Byron Bay local Seph Cove shares his mesmerising sophomore EP Unsafe Passage. Unsafe Passage is a brilliant journey through Seph's mind over the past year, full of powerful lyrics, smooth folky textures, and melodic harmonies. Hazy Days Music would like to thank Seph for taking the time out and having a chat.

 Hey Seph, big fan of your music, how did this project start? When did you make the to move to Byron Bay?

Before starting this project, I released a song under my own name a few years ago. I was reading one of your other articles on artist Saulé and how she came into music pretty late. I was the same, I played in jazz bands in high school, but I never really thought about music being something I did until I was about 22. The song I released in 2018 was pretty much the first song I had ever finished. I had no idea what type of musician I wanted to be or any of that. I just put this song out there, and I was lucky enough to start chatting to a few different people in the industry and gain some support. But I had no other music, so I spent the next two and a half years figuring out what type of music I wanted to write and what kind of musician I wanted to be. By the time I came out of that, I had all these songs written, which I released as my debut EP for Seph Cove last year, If This Were You. 

I just felt like a different artist. I approached music in a completely different way. The music itself was different, I’d evolved, and I also liked that not having my name as the artist, I could put a bit of distance between myself and the art. I think that allowed me to get weird with it and not feel weird, haha, so that led me to Seph Cove. 

Moving to Byron was very spontaneous. I went on a road trip with my brother last year, we left from Melbourne all the way up to the Daintree Rainforest, on the way back my brother had to fly back home early, so I had the car and thought I’d go visit my friend who lives in Byron for a week, and I’ve been here ever since.

Was that the same with your lyrics? Or have you always been writing?

Writing came on later as well. There has always been the element of me wanting to write a message, but I don't know if it was a confidence thing or just by finally practising; my ability to articulate my thoughts and feelings on paper had improved drastically.

I'd write these lyrics and realise I hadn't really written lyrics to a song, but I'd written a poem. I now write every day, and I definitely write far more poetry than I do lyrics. In fact, a few of my most recent songs have been different bits of poetry that I've picked different verses and different stanzas that I've realised in hindsight they work together. So poetry is something. I've always read poetry, I've always read and had this love of literature and books and reading and writing and speaking it. I didn’t start till I started writing music, but it's definitely helped and helped each other.

Your latest single Helen is one of my favourites from the EP. What can you share about the writing experience for this song?

So Helen is the second single off the EP Unsafe Passage I'm just about to release. I recorded it (and the other songs on the EP) with my friend Tim who you might know as Vancouver Sleep Clinic. Tim and I got put in touch a few years ago and clicked straight away, and we've been making music together ever since. One of Tim's friends, Luke, is the audio engineer who mixed and mastered the EP as well. I've been fortunate to have that relationship with him; he is a talented genius, and I'm so lucky to tap into that. 

It's such an easy-going relationship. We can challenge each other without it turning into a stressful environment. It's an environment that encourages the best in one another. I'm not afraid to challenge and ask him to do something or vice versa, which has really brought out elements in songs like Helen and other songs on the EP that wouldn't have been there at first if we didn't ask each other those questions. I brought Helen to Tim, and it was just the guitar and vocals. I said I was keen to make it more than that, and I definitely got a bit scared that I was losing a bit of the core of what the song should be, but if we hadn't of explored those elements and if he hadn't asked me to trust him, we never would have gotten the sound that we have now.

Where did you record Unsafe Passage? What is the message behind it?

We tried to do the tracking for the EP in January last year. We booked this Airbnb at one of Queensland's National Parks, and I don't know if it happens every year, but there was this crazy number of cicadas. So we couldn't record between certain hours every day because the noise was so loud you couldn't EQ them out. We left that week with the bones of it done, and I met up with Tim again at his place in Brisbane mid last year and did the whole thing again. I've worked with Tim now on 11 songs and love it. 

I ended up writing most of the songs in 2020, back when I was in Melbourne, in lockdown. It ended up being quite an introspective body of work, which is why I called it Unsafe Passage because it was kind of a journey through my mind at that time, and at that time, my mind was a pretty rollercoaster place to be with some substantial lows.

That's the idea behind Unsafe Passage. I ask that people come for a journey through my mind, and it's not necessarily going to be a safe and happy journey. I like to use music as a way of getting what's going on in my head out so I can deal with it. I've found the response to what I've been writing has been quite relatable. I like being able to talk openly and honestly about these things, have people tell me they relate to it, find solace in my lyrics, and open up a conversation and a sense of vulnerability. It's been a beautiful thing, and that's just been with these first two songs.

What has your process been to develop/grow your sound over the years? Are there any artists that have been influencing your development? I feel like your track August has big Dustin Tebbutt energy, is he someone that you get around?

The biggest difference with my process from the first time around is that I am just so much more comfortable and therefore confident with what I say and what I write. I'm not questioning myself so much with the quality of what I am saying or the writing, which really frees me up to explore even more. It's the same with sonics and the sounds. I don't worry so much about whether I think it's good or not, I trust myself, and Tim has helped me find this confidence to just trust myself with what I am doing and what I end up putting out there is good. So like with August, I fiddled with my voice just a little bit and tried to make it really, really sparse and almost rough. A few years ago, I would have been absolutely petrified doing that. Things like that have added so much to the EP. You mentioned Dustin and people like that, Tim, Matt Corby, Bon Iver, and Jeff Buckley, all of them have really influenced how I go about my writing, music, or attitude towards it. I'm quite honoured that you said Dustin Tebbutt because I think he is a jet, so it's nice to hear.

Do you have any poets that influence your writing?

Two of my favourite poets are Leonard Cohen and Federico García Lorca, a Spanish poet pre-Spanish civil war times. It's just beautiful; I mean, I don't speak Spanish, so I'm reading a translation, and it is absolutely stunning. I hope the translation is doing justice to the original works. In particular, those two just connect with my brain, and it's definitely an inspiration and an influence. A bit more serious, a bit more depressing, but stunning, absolutely stunning.

I love that you’ve been playing these intimate bookshop shows recently. Do you have any shows coming up? You must be really excited to play this new EP, what are the sets going to look like?

I'm hoping to play another one of those intimate shows up here in Byron pretty soon, and I've got another in the works towards the end of February. I'm also hoping to come back down and play a show in Melbourne around March or April. It's all still a bit up in the air at the moment with COVID, but that's the plan. 

They'll be something that captures that intimacy of those bookshop shows I've played in the past. I love the atmosphere of playing those solo shows. I feel like I  capture the audience's attention really well. 

If you just listen to the lyrics, it's pretty intense and introspective, so playing these shows in these small intimate spaces is the perfect environment for me to open that dialogue between me and the audience and encourage that discussion.

The good thing is that most of my music is originally written with just a guitar and vocals. It's not till I take it to Tim or whoever I'm working with we start to explore where the song can go. I like to come in with a pretty open slate, so I don't bias anyone or lock in where a song will go because I really enjoy seeing where it takes the music. 

So when I play these solo shows, I am still really comfortable playing what was originally written at home because they still capture the soul of the song. 

Anything you’d like to add about the EP before we wrap up?

I feel like I’ve been so lucky to work with some really talented artists and photographers. My sister did the symbols, which is a nice little symbol in itself.

Stay up to date with Seph Cove on Facebook, Instagram & Spotify.

Posted on the 24th of February, by Jake Taylor.