SESAME GIRL ON ‘SUPERSTAR’
by Maddy Strydom AKA @DigiCamVids/@StrydomPhotos
I sit with Sesame Girl at the local watering hole (more specifically the Dicey Riley’s Beer Garden). It’s a Monday, and I was with two members of the band—Heather Duncan and Josh Fogarty—as well as the band’s visual editor and good friend, Liam Jordan. We were planning to fit in a game or two of darts before, during or after our chat.
The Gong-based four-piece is gearing up for a new single release Superstar—which, if you’re reading this on April 9th—is out today.
The song is an ode to friendship, championing each other, supporting friends through hard times, and truly wanting the best for your friends, even if you’re reaching for the same achievements. Attached to the song is the most beautiful and heartwarming video, directed by Heather and Josh, filmed by Josh, Liam and the amazing Meanjin-based photographer and videographer Maddy Strydom, who goes by @DigiCamVids. Watching the video made me emotional because it’s full of some of my closest friends—and I get the feeling that it’ll translate to all viewers, not just me.
Sitting in our prized corner of the beer garden, we chat about the meaning behind ‘Superstar’, writing and recording with Armlock’s Simon Lam, and how Josh and Liam wound up using 20-kilo cameras and painting an abandoned house pink.
WANDERER: So your song Superstar is ready to come out. Was it in the works for a while?
HEATHER: Yeah! I think we have been writing the whole thing for like two years. We wrote it in Melbourne, so we were going down there, doing little bits on the weekends, coming back up, going down there every now and again, and then, eventually, it was done! It's kind of crazy that it's taken this long, but we're also really slow. The next one will be faster.
Well, life gets in the way.
JOSH: There's nothing worse than rushing it.
H: But there's also nothing worse than taking two years…
How do you feel now that it's ready?
H: Excited, nervous. Tingles, hahaha. ‘Superstar’ is definitely my favourite song that I ever wrote—I think it's great. But then also because it's so special to me, I'm nervous because I want it to do well, and I don't want anyone to tell me that it sucks when it comes out.
'Cause you like it so much. Josh do you feel the same way or similar?
J: I think it's one of my favourite choruses that we have as a band. It was really interesting [writing it]—the chorus was kind of the last thing we wrote in that song. And Heather just had this idea, and she put it in, and Simon [Lam] and I looked at each other like, I think that's the chorus. Once you've got the chorus, your right foot has taken a step, and then your left foot goes next.
H: We spent the whole day just playing the chords over and over again, and right before we were gonna leave the studio, I just sang the chorus into the microphone, then we were like, Oh, shit. And then I wrote the verse based on that. The next day we wrote the other verse and it was done, but we spent like eight hours doing nothing!
J: Well, it's kind of this huge problem solving thing. You know, you're in there trying to write the song, and you're trying to think of how it should get to the next part, and what can add tastefully to get it there.
H: And when you're indecisive, it's very hard because it's like, is this really the best it could ever be? But as soon as I sang this chorus, it was like, yes, this is the best it can ever be.
J: It's like starting a part of a puzzle and you've got all of these blue pieces and there's just a sky that you need to put together. And all of these blue pieces could fit anywhere.
And then you find part of a duck, you know where the duck goes.
J: When something finally clicks, you set it in motion, and a lot of the time, it's just waiting for that magical thing to happen where the song means something now, and it's [become] something that we're proud of. It’s hard to do it like that, but rewarding. That's probably why I play music—for those moments of stuff coming together. There's really not much else that compares.
Describe ‘Superstar’ in 30 seconds…
J: It's about being proud of your friends—the friends that do stuff, and remembering not to be like, I’m really bummed out that they're doing that and not me, but it's realising that you love them so much that you should be happy for them. It's weird that it doesn't always come as a default response.
H: It's about how you love your friends so much and you just want the best for them. It feels also infused with nostalgia in a way, like a movie ending song, like a 2000’s movie about friendship.
J: It’s also based on the environment we were in while we were making the song, because when we go record with Simon, we stay with our friends Garage Sale. And we’re really, really close with them, really tight. And it's honestly that staying with them in that environment and they were getting ready to go to America and it's all really exciting. And it was just like, oh, my God. I really hope that it goes so well for you guys.
Yeah. And you want your friends to succeed!
