Q and A with The Jezabels’ Sam Lockwood

MANILA, Philippines – St. Jerome’s Laneway Music Festival is undoubtedly one of the region’s biggest and best known music event focused primarily on independent music acts. First held in Melbourne in 2004, the festival has since expanded to different cities in Australia, and, since, 2011, in Singapore.

Just a few of the artists that have graced the Laneway stage over the years include Sigur Ros, Architecture in Helsinki, Florence and the Machine, Mumford and Sons, Two Door Cinema Club, Feist, M83, Japandroids and Kings of Convenience.  

This year, Laneway happens in the Lion City on January 25 at The Meadow at the Gardens By The Bay, near Marina Bay Sands. The day-long festival attracts music fans from across the region, especially from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, who travel all the way to Singapore to see their favorite bands. The 2014 lineup is no less impressive from previous years.

Big names in the lineup include Haim, Chvrches, Frightened Rabbit and Youth Lagoon, as well as Daughter, Kurt Vile, James Blake, Jagwar Ma, Jamie XX, Mount Kimbie, Savages, The Jezabels, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Vance Joy and XXYYXX. For the first time ever, three bands from Singapore have made it to the lineup—Gema, Vandetta, and The Observatory. 

Listen to “Disco Biscuit Love” here:

Rappler got the exclusive chance to speak with one of the featured bands playing in Laneway. Sam Lockwood is the guitarist of The Jezabels. Along with Nik Kaloper on drums, Heather Shannon on keyboards and Hayley Mary on lead vocals, Sam (on lead guitars) plays a tasty, mesmerizing mix of dance pop and alternative rock that sounds like The Killers if they were fronted by Cyndi Lauper. Don’t believe us? Listen to “Long Highway” and “Easy To Love.” 

In this interview, Sam talks about how the band got together, what he would be doing if he wasn’t out touring the world and playing music, and what he thinks is a perfect pop song. Excerpts: 

Rappler: You guys got together back in school and you all have different musical interests. Is there an artist that you guys all liked that sort of brought you together? 

SL: Yeah, there are a few. We all appreciate a good song. We all love Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.” That’s a classic. When we were starting out, we saw this band called The National and we all thought, wow, these guys are amazing. I think that really influenced us in a way that we saw really serious and mature band doing really nice, melodic music. That was like, ‘Oh my god, that’s amazing.’ I guess that’s probably the one band that we can say we all really appreciate. 

Rappler: Can you say a few words about the other people in the band? 

SL: Well, Hayley, she’s our singer. She’s very erudite and a clever songwriter and outstanding vocalist and lyricist. She’s a very strong character and very cool. Nick, our drummer, he’s very intelligent. He was meant to be a math and physics teacher. He has a very good understanding of complex structures, which helps with his rhythms and his drumming. Heather is a classically trained pianist. She earned a degree in piano-playing from the conservatory. She’s a quite accomplished musician and composer. And me, I’m just your average funny guy. (Laughs)

Rappler: What would you be doing if you weren’t playing music? 

SL: Well I majored in English in college. I’ve always wanted to be a high school English teacher. That’s definitely one. I dunno, there’re many different jobs I’d like to do, but high school English teacher would definitely be right up there. I would really like to teach one day.  

Listen to ‘Endless Summer’ here:

Rappler: Artists have very different ideas about what it means to be successful. For some it’s selling records, for some it’s winning awards, and for others it’s just getting to play music as a living. What about for you guys? 

SL: That’s a good question. It’s really difficult and also simple, because if you’re an ambitious person, you can never really feel like you’ve achieved [anything]. For me, personally, I’ve already exceeded a million times what I thought I could ever do creatively in my entire life. I’ve already succeeded in my creative endeavor, and I’m happy I can live and work as creative people. People we know always say we’re living the dream, and in many respects it’s true. Like right now, we’re in Dublin and we have a day off, and we get to go on a ferry in the daytime. It’s pretty cool. It’s definitely amazing. 

Rappler: Tell us about playing in Laneway in Singapore. 

SL: Well, we’ve played a few times in Singapore, and we stop there a lot on our way back to Australia. I’ve been there before. I think it’s going to be a great day. Singapore’s always awesome. We have some good friends there now through our label and booking agency. So we want to catch up with them and hopefully do a good show. It’ll be the first time we’ll play a few songs from the new album. We all just absolutely love Asia. I love it. There’s always an excitement and an optimism there. You just really feel it in the air. 

Rappler: Do you have a song or artist that’s sort of like a guilty pleasure for you? 

SL: It’s a difficult one. I think I mentioned before Whitney Houston. Katy Perry’s new single, “Roar,” is a pretty amazing song. It’s a perfect song really. As a songwriter, you listen to that and you hear what they‘re doing. I guess guilty pleasure for me is analyzing a song and trying to figure out what they’re doing. If you just go back to the 80s when pop music was so amazing. Like Spandau Ballet or Duran Duran. That’s still a band making music, and I think it’s very different these days. Maybe Katy Perry is the Duran Duran of today. But I doubt that. It’s a very strange time for music, with X Factor and American Idol. Guilty pleasures are very guilty pleasures these days. – Rappler.com 

Tickets to Laneway Singapore are already on sale. Manila-based indie music fans can purchase their tickets via ticketworld.com.ph. For more information, visit singapore.lanewayfestival.com

Paul John Caña is the Managing Editor of Lifestyle Asia magazine and is a live music geek. Email him at pjcana@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @pauljohncana