Sleepless Nights is out now!
Image: Supplied.
Perth-based artist Wesley Black has teamed up with Dear Sunday on his new single, Sleepless Nights. To celebrate the release, the musician has shared with MILKY five things he learnt whilst making the track.
“Sleepless Nights is one of those songs that sounds a lot happier than it really is. In reality, I wrote this song at a pretty down time in my life, where all I wanted was to hear back from someone I hadn’t spoken to in ages. When the time finally came, we spoke for the entire night and I had no intentions of sleeping; unfortunately for me, that was essentially the last time we spoke, but I treasured that moment so much I wrote this full song about it; everything I loved and hated about that situation and relationship." the musician shares of the track.
"I was super grateful to have Dear Sunday able to lift the song and bring it together with me, I feel like they brought a new life to this track and helped me put a spin on the sadder lyrics in their indie rock ambience.”
YOU CAN ALWAYS SAVE A SONG
I created Sleepless Nights about a year ago, and loved it at first but slowly grew to realise a lot of flaws in my writing and the overall sonics of the track. As someone who pretty much exclusively works with rappers, I wasn't sure what would fix the song. I didn't hate it but I also didn't love it. I presented the song to Dear Sunday in the studio and they elevated it completely. I immediately loved the track again and that was pretty much solely because of them.
LET MORE PEOPLE BE A PART OF THE PROCESS
This track was mixed by Boy Banks as many of my songs are, but I generally work with 1 or 2 producers at most. For this release I had 4 producers working on this one, as well as a handful of others giving great feedback about the release. I showed Demo 1 and 4 to many people just to hear what I could improve on. Taking that advice was important and trying out every suggestion I could, it all helped the track get to where it is today.
PLAY IT LIVE!
I have never worked with live instruments before, at least not in this way. Again, the hip hop background doesn't really encourage it, and I love that too; but this was a nice change of pace. I was present in the room as live drums, guitar, synths and shakers were used, and it just showed me how different the world of pop is to the music I am used to.
BE COMPLEX
A happy sounding song with lyrics coming from a very depressing place, everything doesn't have to make sense. At the end of the day, 2022 was a really great year for me, especially compared to the place I was in for 2021. I wanted to showcase that. The depressing lyrics got re-recorded with a brighter tone, and the production became a lot poppier and dance heavy. I love that. I wanted to create something happy from a dark place, and that's what this song is to me, a comparison of 2021 and 2022 Wesley Black. Listen to the sonics, not the lyrics for this one, and you'll be much happier.
WORK HARDER
As always, working with other creative minds does nothing short of encouraging me tremendously, but this was another extent. Seeing how Dear Sunday operate pretty much as a two-piece, it showed me how much can be achieved with the right work ethic. Dear Sunday are killing it, I love their music so much, but for me it was the work ethic that really inspired me. I feel like I work pretty hard, but this year I plan to focus all that energy into music.
Sleepless Nights is out now!