J: You do, because if one of you goes up in a scene that's as small as Australia, you know, we’re like, 2% of the English speaking population. Realistically, if someone does something good, it helps all of us. Instead of being so focussed on the micro of what's happening, it's a reminder to zoom out a bit—because you can fixate on something. It's just a really small cog in a huge clock.
This is your second single with Simon Lam. We love him so much, let's talk about why he's the best.
H: Yeah. Well, firstly, Simon's in Armlock, which is my favourite band. In Australia—maybe not the world, but it's pretty close. And then he's also just made some of the best records ever with the cleanest, tightest lil’ production in the whole world. And he obviously has the voice of an angel and the mind of a genius. And the fingers of a maestro. And the personality of an angel.
It’s a lot for one guy.
J: I feel like he believes in us a lot. When I started listening to Armlock, I was like, if I ever just get to meet Simon, I'd be stoked. And then to go from that to this experience where he’s been so welcoming and supportive and just like really sticking it out with us, putting heaps of time into it.
H: Exactly, he’s been a friend.
J: He's invested a lot of himself into it and as someone who really admires him it's just a really flattering compliment...
H: The fact that he's become a friend, and the same thing with Hamish [Mitchell] and Juice [Webster], everyone in the circle has just been sweet to us and made us feel like we belong there, which is nice.
Maddy Strydom AKA @DigiCamVids/@StrydomPhotos
You do! Well, you've put out ‘Back to Texas’, and now ‘Superstar’, they've got a bit of a different sound to your previous stuff. Do these tracks point towards a new overall sound we can expect from you guys coming up, or do we have to just wait and find out?
H: Gah!! I think, you know, obviously it's very different from other records that we made with Fletcher [Matthews], a long time ago. For those records, we kind of dialled in on making pop and rock music, because I was kind of like, oh, well, this is what I'm allowed to do, because you tend to get influenced by the sort of monoculture of music a little bit. And even though I was listening to a lot of pop and rock, I was listening to a lot of everything. I just didn't allow myself to believe that we could do something a bit different. I mean, not saying that [our new music] doesn't still have pop sensibilities—but I think now, I'm just letting the songs be what they are without worrying about what people would like to listen to, you know? It's more so about us being genuine to ourselves and what we really want to make.
J: And doing less can almost feel more creative... It's more mature to do less. And it's kind of hard to figure out how to do less.. You can always put another jacket on or, you know…
H: “Before you leave the house and take off three things” - Audrey Hepburn. But what if I'm only wearing a dress and panties!!!
J: We just approached it differently. We wrote it on an acoustic guitar, and just played the instruments as hard as Heather's voice was singing, which isn't very—
H: Ey! Choose your words carefully!! Nah I obviously have a very quiet voice.
J: We were just matching it more. It felt like the first time that we've matched it.
H: And I feel like we had a very hard few years. It inspired us to make music for us instead of thinking about what people will think about it. I feel like I'm not scared of being emo anymore. I don't have to hide it behind the pop music. Like, ‘Pumped up Kicks’. I'm just letting it rip, Pierce the Veil. It doesn't sound like that, though—but emotionally.
Let it out. The world is ready.
J: Rawr xD
Hahahaha—Are there some new instruments?
H: Yeah! I think what makes the [music] different is we had the slide guitar and some banjo, which are two of my favourite sounds at the moment, just because I love the texture of it. Like, naturalistic instruments—you know, acoustic guitar, banjo, slide, sounds of nature.
J: Yeah—instead of throwing on a pedal that makes the guitar sound like [crazy noises], which is easier to do than restraining yourself to do something more forward. It was a really good opportunity to trust ourselves and not beat ourselves up about whether it was going to be good or not. And that's what Simon did—let us get into a really nice flow state.
And it's kind of given you the courage to work up to not hiding behind layers and pedals...
J: Yeah, let's start with the volume of the vocal and work from there, instead of getting really hard guitars down and then Heather putting [vocals] on top. The way we did it this time was really great.
H: But we also did that a bit.
A bit of everything.
J: A lot of the stuff that's on the actual recording—was most of it is like from the original demo as well. Which is great!
LIAM: Usually the first take is the most honest—like you're thinking about it at least.
