Track By Track: Talk Heavy on Their Debut EP 'Jump Into Nothing'

Brisbane/Meanjin alt-rock and emo quartet Talk Heavy have just released their debut EP, Jump Into Nothing. The five-track release comes hot on the heels of the band’s hyped performances at BIGSOUND 2022, with Music Feeds’ David James Young complimenting the band for their “blend of fourth-wave emo and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater soundtrack music.”

Talk Heavy is made up of vocalist and guitarist Matt Cochran, guitarist Patrick Shipp, bass player Tayla Ellerby and drummer Beej Vaughan. Here, Cochran, Shipp and Ellerby tell the stories behind the tracks on Jump Into Nothing, including recent singles ‘I Wanna Skate Again’ and ‘Mixing Pictures’.

Talk Heavy: Jump Into Nothing

1. Open The Door

Patrick Shipp: We thought this would be a really impactful way to open the EP. I think this is my favourite song to play live too. Lyrically it is a very important song, just to do with the themes and content. Detaching yourself from bad people that you care about is a hard but important thing to do, which is what I get from the lyrics.

Matt Cochran: Even though it’s a short song, it took a long time to figure it out before I showed it properly to the rest of the band. The verse riff and hook came quickly, but the chorus and overall structure took a while. Then the lyrics were the last thing and they were written during a difficult period of being friends with someone who just kept making the same awful choices. It’s cathartic to reflect upon and sing about now but it was difficult to address at the time.

2. I Wanna Skate Again

Pat: I think this was one of the first songs that existed with Talk Heavy in mind as a new project. It’s nice and fast and fun to play, plus it was really fun to record, especially all the group vocals. It just kind of tumbles out in a joyful mess.

Tayla Ellerby: It reminds me of spending hours on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 trying to wall grind into the secret spots.

Matt: I guess that’s the whole point really. It’s just meant to be this big, quick, vicious whirlwind of fun. I wrote it when I was playing the early access version of the new video game Session and it made me really miss skateboarding. It’s definitely about wanting to skateboard again but also using that artform as a metaphor for wanting to take more risks in adult life and break out of complacency.

Talk Heavy – ‘I Wanna Skate Again’

3. Mixing Pictures

Tayla: I’ve been obsessed with this song since the earliest drafts we had. To me it feels like the bastard child of Title Fight and PUP. Bass wise, it is the only song on the EP where I use a fuzz pedal and I love the end result.

Matt: Yeah, I remember starting to write the skeleton of this on bass and I think I sent it to Tayla first. It was just a scrappy late night recording of me playing the song through on bass and mumbling through the melody just like, “What about this, huh?” And she immediately supported it.

Pat: I’m really stoked with how this song came out production-wise. It sounds so huge. I love everyone’s sound on the recording. The chorus lyrics are some of my favourite lyrics Matt has ever written. I think the song is paced and structured really well, every part serves its purpose.

4. Something Cool

Pat: Lyrically I think this is some of the best stuff Matt has written also. I got to help a bit with some of the verse lyrics, so I was stoked on that. The shifts in dynamics of this song make it really interesting and super fun to play live.

Matt: Pat says the lyrics are good, but I swear he wrote the coolest line in the song. I was stuck on half of verse two and pre-chorus two for a while and Pat comes at me with, “Reading the lips of a snake / Telling me my mistakes.” I love that line heaps.

The structure took ages to figure out for this one because without the tempo changes it just felt so predictable and boring. Then one day I wrote the slower chorus and figured out how to make it shift between tempos smoothly. It’s a really rewarding song to play because of that as well.

Tayla: Yeah, it has so many different parts slammed together in such an artful way. Plus I think everyone can relate to the feeling of wanting to achieve something outside of our own egos or the world we grew up in.

5. Skip To The Good Part

Tayla: ‘Skip to the Good Part’ felt like a strong closer to the EP, addressing the feeling of constantly trying to chase improvement in your life while missing what is in front of you.

Pat: It’s just a really great closer to this collection of songs too. I love how not rushed the pacing of the song is, how it just kind of lets itself happen. Has great lyrics and themes, hits in the feels.

Matt: Definitely. I’m super proud of all of these songs, but this one hits a lot of emotions for me. I wrote it both for and about one of my closest friends from high school who tested positive for cancer in late 2021. He’s since made a full recovery, thankfully, but the whole song touches on how we always want the better things in life, even if the golden things are right in front of you.

The ending of the song also has a bunch of distorted and chopped audio samples of voice recordings during funny conversations and memories over the past few years, so I think that was a nice little touch to really tie in with the theme of the song and the collage-based aesthetic of the EP and single artwork (by Sophie Lyle).

Talk Heavy