Sitting round a laptop in their recording studio, the four members of Drax Project are relaxed as they recall how Covid changed everything for them.
“We didn’t know how much of a hand break it was at the time,” the band’s singer, Shaan Singh, says before drummer Matt Beachen jumpsin, “We planned to go back to LA, we had a house.”
The Wellington-based band were going from strength to strength when Covid took over the world. They were riding the high of their 2019 stint in Los Angeles where they collaborated with Hollywood powerhouse Hailee Steinfeld, released their self-titled debut album and were due to go back overseas for a major tour that would see them perform in Australia, Europe and America.
However, the week they were due to fly out and chase their international dreams, New Zealand was snapped into lockdown, borders were shut and they found themselves with virtually nowhere to live.
Guitarist Ben O’Leary, speaking to the Herald over Zoom, laughs when he says, “I was meant to be staying with a mate for a month, that turned into six months.”
Drax Project members Ben O'Leary, Shaan Singh, Matt Beachen and Sam Thomson. Photo / Supplied
Bassist Sam Thompson then jumps in revealing they initially thought it was a nice break, “this is going to be a few months, we’ll just wait to get back into it. And then we ended up having a break for like four to six months and then we were like, oh wow, maybe this is gonna be a more extensive thing than we initially thought.”
Despite their short break Drax Project are a well-oiled machine. With their easy to listen to music and social media presence, it’s no surprise they are one of Aotearoa’s biggest bands right now but it’s their genuine friendship – and Covid – that helped them become the band they are today.
Set to release their brand new EP, Blind Beat EP on Friday, Beachen reveals without easy access to international producers and uncertainty of what the world would go through next, the band were forced to develop their own producing skills.
“We kind of just had to make do,” he says, “This whole blind EP is fully self-produced. We’ve got help on one song, but, yeah, that was one positive to come out of lockdown was that we got better at making a whole song, just the four of us without external help.”
The Blind Beat EP came about when O’Leary suggested they each go into a room for 10 minutes and create some music. The only thing they knew was the key and the tempo.
“We were looking for some creative juice just to make some music,” Beachen admits. When they all came back together to showcase what they had created, Beachen – the “social media” guy of the group - decided to film their reactions and upload the video to TikTok.
Drax Project are releasing their new EP on Friday. Photo / Supplied
It soon went viral and gained over 30 million views and the band believes it’s because it added a bit of personality to their music and songwriting capabilities.
“It’s hard sometimes to bring people into the process of music because it is kind of foreign if you’ve never done it and I feel like this, and the way Matt edited it and whatever we filmed, gives a super palatable window for people who don’t make music.” Singh explains.
What started as a bit of fun ended up being a huge hit with their fans and their managers who suggested they press pause on their upcoming album and put all their time into creating this EP.
“It was like, okay, sh**, we got like three weeks to finish them, it was literally crazy,” Singh exclaims, “We were in the studios for so many hours during the day for the last like a month to finish them because they were literally 30-second songs.”
The EP was initially meant to include five songs but during a recent trip to Sydney they wrote a bonus track called Judge Judy - inspired by Judge Judy. It’s a song the band insist you “can’t not laugh and you can’t not dance” to and they’re looking forward to seeing how TikTok takes to it.
They are also looking at ways they could collaborate with the popular US reality court show judge Judy Sheindlin. “We’re definitely going to make some posts to try and get her to respond,” Singh says.
Now with the EP finished and Covid more or less restrictive, the band are free to pick up where they left off and return to LA but they admit while they will definitely return at some point, it won’t be for long.
“We just love fish and chips so much that we can’t,” O’Leary laughs adding that Watties Tomato Sauce is also a slice of Aotearoa they don’t want to go anywhere without.
Drax Project’s Blind Beat EP is available this Friday wherever you get your music from
