Courtesy Dara Munnis
Audio By Carbonatix
Most musicians are married to the road, especially if those in internationally touring bands like The Paper Kites.
After seventeen years and much success, the Australian indie-folk outfit is used to multi-week runs to Europe and North America adding up to months away from home, but the five-piece took a breather recently to hunker down while working on latest album If You Go There, I Hope You Find It, which released in January.
“We’ve been really yearning to spend more time at home with our families and seeing our kids grow,” says guitarist David Powys. “I think the way this album sounds to us is our hearts lay at home. It just sounds like home to me.”
Powys, vocalist-guitarist Sam Bentley, vocalist-keys player Christina Lacy, drummer Josh Bentley and bassist Sam Rasmussen were coming off an intense period surrounding 2023 LP At the Roadhouse, which featured an eight-person ensemble, and wanted to get back to the roots — they wrote most of their seventh full-length at a friend’s farm in Melbourne’s Yarra Valley. Keeping it close to home helped shape the record’s ethos and sense of longing for such safe harbor, something the group’s become known to evoke both lyrically and musically.
“There’s a lot of sentiment around relationship and closeness and sense of belonging and yearning for home and safety,” Powys explains. “I think it means that the album as a whole means a lot to the five of us. It was really validating for us to work on something again just with the original band and put an album together that we’re all really proud of.”
Such songs as “When the Lavender Blooms” and “Shake Off the Rain” strike familiar chords, something The Paper Kites are expertly empathic at.
Courtesy Tim Harris
“I think that we’re pretty tuned in on to when we hear something or write something that feels good, and we’ll chase that feeling or that mood until the songs done,” Powys says. “We’ll really quickly recognize something that feels like it can be great. We usually try to let songs have their day. We’re well-seasoned at knowing straight away if something’s going to be great.”
Listeners pick up on that, too, but how that translates live to the fanbase is more unpredictable, though The Paper Kites always offer a semblance of a sonice home.
“There can be some really beautiful stories people share, and whether you like it or not, these songs become a part of peoples’ lives and part of peoples’ journeys, which is incredible,” he says. “As soon as you release those songs or an album, they’re no longer ours, they belong to the listener and take on all different sorts of meanings to people.
“Honestly, it’s the best part of what we do. It can sometimes feel a little monotonous if you’re on a four- or five-week tour and you’re playing every night, but then you hear a story or you meet someone and you know that a song has connected or someone has driven six hours to come and see you play for the first time,” Powsy concludes, adding a note about how he recently met a family whose kids had literally been listening to The Paper Kites since they were born. “It’s really sweet meeting these people. You’ve been a part of their lives for years and years, but you’re only finding out for the first time that night.”
