TRACK-BY-TRACK: SOUTH SUMMIT TAKE US THROUGH 'RUN IT BACK'

Run It Back is out now!

Image: Brendan Cecich.

WA-based band, South Summit have dropped their sophomore album, Run It Back. To celebrate the release, the band are taking us through the collection of songs track-by-track...

Next month, South Summit will kick off their Australian tour at Sydney's Metro Theatre. The run of shows will continue on to Brisbane's The Triffid, Adelaide's Lion Arts Factory and Melbourne's 170 Russell, before wrapping up at Metropolis in Fremantle. The five-piece will then take their live show to New Zealand, Europe and the United Kingdom. Tickets are on sale now.

HEARTLESS

Zaya: We went down south and recorded this one at our mate’s massive property. This was our first session where we officially started the album; going down there, having a week to ourselves. It’s a real heartbreak story about a past relationship. Reflecting on that. It’s about heartbreak, but it’s uplifting at the same time. It does the opposite of the feeling we’re explaining, so people can feel a bit better about themselves at the same time.

Nath: It was in Yallingup, in Western Australia. We started this tune on the last day of that writing trip. We had three hours left and we just had an idea. It was pretty much started and finished within those three hours. We obviously worked on it in the studio afterwards to record it, but it had a real, instant impact. It’s quite a heartfelt song. 

WE ARE

Nath: This one is just about coming together, really. Getting all your friends, all your close ones, and uplifting everyone around you. The song is about just having your core friends around you and having fun with those people.

Zaya: It’s got that West Coast vibe to it as well, which was something we explored throughout the album making process. After we heard the demo Josh had made on GarageBand at home, we were like, “We need to hone into this”. We were listening to a lot of Dr. Dre, Snoop, a lot of those artists…Josh really likes that rap scene. We decided to give it a shot.

WAITING ALL NIGHT

Zaya: It’s another love song that had us dancing and grooving the whole time. We wanted to keep this song; it’s one people can relate to - it’s just about coming home to your missus. 

Nath: It’s a whole different style, again. Having the first three songs being so different in style but still have that South Summit feel. I don’t think there are two songs on the album that flow perfectly genre-wise, but that’s what we wanted. 

ANDO BOI

Zaya: This is one of my favourites. Anderson. Paak was an influence on this one, I like his stuff a lot. I felt this song needed that type of flavour, but we did it in our own way and that’s what makes it cool.

Nath: It was a track Trindall had been working on, it’s probably one that we had been working on for the longest period. I remember we did this in our first studio session, and we’d put it to one side. We didn’t touch it for a while. We weren’t too sure about it. After a few studio sessions, we finally revisited it and it just came together. 

HOW WE LIVE

Nath: I think this one was the first track we worked on during that writing trip down south. It was one that we spent three days of that trip on. We spent so much time trying to perfect the style and sound of it. We used to have a property in the hills where we’d just practice and practice and play until whatever o’clock in the morning. We were reminded of how sick that experience was, with how we recorded this one. It was really productive.

Zaya: My favourite part of working on this song was just that everyone was around…we had a BBQ, beers, our mates were there. It was very off the cuff, everyone had ideas. I liked that vibe of how we recorded this song. 

ON THE DASH

Zaya: It’s a groovy one. We really wanted to hone in on the bounce, rock and groove…that early ’00s type of vibe. Very Pharrell Williams inspired. Usually, we would copy and paste the drum samples in but this time around, we wanted to see if we could play it out ourselves. 

Fynn: The writing of this one was almost an afterthought. We’d spent time writing two or three songs that day. Everyone was heading home and then in two minutes it was like, “Wait a minute, what about this? Let’s record something quickly.” 

Nath: One of the biggest things we’ve come across is that usually, the first idea is almost always a good one. It’s rarely ever wrong. I think we learned that in making this record, whatever your first instinct is, that is going to sound really good. We spent a lot of time trying different things, but we’d always come back to the OG idea. I’m sure that with a lot of these tracks, what is recorded is generally the first idea. 

