We chat to Sydney group Glades about their debut album

New love.

Sydney three-piece Glades has climbed swiftly to success in the three years since the band was formed. Now, high school friends turned bandmates Karina Wykes, Cameron Robertson and Joseph Wenceslao are celebrating the release of their debut album.

To Love You features 11 honest and emotional electronic-pop tracks and chronicles the nervous, flirty, frustrating journey of a developing relationship.   

With a national tour on the horizon, Karina and Cam took some time to chat with us about the new release.

How are you guys feeling about the launch of the album?

Cam: Very excited, but very nervous at the same time. It only kind of hit us the other week like, this is our debut album, we only get one chance to do it.

Karina: It’s kind of crazy, but overall we’re just really, really excited and ready for people to hear what we’ve been working on.

Any songs you’re most excited for people to hear?

K: This song called ‘Sweetheart’. It’s a little bit different to what we’ve been doing, but it’s got a lot of attitude and I love singing it. So I’m really excited for people to hear that.

The album tracks a relationship through all its different phases. Was that based on personal experiences?

K: Yeah. I don’t think any of us were expecting it to be like that, but it just turned out to be an album full of songs that really put our hearts out there. I guess that’s why we’re a little bit nervous about it coming out, because it’s really emotional for us. There are some tracks on there that, when I listened to them for the first time completely finished, I got emotional and teary.

The album introduces some slower songs than what we’re used to from you guys. Was it a different experience writing those tracks?

C: It was. Everything that we’ve put out so far has had more of an upbeat, exciting kind of tempo. But the writing process around some of the ballads like ‘Better Love’ and ‘Through to You’ was quite different. We intentionally were like ‘okay, let’s write a slower, more emotional song’. We thought it was a nice way to finish off the album.

You guys do most of your writing as a group, right?

C: Yeah, and it’s been that way pretty much since the start. But around 2016, right after we released our EP, we started going through a bit of writer’s block. We didn’t really know what we wanted to do, and all the songs we were writing were becoming a bit mundane for us. We thought we should try and do a writing trip or something in LA, but we were a bit hesitant because we didn’t know how to let other people in on our project. But we ended up doing it, and it was honestly the best thing that we’ve ever done. I think it shaped the album into what it is now, and it opened us up to a whole new world of collaboration.

Is there an artist you’d love to collaborate with in the future?

K: I have forever been obsessed with The 1975. I don’t know how that would happen, but I would cry if it did.

C: We’re big fans of Troye Sivan as well. Right when we started, we actually did a cover of his song ‘Fools’ and he retweeted it. It was one of the biggest fangirl moments for us.

What are the best and worst things that have happened while you’ve been putting together this album?

K: Oh, I can tell you the worst thing. We were doing a writing trip in LA. We went out for dinner, and we got back to our car and our rental car had been broken into. The back window was smashed in, and we’d had laptops in the back seat with songs that we’d written on them, which had been stolen. So, that was terrible. We got really down but we actually ended up writing better songs than we’d had before that happened. ‘Neon Buzz’ was written that second week after the laptops had been stolen, and made it on the album.

C: But the best thing, overall – I think for all of us – we definitely had a dream to travel the world and visit new places. The whole album process has allowed us to do that, with tours and our writing trips. We’ve also made heaps of new friends.

To Love You is out now via Warner. Check it out here.