H: And usually the first take sucks and you just have to move on. And if everyone tells you it's fine, you say, okay I guess it's fine. And then you listen to it later on Spotify and you think, well, maybe I should have done another take, but you just let it be…
Well, the video! The video is really beautiful and evocative. Especially because there's a lot of familiar faces in there for some of us. First of all, let's talk about the storyline for the video and then let's talk about what inspired it.
H: Uh-huh. I wanted it to have kind of a 2000’s movie vibe and evoke feelings of friendship when you're in high school and stuff like that. I like to make very detailed storyboards and I listen to the song a lot and think about what plays in my mind.
The storyline is about how—when you're sad and you feel isolated—your friends help you to find yourself and feel happier. In the video, there's an angel, who kind of represents the connection with your friends and then once you’re reminded of that, and you go out and reconnect with your people, it helps you.
J: And it literally is our friends in the video, that was a nice part about it. It's all about friendship—let's get our friends to be in it.
Yeah, sorry I couldn't be there guys.
H: It ended up being for the best… Noooo just kidding!!
L: It's always really authentic when something's close to the truth. Having all of our closest friends in the video [meant] nobody was acting. We were all just hanging out and having fun. There was very little of, okay, now let's look more like this? Can we do this differently? But a lot of it came very naturally.
Definitely. And the cheerleaders?
H: Oh—that part did not come naturally…
J: That little five seconds of the cheerleaders was probably the weirdest part of the video to shoot with how much effort we put into the costumes.
H: Because I spent 12 hours probably—I watched a whole series of Drag Race as I was ironing the outfits and sticking them back together with fusible interfacing.
L: It paid off though!
H: Yeah, thank you. It was like 12 hours of costume work for three minutes of filming, and then 30 seconds in the video.
Wow! That's cinema.
H: Yeah, and then I was like, oh, we should make a dance now. And we got distracted by putting crystals on our eye makeup, and then Josh came back from Kmart and we hadn't really come up with a dance. So we just started playing ‘HOT TO GO’, and then made the girls pose. Yeah, that was the most work I put in was making those costumes. But apart from that, it was easy. Oh and the wings!
J: Oh, and then we also painted a whole entire room in an abandoned house pink. That was quite hard.
How did you guys get to do that?
H: We went to this abandoned house. It was all covered in graffiti and it was quite ugly. And then we went to Bunnings, and we got the cheapest white paint that they had, and then we mixed it with red acrylic paint, which was only, like, a dollar, and then it turned pink,
J: In the middle of a thunderstorm, too, with lightning outside.
H: We were just in there with our phone torches and a paint roller painting the wall, aaand then pulling out the carpet.
J: I might be able to show you them before and after shots of that room. Yeah, it's really really funny.
H: It's pretty crazy. That took us like two full days to do that. And then when we were filming it, it was so hot. And, we're all playing with our instruments, and after every take, I'd get out my little handheld fan, and try and fan everyone and fan Liam, and he was holding the camera and it weighs like, 20 kilos.
L: I copped a camera in the face too, but I was fine.
H: It made him bleed. And it was Avril's birthday. And we were just sweating out of every hole... I mean, pore! Every pore!
J: You can say every hole.
L: If you don't leave the video shoot with a couple of battle scars like that, it probably wasn't that good.
Maddy Strydom AKA @DigiCamVids/@StrydomPhotos
Surely it’d be really fun with all your friends around. What was the atmosphere like?
H: Awesome. It was thunderstorming on that day too, and the lightning and thunder were extremely loud and it started raining right when we finished.
J: We scouted the location without any real idea what was actually gonna happen. And so the shots of everyone going through the flowers, we didn't know whether we were gonna use that field or what it was gonna look like. We just got everyone there and even them walking to the spot was a shot. I just wanted it to be incredibly natural. Because it's so easy to make a video where people are drinking and partying, which isn’t something we really want to promote either.
H: Yeah, it's hard to use that as a vehicle to express how much you truly love your friends.
Hahaha—yeah let’s all get wasted.
J: I didn't want that to overbear the message of the song.
H: No, it wasn't about that. It was just about how you'd hang out when you were, 16 and how that feels, and nostalgia and everything.
J: Yeah, because everyone's been 16.
Yeah, I totally had friends when I was 16.
H: I think it really fed into it because Maddy Strydom—she was there filming, too, on her little 2000’s DigiCam, that made it feel very nostalgic.
L: Yeah, she made it look like it wasn't planned. Just as though somebody had a camera and they were capturing the moment.
