For this feature, we sit down with the band members of The Burbs and candidly explore the provenance of The Burbs, their sense of sonic identity and style in context of their latest release, ‘There’s No Time For Presents’. Read on!
Congratulations on the release of your track, ‘There’s No Time For Presents’. It is so delightfully alternative. What sparked the creation of the track and what do you want your listeners to take away from it?
Sparked by a phone call with a friend. We’d like listeners to sit back, relax, and enjoy.
Alternative Rock as a genre serves such a broad stylistic expanse. What is your interpretation of the style? How do you make it your own and how does it define your sound as a band?
I’m not really sure what alt rock is. Is it just that the songs aren’t good enough to be called rock or pop? Alt rock is cool, but we’d like to sound more like power pop. If we’re still being considered alt rock then its probably because we’re still learning. And perhaps also because we haven’t released any of our best songs yet.
Can you please introduce yourself as a band? And what three words would you use to describe your sound?
We’re a three piece from Bells Beach, Australia. We’re addicted to Sonic Energy and enjoy horror films and chicken cheese burgers. Three words… humid cloudless dusk.
There is a lot of mystery and shadows across the soundscape. Some melody and melancholy. How do these sensibilities play into the theme of the track and flesh it out?
In musical theatre they purposely match the mood of the music to the lyrical content. Its the opposite in pop music… sad music with sad lyrics creates something too self-indulgent and happy music with happy lyrics creates tacky songs. So with this track the music is happy, its all in major keys, there’s tambo, there’s harmonies, there’s no augmented chords or devil’s 5ths, so that provided some boundaries for the lyrics.
We hear so many influences from The Doors to The Bangles and The Smiths in the song! So well produced and executed. Who are some of the artists that you listened to growing up and how did they inspire your music style and design today?
Loved The Smiths growing up… that’s nice to hear. Johnny Marr’s solo work too. Haven’t heard of The Bangles. Haven’t really listened to The Doors, although I saw the Oliver Stone film which was sick, but didn’t remember the music having an impact, I assume it was probably exciting in its day. Growing up it was Trail of Dead, The Posies, Heatmiser, Ash, Bluebottle Kiss, Last Days of April, Primal Scream, Deloris, The Mavis’s, The Decemberists, those sorta bands. Not sure precisely how they inspired our music but I’m sure it seeps through.
When it comes to concept, emotion, intuition, and imagination, which one of these do you think plays more of a role in your song making and why?
Yikes these are tough questions. Intuition resonates with me and implies a sense of automatic-ness where you’ve worked on your songwriting hard enough that the inputs and tasteful decision-making happen with relative ease.
What are some of your upcoming projects that you are excited about?
We’re halfway through recording a studio album which will be released in 2026. Some of the demos are on our Bandcamp (theburbs.bandcam….com/) within the Sunlight Spills Across The Swimming Pool (Expanded Edition) album. We’re booking a few Aussie tour dates for 2026 too.
You can listen to ‘There’s No Time For Presents’ by THE BURBS here –
Leave a Reply