ll all go to production sometime around December-January. We hope to have our debut album out next year. It’ll be heavier than these first two songs. These ones have been more mainstream rock.

Who are some band’s you’d like to share the stage with – be as unrealistic as you want!

I’m a big Starset fan and would love to both watch and play with them. I’d also say newish bands like Afterlife and The Caskets. Architects also put out a brilliant album this year. They’d be my picks. 

Purchase and stream here.





Latest News

MORE MUST READS >