NEW WORLD

Fynn: This is probably one of our personal favourites from the whole album. It’s got that 6/8 feel to it, which is really cool. It’s a really sick sound. It’s one that I think encapsulates the South Summit “sound” the most. If I had to choose one song from the album that had the “average” sound, it’s this one. It has a bit of everything on it. 

Trindall: It was a completely different song at the start; we dug it up from the grave. It’s probably the oldest demo on this album. Maybe from 2022. The drumbeat was really cool; the OG was much more stripped back than what we have on the album, so I switched it up. I think it represents the new album pretty well.

CALL OF THE EMPIRE

Zaya: That’s one of the more gangster tunes. We wanted to be as gangster as we could with the sound on this one, especially with the horns. I wrote this one quite quickly, I was inspired by the story of Bonnie and Clyde. A couple going around causing havoc, but it’s all out of love. The things you’d do for love. I was putting myself in the shoes of Clyde. I was thinking of the soundtrack to Sinners. The post-chorus parts, we got a lot of influence from that soundtrack…that eerie type of almost Wild West sound. We tried to do a little bit of that.

Nath: This is another song that is completely different from anything else we’ve ever done. It makes me excited to hear music like this. I think we really frothed the process of writing; it is my favourite thing to do together as a band. I think when we are in the studio, we thrive. 

CHAMBERS

Zaya: I’d say it’s our first R&B type of song, but it’s a sick vibe. It’s something new for us. I think it takes a sense of maturity to realise that it’s time to maybe pick up an idea that we’d had a long time ago, that maybe wasn’t ready back then. A lot of the old tunes that had been demos, if we had done them four or five years ago, they’d be completely different songs. I’m glad we waited and had patience.

Nath: The demo has been floating around for years. We brought it to life on this record and we’re really happy with how it turned out. 

TOP OF THE HILL

Nath: It’s weird to have the first single from the record come in at Track 10! It inspired us because we were like, “Let’s just do something people wouldn’t expect.” It was received really well. We put it this far down in the record because we wanted people to listen and really get into the rest of it first. This was recorded in a writing session with the lads and Marlon from Six60. It was an awesome experience. It’s a chill, summery tune.

Zaya: We wrote this one in the backyard after the launch party for the last album, The Bliss. We had an album launch party…we’d just dropped the album the night before, and then we went straight into writing and came up with ‘Top Of The Hill’. 

ONLY TO LOVE

Nath: It’s got a real soft place in our hearts. It’s got that classic reggae thing going. The staple “South Summit reggae tune”. I feel like we had to have it on the record. We absolutely love playing that style and it’s probably the one that comes the most naturally to us when we have a jam as a five-piece, together. We had to have it there: wicked guitar solos, shredding. It’s a classic jam.

Zaya: It’s a real spin out too. After we’d finished the whole album, we realised that we only really had one classic reggae song on the album. It wasn’t planned that way at all. We were just going off the vibe. Towards the end we were wondering what else we needed, and so we just kept on going off of vibe and feeling. 

MORE LIFE

Zaya: It’s one of the biggest tunes we’ve done, with regards to the overall feeling of things. It has that real end-of-movie feeling to it. The hero has come back and won the battle — ‘More Life’ is just that, winning and overcoming battles. 

Fynn: It is interesting that it is the album closer, because when we finished it we all loved it so much. It was originally either song two or three in the listing. Only quite recently did we put it at the end; it felt right.

Nath: It was a good way to tie the end of the record up. We tried to put it elsewhere because we loved the song, and we were wondering if it would get the love we wanted if it was put at track twelve. Still, the last track is as important as the first track, and we really wanted a strong song to finish the record. It’s got a story arc where it starts in one area and ends in a completely different soundscape. It’s one of the first songs that we ever wrote as a band. It’s always been on the cards, but we just went for it on this album. 

Run It Back is out now!