Interview with The Townhouses Leigh Hannah

  Faithful (Common Cover) by The Townhouses

When do you best make music?

     I best make music in my shed with the doors open in the late afternoon. It’s a really open space and the sound bounces off the walls of the shed really nicely. Good reverb is inspiring.

What do you do right after you've finished a track you're happy with?

     I normally load some of the cuts up into my sampler to see how I could do it live. Either that or I’ll just go relax on the couches and listen back to it on repeat. If I can listen to it over and over then it could be worth keeping.

Favorite mode of transport at the moment?

     Trams.

What are you listening to this summer?

     The Free Design, Monster Rally, Os Mutantes and Sea Oleena.

Next Gig you are psyched to see?

     Beach House, Deerhunter, Caribou, Four Tet and Toro Y Moi – all in the next month!

What happening with music in melbourne at the moment? Who's making music?

     There’s always something happening in Melbourne. It’s totally overwhelming just how many shows are on every night of the week – we’re lucky because there’s so much to choose from, but also unlucky because when you run or play a show there is a lot of competition. There are tons of different artist communities scattered around – however I’ve found most are quite open to new artists. In shows I’ve been to lately, I’ve been really impressed by Exotic Snake, Mildlife, Tailor Made for a Small Room, Zsa Zsa and Isle Adore.

What do you use to make your music ( Hardware, software, instruments, samples?)

     I use Logic Pro and make a lot of instruments on that. For anything that needs to be recorded I just use a line out from my mixer. Some of my new material contains excerpts from Sega Mega Drive games that I recorded really lo-fi by just positioning a microphone in front of the TV speakers. Live, I’ve recently simplified my set up to simply a sampler, delay modular, mixer and a guitar.

Do lots of cables and leads annoy you?

     When setting up/packing up yes… otherwise it kinda looks cool.

What do you do when you're not making or playing music?

     I’m in my last year of a four year double degree studying Education and Arts. When I finally finish the 17 years in a row of education, I’ll be taking a few years out to properly travel, so I’m constantly planning and thinking about that.

You have some tracks up on soundcloud and an ep to download for free. What do you think about soundcloud and websites like it?

     I’m pretty new on soundcloud but I do really like it. Free music is kind of a necessity these days I think – if you don’t work with the internet then it’ll work against you. I have no problem putting material up for free on sites like bandcamp because it costs me nothing but time to make.

Will you start asking for a bit of money for people to download your tracks?

     I’m getting my next record properly mixed and mastered which will cost me, so at this stage I’m a little unsure of how I want to release it – though I’ll probably wind up just asking people to name their own price. I did that for the last EP and I’ve found out that people are much more generous than I thought.

What do you think about other musicians sampling your music?

     Haha. Don’t know if that will happen anytime soon but if it’s credited then I’d encourage it.

Favorite colour?

     Blue. Always.

If you could ask a musician a question who would it be and what would you ask?

     Paul McCartney. Where were your shoes? Are you really dead?

You can check out The Townhouses on soundcloud, bandcamp, tumblr