Australian singer-songwriter Vance Joy has enjoyed the kind of success that most can only dream of. Since breaking through with his single ‘Riptide’ in 2013, Vance has sold out tours across the globe, released a string of bestselling singles, and supported P!nk on her sold-out European stadium tour.
Your new single, ‘Missing Piece’, is out now, and it was written entirely over Zoom – how was that for you?
‘The writing process was definitely a little bit different this time. I was in Melbourne, Australia last year and we had a couple of lengthy lockdowns. It was during the first long one that this song came about.’
‘I think it was May – about a month into the first lockdown – and I was kind of just chilling at home every day. It felt like I had like a day off school, and it was like, ‘Oh cool, no commitments!’. At that point, we had no idea of how long things would last and I just got to enjoy that month of just like doing not much. But then, I got a little bit done with it all.’
‘I wanted to start writing and collaborating again, and it was hard to figure out how that was going to work. Then I heard that people were doing Zoom songwriting sessions, and to be honest, I just wanted to dip my toe in that in the water. I had a list of songwriters that I wanted to work with, and one of them was Joel Little. You’ll know his work with amazing artists, like Lorde – they did a lot of her first album together, and he just writes these incredible songs.’
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‘It turned out that he was available to do a session on Zoom; I was in Australia, and he was in New Zealand, so our time zones lined up. We just spent a couple of hours one morning writing this song, and he came up with this great little guitar riff.’
‘That was the starting point for the song: it just sounded nice, and it didn’t sound like anything that I’d usually play. So, we brought that to the table, and then we worked on the chorus together. I had some notes in my phones, which soon turned into lyrics, and the rest all fell together… Well, almost.’
‘He sent the nearly finished track back to me a couple of months later and we still hadn’t written a bridge; in all honesty, it kind of took until, like, November of last year to write the bridge. We were still discussing guitar rhythms for the chorus two months ago. So, it took a while, but I think the best result came out of the song.’
‘It helped that there are no real deadlines right now. Everything is like ‘oh, cool – but what’s the urgency? I’ll get back to you in five days with my notes about how this is sounding’, or whatever. This feels like it was worth the wait.’
It’s a very optimistic song and one that’s very much at odds with what was going on in the world right now. Was it a conscious decision, to lean into that optimism?
‘I’m in a long-distance relationship and I wasn’t sure when I’d next be able to see my partner. It’s always quite a process to try and get out of Australia – even if you’re a citizen you have to apply for an exemption to leave. So, we just didn’t know when we’d next be able to be together.’
‘So, I guess that it’s an optimistic song about knowing that there’s that distance, but that it’s OK, ’cause you got something good and it’s not going anywhere.’
I read an interesting interview with Tyler from Twenty One Pilots. Their new album, Scaled and Icy, is quite upbeat and buoyant, and a bit of a contrast to their earlier work. But he said that creating this optimistic record was his way of coping with the pandemic and everything falling around him.
‘I get that. It must be his way of coping – going to his studio and just creating this thing where he was in total control. He had to make no acknowledgement to what was going on in the wider world, and he could just like funnel his own individual vision into its own coping mechanism.’
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It must be a great way of processing what’s going on around you.
‘It’s nice to think of it like that. I like the idea of him creating a little bubble that’s his and his alone. Just like a little barricade between what’s happening and what he’s making in the studio. I think that’s kind of a beautiful thing about songwriting – or any creative pursuit. You block out the world and you know you don’t have to be looking at the news every minute or scrolling through Instagram.’
‘It’s important to take a moment to do something for yourself. Whether it’s writing a journal, writing a song, or recording something and just getting totally absorbed in the sounds you’re making. Sure, there’s a bit of doom and gloom out there, but you can still write something that’s happy and buoyant.
‘It’s not necessarily the job of Tyler from Twenty One Pilots to be reflecting on the world around him. I just think that art and music can affect our moods for the better.’
You had your breakthrough with Riptide back in 2013. Looking back on the process of that song blowing up, was there ever a time when you thought ‘Oh my God, I didn’t realize it would be this intense.’?
‘It’s such an amazing thing when a song just goes, lives a life of its own, and just kind of spreads like that. You kind of get on the rocket with the song, and then it blasts off and you’re just inundated with opportunities, and gigs and offers to do things. It’s amazing and I feel like there’s only so much you can do to try and wrap your head around it.’
‘It’s like a rite of passage: at the end of it, you’re going to lose your voice, and you probably will go a little bit insane. I think that you need to go through that so you can then go you ‘OK. These are my boundaries for work.’.
‘I owe that song so much. It feels like such a fluke; like lightning in a bottle, you know? I really cherish those first memories of releasing the song, seeing the reactions, and doing those first tours. I had nothing to compare it to, so at the time I didn’t realise how crazy it was. It’s like falling in love or something. You’re on a drug and you’re constantly trying to work out what’s happening.’
If you could go back in time and give one piece of advice to your 15-year-old self, what would it be?
‘When you’re 15, you’re pretty insecure, and you’re not too switched on. You need to go through a lot of life experience to get to any kind of wisdom or something. So, I’d just say: you know you. You can always second guess yourself or think your ideas aren’t good that you’re not good at guitar or singing. Everyone has a critic in their brain that’s always shooting him down.’
‘And I would just explain how that voice in your head is just a critic. You’re just as good as the next bloke trying to write songs and sing. Eventually, you’ll get that confidence: the reason why I’m doing what I’m doing is that you get over the critical part of things. You just need some validation at that age, don’t you?’