Superorganism is an internet band. Gathered from far corners of the globe, the London-based eight-piece was forged from the depths of YouTube, forums, and other social media, connecting members from New Zealand and Sydney to those in America, Japan, and the UK. They haven’t been around for long – the debut, self-titled album dropped earlier this year – and although time and space have allowed the collective to live together as a creative commune under one roof in London, Superorganism doesn’t like to classify itself as a UK band.
Before the group make their way over to Australia for Splendour In The Grass and a couple of choice sideshows, PEDESTRIAN.TV got on the blower to Harry, the outfit’s guitarist and one of the producers, to chat about the creative process, the Superorganism live experience, and what it’s like to literally have hometown shows dotted all over the world.
Harry tells us that the band works a lot through online sharing, despite living together. It’s a creative process that he and the band take for granted, and Harry notes that he’s surprised that a lot of bands don’t work in a similar way.
The way that we kinda work is just something that’s natural to us. It’s not like we woke up one day and said: “oh let’s try a new way of creating a project and working together”. To be honest, we were actually surprised when people started remarking on that like it was something interesting because we were just like “isn’t that like how people do it these days?” Apparently, we have accidentally come across something that’s a bit unusual.
It just makes sense to me; I don’t really understand how it’s not happened up until now, because you don’t need to be making a band with just the people that you’re in high school or uni with anymore, you can find like-minded individuals literally anywhere in the world, if you want it. I’m sure it will go in that direction eventually but I feel like we did it so accidentally that I don’t want to claim to be an authority on it. I guess we’ll see in the coming years.
The creative process for the band works much like a superorganism itself; many parts working together to form a whole. Superorganisms are typically all around us in nature – from coral reefs to termite mounds to beehives – and that’s exactly the kind of vibe I get from Harry’s explanation of how Superorganism (the band) makes catchy, sugary synth-pop.
We’ll all work separately in our rooms and share project files or MP3s together and build on top of what each other does and this process kinda grows. It can start anywhere, really, but often it’ll stem from conversations that we’re having when we’re hanging out in the kitchen or something and that’ll give someone an idea.
They’ll get something out and then it’ll get sent to someone else like “what do you think of this?” and that person might add to it or they might just be like “why don’t we try doing it like this?” and it’ll go back and forth and it’ll bounce around the house so you’ve got everyone’s voices on it, everyone’s contributions in there.
From there, Harry tells us that Tucan – the member of the group that mixes all their music – will go to work on polishing the track while visual artist Robert gets busy with creating mind-bending visuals that are unique to every track and will typically form part of the Superorganism live show.
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Translating the busy hive of Superorganism into a live show is a task unto itself – a collective with many moving parts can be replicated in many different ways. Harry tells us that what we should be expecting at Splendour this week is nothing short of extravagant and borderline overwhelming.
There’s a few different ways that we perform live, sometimes we’ll do a bit more of a stripped-down like the NPR Tiny Desk, but usually what we’ll do is we have this big, extravagant live show where we’ve got these intense visuals that Robert put together, then we choreograph dance routines to each song.
Me and Tucan are at the back playing instruments and samples and yeah, it’s very much sample-based. All the skins on the drum kit and mesh heads have all got triggers attached to them to trigger samples all the way through the set. When we were putting the live show together we were kind of thinking like “ok so we want to be able to do something that’s as overwhelming as the record is to listen to, or watching the music video” we want you to have that overwhelming experience as an audience member.
Harry tells us that much like the music creation, the live show dynamic came together quite organically for the group, with members creating movements that weave in with each track as it plays, creating an impressive audio and visual journey that effortlessly works together like an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine.
Because the band came together from all parts of the world, Superorganism is in the unique position where they can have a ~hometown~ how on just about every continent. It creates a unifying feeling that the band embraces, and turns a lot of their shows into a homecoming celebration.
Some artists it’ll be like “oh we’re playing London, the hometown, so that’s always the best show”. Well, we have Tokyo, we have Sydney, there are all these different places that we can go and exchange that feeling. I was born near Manchester [in the UK] so whenever we play there we always get a really crazy reception. And when we played in Tokyo earlier this year we get that same kinda feeling, it’s just cool to be able to show each other around and stuff.
It’s not just the ability to have hometown shows dotted all over the world that makes Superorganism an intercontinental band; each of the members brings with them influences from their homes – both consciously and not. Harry tells us that the band takes notes and inspiration from across the globe, from Japanese pop (J-pop) to northern UK brit-pop and everything in between.
We’ve got members of the band from New Zealand and they’ve got all of this knowledge about NZ music, there’s so much classic NZ music especially a lot of the indie stuff from the 80s and 90s and so there’s a lot of knowledge around that.
At the same time, it’s only since I’ve been working with Orono (vocals) that I’ve started to be exposed to J-pop and a lot of J-pop culture, and how that’s affected her. Because she went to school in America, a lot of stuff is a bit more America-centric and even the fact that when we started the band she was 17 so she was exposed to a lot of stuff by Youtube and stuff that the rest of us weren’t aware of.
Growing up in Manchester, Harry is inspired a lot by 90s Brit-pop and rock and notes that despite everyone’s influences being varied, they all represent a puzzle piece in the larger jigsaw that is the Superorganism experience and sound.
I’m a big fan of Oasis and a lot of British music that the others might not be aware of, so we get a lot of pooling of these ideas. It definitely comes through in the music because you get some of the kind of weirdness of the J-pop and then some of the more out-there ideas of the NZ indie stuff and at the same time you might have Soul singing in Korean like in ‘Something For Your Mind’ just like a few lines in Korean here and there as well. It all kind of gets reflected back into the mix at a certain point, which is really nice.
You’re not really conscious of doing it, but when you’re talking about it afterwards and analysing it in interviews you’re like of course – I can see this thing, and this thing, and this thing in there. But when you’re doing it, you’re not like thinking “oh yeah a little jangle and attitude of that indie with some of the sounds of J pop and the beats of hip-hop” we’re not really thinking about it like that, it’s only later when you look back on it that you’re like “Oh shit, that’s what we did! Cool!”
Catch Superorganism on Splendour’s Mix Up Stage at 2.45pm on Saturday, July 21, or at their sideshows with G Flip at Melbourne‘s 170 Russell on Sunday, July 22, and Sydney‘s Metro Theatre on Tuesday, July 24.
