Local the Neighbour: From jazz purist to indie up-and-comer

David Quested is no stranger to the Naarm music scene. From Radiohead-inspired performances at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, to involvements with local acts, such as Garage Sale and Fan Girl, David has made his name well-known since moving south from Darwin.

Ahead of the release of the second EP VALLEY pt.2 from his project Local the Neighbour, In Tune sat down with David to discuss the release, studying jazz at UCLA and everything in between. 

In Tune: Congratulations on the release of VALLEY pt. 2. It’s an impressive combination of songwriting and production, all done from your studio. Where did you first learn the production side of things?

Local the Neighbour: I got really into it when I was living in LA because so many people there are producers, so it was really part of the vocabulary where people would say “the producer said that, the producer wanted this, “ and I was like “what is this producer doing? They don't play an instrument? Like, what are they doing? Why are they so opinionated? And why do they have so much power over this record?” It really made me hunt down what producing was.

I think what really started to appeal to me was the fact that you weren't limited to one instrument. I feel like as an instrumentalist, I'll go in and play drums for someone and then I pack up, but I feel like I want to be really involved in the music if I can be allowed to. That’s how I got into production, I guess.

IT: Melina Duterte (AKA Jay Som, who co-produced boygenius' the record) is credited as a co-producer on this EP. How did that come about? 

LTN: For the debut EP, I cold-messaged Bennett Littlejohn. He produced an album called Heavy Lifter by a band called Hovvdy and he ended up being a huge help to me. Doing that (cold-messaging) the first time around gave me a bit of understanding, like ‘oh, you can just reach out to people and show them the music’ and he told me about Melina

Then when the next batch of songs were ready for VALLEY pt.2, I messaged her to see what she thought, and then she was really keen to help out and do the mix. It just naturally happened, which is great.

IT: You spent a bit of time at UCLA studying jazz. How did that experience help shape Local the Neighbour?

LTN: It was life-changing. It gave me a new perspective on things. I feel before I went on that trip I was a hard-out jazz drummer, I didn't listen to anything else, even though I'd grown up listening to punk rock and all these indie bands like Two Door Cinema Club, but I think just seeing how music worked in LA and experiencing the scene there, it pulled me out of the jazz world a bit and I started listening to other music again. 

On the performance side of things, I used to get really nervous about performing, I had severe stage fright and was intensely anxious about performance. Going to music school, you perform every week to your cohort so by the third year, you're pretty over it and you just don't even care what people think. The other thing is they're listening in those classes. It's not like a bar. You play at any pub, people are talking, but in those uni performances, you drop a pen and you'll hear it. It's very intense and focused, so it knocks the nerves out of you after three years of doing it.

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IT: The songwriting on VALLEY pt.2 tells a range of stories, from looking back to the simpler times of your youth to expressing your love for your dog, Barnaby. One line that stands out to me on ‘Grand Slam’ is “when the score is love, you get fined all the time.” What was your process when it came to the EP’s songwriting?

LTN: Songwriting is relatively new to me. It only started when I started doing Local the Neighbour and I've been playing music for so long. 

It's been really important for me to try and get the skill of songwriting. There's something about it where you're writing and it just comes out and then sometimes you're searching or you're going for something and I feel like that's the hard part—that's the craft of it.

There's always an element of inspiration, but for ‘Grand Slam’ I really wanted to practice the trade of songwriting and that song was an experiment on that.

IT: ‘Cruise Control’, the EP’s opening track, has the theme of being stuck in time. Is that song about a relationship or just, generally, being in a rut?

LTN: Being in a rut, for sure. It's that thing where you're just like ‘oh, this is what I do, this is where it's heading’ and you just follow it. Or you see someone who's done the same thing before you and you're like ‘hang on, that's not the thing that I was chasing. That's not even what I want’ and then you realise that this whole time you've just been doing this thing that you don’t even like doing.

IT: The pedal steel and the jumpy bass line on ‘The Cure’ stands out for me. Where did the inspiration for that track come from?

LTN: It was really funny. When I made that, I really just thought it was like an indie song and then, clearly, people don't fully think it's an indie song.

I'm a big fan of MJ Lenderman and Wednesday, and they always have the pedal steel, but I also just love that sound. I’m also a big fan of Daniel Lanois, he was a producer first and worked with U2 and he's done some amazing compositions, but he has a solo project and it's mostly him on pedal steel and this jazz drummer, Brian Blade, on drums and studio effects. It's some of the coolest stuff, but really I’m just a big fan of that instrument.

IT: There are a lot of fun layers of production on that track, too. 

LTN: That song was one that took a long time to finish. For some reason I'd had the song for ages and I was trying to play it with the band, and I kept on wanting to change it. If you check out that Daniel Lanois project, there's definitely some inspired production from that too, just silly things [laughs]. I was having a lot of fun being silly in the recording process and then you hear it all together and you go ‘that was really stupid’, and you just bring the volume down and you just keep it in there for yourself and it just creates a layer of interest. 

There's a moment where my friend whispers “no” in the second verse—that was added like two days before I finished the song. He knew I was struggling with it and he was like ‘hey, I always feel like I want to yell “no”. I feel like you have to add it.” All these little things came at the last minute that I think got it there. 

IT: You strip things back a bit on ‘Noose’ in terms of the production, but the lyrics are hard-hitting. What led to the creation of that track?

LTN: It's definitely the darkest thing I've ever kind of written about. It’s about people in your life who've gone through traumatic experiences and how you never had to deal with that as a kid, or hear about those things as a kid. But then you get older and you don't think those things are going to happen to people around you, but then they do. The song’s saying I wish we could kind of go back to the time where that stuff didn't penetrate your life, but you get older and these kinds of horrible things happen.

IT: Have you had many opportunities to play the new tracks from VALLEY pt.2 live so far?

LTN:  Yeah, we've been playing bits and pieces of it for a while. I think I played ‘Noose’ on the first gig I ever played, it was already kind of there. All that's happened is things change a little bit as you go on, but I've had the EP done for most of this year, so most of the gigs this year we've played them, or at least most of them, but they have just been changing as they get recorded.

For your chance to hear these tracks live and treat your dancing feet to a boogie, get on down to VALLEY pt.2’s launch show: Wednesday December 11 at The Punters Club, Fitzroy. AND it’s free entry.

Stream VALLEY pt.2 on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music. Follow Local the Neighbour on Instagram.