Lead vocalists Lara Wentworth and Loic Mamet and rhythm section Lucas Wentworth and James Duplessis complete the Sea Birds’ lineup. “Am I Wasting My Time,” the first single, was written by Mike and released on October 9. It is one of five tracks on their debut EP …a Short Romance.
Talking about the single, the bandleader, who returned to playing music last year after more than 10 years away from the scene, remarks, “It’s a song about no one and everyone and it relates to the whole fragility and uncertainty that surrounds us in building relationships.
It wasn’t about anyone in particular – it was just a general idea – and I think the directness of those words ‘am I wasting my time’ was something people could understand through experience.”
The band’s website describes their music as having “shades of early ’90s UK guitar pop, alt. country rock and the rich vocal harmony work of many of the seminal ’60s groups” and the song does remind me a bit of a Liverpudlian group very popular 20 years ago called The Lightning Seeds.
I brought this up with Mike. “To be honest, I’m not really versed on that band,” he admits. “I’ll have to take a bit more notice of them.”
“We certainly enjoy our UK influences, as well as many others,” continues the songwriter/guitarist. “I love a lot of the folk stuff from Australia, too, like Paul Kelly, or American artists like Wilco… That music is close to my heart and my musical sensibilities.”
The EP is five tracks of assured, confident songwriting and I asked the non-singing musician whether any of them may feature on an upcoming full-length album. “To be decided,” he replies.
“We have an album’s worth of material, but with the EP we kept the songs simple, stripped back, and now we’ve gone electric – like Dylan post ’65 – and a little bit more rock ‘n’ roll. We’ve added a bit more energy…
“So we may re-record a few of the songs and put them on the album, but we’ll probably want to keep moving on – the band’s got a backlog now of maybe 20 or 30 songs. We’ll maybe re-hash one or two and then the rest will be new material.”
…a Short Romance is out now and can be purchased here.
For more on the Sea Birds, visit their official website.
