Australian musician Conrad Sewell on love, fatherhood and making his return to music
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Shervin Lainez
WORDS BY IZZY WIGHT
“For me, this album was the first album I ever really made.”
After the 2018 release of his debut album, Life, Australian musician Conrad Sewell took some time away from the spotlight. You might’ve heard him on the multi-platinum Kygo song ‘Firestone’ or his Aria award-winning single ‘Start Again’ – but four years on, Conrad’s sound has evolved.
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Musing on fatherhood, finding love and life after a “pretty crazy” foray into an even crazier industry, Conrad’s latest single, ‘Make Me A Believer’, is self-assured. It’s soulful, emotive and authentic – the perfect precursor to his highly-anticipated second album, Precious. Below, Conrad speaks on the journey so far.
Congratulations on your latest single ‘Make Me a Believer’! It’s a great rock anthem. Can you tell me about your process in writing it?
In the last three years, I’ve sort of settled down and I found my person. I actually knew my wife [before], we grew up together. I came into her life later on, after I’d sort of been going wild in my twenties. I think she had heard the worst [about] me. And with what I do – travelling and playing music – she was like, ‘I don’t know if I trust that this guy wants to settle down and make this a real thing’.
So it took a bit of convincing… I guess that’s what this song is about, you know, the first lyric is ‘Cold as ice’. She was very much not having a bar of me when I first tried to persuade her into dating me. This song is about making someone believe you’re telling them the truth when you say you love them.
The music video for it was a great behind-the-scenes look at your life on tour. How did it feel when you finally got to perform the music you’d been working on?
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It’s always a double-edged sword but we love it. I love it. When you’ve been playing some of the songs I’ve been playing for so long – like ‘Firestone’ and ‘Start Again’ – you do get sick of playing your old stuff. But for the audience, you’ve got to remember they’re [wanting] to hear a lot of those songs. So it’s kind of a fine line.
But in saying that, we’ve gotten an amazing reaction to the new songs. ‘Make Me a Believer’ wasn’t even out but we played it on an arena tour. And everybody could sing back the chorus by the end of the song, which is always a good sign. So yeah, I’m loving playing the music live.
Your first single off Precious, ‘God Save the Queen’ came out this year with unfortunate timing. Can you tell me about that and why it felt right as the first release of the album?
[The Queen] passed literally three hours after the song came out. Obviously, you could never predict anything to happen with the Queen. I mean, I wrote that song almost two years ago. The Queen was old, but there were no signs of anything happening with that – it wasn’t even a thought. [In terms of] the song in general, that lyric ‘God save the Queen’ was an ode to the way things used to be. It was more of an ode to the rock stars that had been before me and the way that they lived their lives. There’s this cockiness and cheekiness to it.
I felt like that song really summed up the album sonically, it had horns and rock and roll, sort of ‘blue-eyed soul’ energy around it. That’s why we all decided it was a great one to start with, to introduce the old fans to the new era of Conrad… unfortunately, the time wasn’t in our favour.
Your upcoming album Precious is due to come out next year, what are the inspirations and overarching themes for the new album?
When COVID happened, I had a deep look into myself. I was asking myself a lot of questions. I was supposed to be working on my album and I was just very unhappy. I went away for a bit and I found a couple of musicians who I really connected with, [like] Adam MacDougall, who used to play with the Black Crowes. And then I called my friend Zane Carney… my manager had always had this goal to create a blue-eyed soul-rock album.
I wrote all the songs. I used to co-write a lot and I feel like this album, most of the songwriting was done by me. I had help from certain people I really trust and that I love lyrically… but it was just funnelling through me. The songs are about my journey… I’ve been in the industry since I was 16 or 17. I signed my first record deal at 17, and I’m 33 now.
So it’s about the ups and downs, struggling with your ego, not feeling good enough and wanting validation from the industry and from other people. And how that can make you feel inside. There are just songs [that are] very storyteller-like, like ‘Caroline’ and ‘Rolling Thunder’… and then we’ve got a couple of big stadium [hits] on there as well. So I feel like we’ve got a little bit of everything… the goal was to make it a timeless, classic album.
Congratulations on becoming a father, how has it been managing your career and fatherhood?
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It’s pretty hard. I’m very fortunate and my partner’s amazing… she understands I have to travel still and we’re making it work. We’ve travelled the world already. It’s hard work, but we’ve managed to do it. And I mean, I’m not the first rock star to have a baby. So I’m sure there are ways to do it. And it may get hard from time to time, but I feel like I’m very much ready to become a dad. I’ve had a pretty crazy life, to be honest. I’ve ticked a lot of things off my bucket list, and that was one of them. So you just throw yourself in and that’s what we did. And it’s amazing.
Do you have any parting wisdom for aspiring musicians trying to make it in the industry?
At the end of the day, the most important thing is the art that you’re making. Make sure it’s the best it can possibly be. Put time and effort into getting good at what you think makes you different to any other artists – whether that’s your voice, your songwriting or your production.
Work really hard at it and just make sure that you love it, as cheesy as that sounds. For me, this album was the first album I ever really made. The first real body of work. I made all the decisions… I chose to have horns all over it, I chose to record it live and use certain musicians. I think that’s why it’s come out sounding like something only I could do… I’ve made all the decisions instead of being pushed and pulled by other people.
Just focus on pleasing yourself musically, and try to write great songs. I think that’s the best place to start. It’s up to the stars to align and hopefully, you get that shot. It’s a very hard industry.
To listen to Conrad Sewell’s new single, head here.
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