I was gonna say the editing also really pulls it all together. It was such a cool result. There were lots of things that clearly came after the filming day that made it a really cool video. How was that process?
L: It was good! Josh and I have done a lot of music videos over the years, especially with Sesame Girl, but doing this one, the raw footage from the video was some of the best stuff we'd ever gotten. It was almost hard to make some choices. Like, all of this is good.
H: Yeah. I like that you’ve been using more analogue and mixed media is really cool. I feel like people really respond to something that's real, like paper, pen and everything.
L: Absolutely, if I wanted to make something that looks like that, there're absolutely other ways to do it quicker—to cut the corners, but it's so rewarding to put in the time and do stuff frame by frame.
J: When you're working for yourself, you don't cut corners because you're the person who is in control of caring about it.
H: You’re gonna put your whole pussy into it.
Maddy Strydom AKA @DigiCamVids/@StrydomPhotos
You're gonna make it as good as you possibly can. And you did! And you guys make up HOLL Archive, where you guys do graphics and visuals for others. Can you tell us why and how that started?
L: Yeah, it was something that me and Josh have always kind of done individually anyways. [Josh] was always into cameras and shooting things. I was similar. I was into cameras and stuff as well, but definitely very into editing and the behind the scenes process of things—all since we were kids.
J: By the time we came together to make music videos, it was already very much like, I know how to do this. Liam knows how to do that. Because there is a really big gap between great bands that deserve good music videos and bands that just have enough money to make something. So I think our ethos with that is just giving back and giving people good videos who deserve it… I get so down about how the music industry works sometimes, that I just love to have an outlet of some way that I can break the rules within it and kind of go, I think that this person deserves a better video. I think it helps everyone if people from Wollongong's videos look better, because it makes it feel like there's something going on here. And it's fostering a culture, trying to help people how I would have wanted someone to help me if I didn't know how to do that skill.
In your eyes, what makes music videos important in the industry?
H: Well, I think obviously as a culture, even a three-minute music video can sometimes feel too much for someone to watch when they have a 30 second TikTok attention span. And I think making long form content—not that music video is that long—and making short films is so important because without it, we lose a whole avenue of storytelling and culture. And people want to get to know you through the music videos and see into your mind. It's kind of like showing why you wrote a song or what you were thinking about when you hear it yourself. From the horse's mouth.
J: That’s it—show, don't tell. That's what a music video is. You're creating something that people can look at with the music as a synthesis. It’s so important to the perception of how people see it.
H: Exactly, because the music is only one of your senses. And when it's your ears and your eyes going at the same time, it's pretty much like real life. And so you can really live the fantasy that they're selling.
Yeah… something to represent it.
J: Also adding value to your fans. Everything we do, I'm thinking, is this going to be valuable to someone that likes our music? Like how can I add value for people who like us? And music videos are our way of just giving them value.
L: Yeah. It's so easy now for something to just come and go, but if you have a lot of care and you put a lot of work into something, people do recognise that and appreciate it.
And what makes music videos important for you personally?
L: I know that I was always the type of kid where I wanted to buy a DVD of a movie that I'd seen, but just to get the special features with all the behind the scenes—I was always so interested in how things were made. Even as a young kid watching kid shows, I was aware that it was a show, and I wanted to know how they made it.
J: The way that I got into taking videos was at the skate park and trying to make myself useful to these guys who weren't really nice to me, but I was trying to be their friend—filming them skate. And they would steal my fucking camera and swear that they didn't have it, and all this horrible, horrible stuff. So I stopped doing that, but then when I started to take music more seriously, I fell in love with it again because it was another chance to take back control over how I got treated when I was a kid at the skate park. I suffered for my art, which I didn't even think was art, I just wanted to have friends. Now I'm just making the same things that I did when I was 14, but with more direction now, it's something that actually is fulfilling, not just trying to fit in with people.
L: Watching music videos when I was younger, in retrospect, it was a learning process and I was like, this is really cool, I like this, but now that I'm doing the same thing, there’s references that I can pull from everything that I watched as a kid, You don't realise at the time that you're [taking it all in]
J: Now our music videos get played on Rage.
Full circle.
H: Yeah, I feel like seeing your band name in the Rage font and the song title, that's major, you know? So, hopefully, Rage responds to our pitch. Everyone tag Rage in the comments.