40TH PARALLEL

Writer: Joseph Maranta

40th Parallel are such an awesome band. 

Though subjectivity and impartiality are core tenets of journalism, this is my article and when it comes to great blends of rock and jazz I could give a shit about remaining unbiased. 

My attention span has been completely nerfed from a sickening amount of short-form content consumption, but every time I re-listen to this band’s discography I find my mind engrossed solely on their music for 30 minutes a time. 

No reels breaks, no re-checking of my NRL fantasy ranking - just a gorgeous, melodic stream of the finest combination of rock and jazz this country can offer. The resonant lyrics, the drawn out passages which never overstay their welcome and just the pure class of this sextet, it is truly awesome. 

After their short but sweet debut EP Beneath the Noise was released in late October of 2024, they have recently embarked on their latest rollout of new singles with a noticeable change in confidence and energy. 

Their first new single, the more rock inclined Motor Relapse was followed by arguably their best fusion of rock and jazz yet, Cold Light. You can already guess how I’d sum up these songs in one word. 

I think they exist in quite a unique space within the Australian music scene, but I know that their distinctive sound will garner a much wider audience than their hometown of Albany and their new home of Melbourne, in due time. 

But enough plaudits, here is my recent conversation with 40th Parallel.

JOE: Thanks for sitting down for a chat, fellas. So, you’ve recently made the move from Albany to Melbourne - what’s that experience been like?

JEREMY: So myself, Jimmy, Sandro, and Josh are from Albany, and then we have another Josh on saxophone who’s originally from Perth, but we’ll call him Sunshine so it isn’t confusing. The only person in the band from Melbourne is our bassist, Nick. 

The move to Melbourne has been pretty goated, the music scene is so sick here - especially compared to back home in Albany. It’s been quite inspiring and eye-opening to see the diversity of music here. 

JIMMY: Since the beginning of the year, we’ve started to come together more as a band. Now that everyone’s in the one city, we’ve been able to practice every week, which is something we haven’t been able to do for quite a long time. 

JOE: Can you remember the first show you saw in Melbourne?

JIMMY: Yussef Dayes

JEREMY: The first concert we saw together as a band would’ve been Twine. We saw them at The Last Chance, and they were the loudest band we’ve ever seen. But we’ve been going to heaps of local shows lately. 

SANDRO: We also saw Mount Kimbie together as a band, which was really great. 

JOE: Your debut EP ‘Beneath The Noise” is almost a year old now. How do you perceive it now as you work towards a new project?

JEREMY: It was our first collaborative work, which was quite fun. We went away to a farmhouse to record it, and we did the project together off-grid for a week. We recorded, tracked, and mixed everything together as a band. I don’t know if we took it super seriously, though. We just created a few songs and then put it out. It’s a good little EP, but I don’t know if it fully represents us now. I think the music we create now is more complex and comes from very different writing processes. 

SANDRO: I will say that Beneath The Noise was primarily written by Jeremy, whereas our new music is far more collaborative. We have songs written by Jeremy, Jimmy, Josh, and me. 

A lot more people have a lot more input now. I think we were still finding our feet with the first EP.

JOE: Do you mind elaborating on what the current writing process is starting to look like?

JEREMY: So with Beneath The Noise, the songwriting and lyricism were all done by me, and then we’d bring it together as a band. With our newer stuff, though, it’s a different process which varies from song to song. For example, Sandro has written all of the lyrics for some of the new tracks, and Jimmy has laid the foundation for other tracks with his keys, while Sunshine (Josh) carries a lot of the uniqueness and sparkle of our new songs with his saxophone. 

JOE: Is there anything you miss about the WA scene?

JEREMY: It can be tough to make it out of WA, and it can be very hard to be noticed by the East Coast. I think what we miss mainly isn’t the music scene; it’s just living in Albany and being able to be so close to one another. The way the band formed was really cool, just having heaps of free time with nothing to do - jamming at the back of Jimmy’s house three times a week and going swimming, or to the pub in between those jam sessions. Life was all sunshine and rainbows then. 

JOE: You released ‘Motor Relapse’ in early July, and it’s one of the more unique songs in relation to your discography thus far. How did that track come to life?

JEREMY: It definitely is unique in our discography. I wrote it about a year ago with Jimmy in Albany. The song and its lyricism sound really deep, almost like a relationship song - but I really just wrote about my car continually breaking down. That’s why it’s called motor relapse, because the car kept failing on me. It’s about putting pressure on myself to continually fix the car, but I guess it’s also about putting pressure on yourself in general and going through that cycle of unnecessary turmoil. 

A lot of stuff has happened between writing that song and now, including a breakup I’ve gone through. So now I perform it as if it’s about a relationship, because the lyrics are somewhat transferable. But it’s not that deep. 

JOE: Is the brief step away from jazz in Motor Relapse indicative of your future music?

SANDRO: The songs we’ve recorded so far are pretty different in their sounds. They all work together - but I can’t pinpoint why. There’s no consistent theme in terms of sound or meanings because we all have different writing techniques.

JIMMY: I do think that our new songs have a certain direction - and as of now, that [Motor Relapse] is the direction we’re taking. So we’re a rock band, but we still have those jazzy undertones with the saxophone and keys.

JOE: Jimmy, I’ve interviewed your brother Oscar from Alison Parade in the past. He mentioned that his songwriting is heavily inspired by his fondness for poetry - do you share the same love of poetry and creative writing?

JIMMY: Our dad was heavily into Van Morrison and Bob Dylan, so definitely to an extent. But Oscar is far more into short stories and definitely got more of that creative writing from our father, where I think I’m more into the musical side of things, and I think you can hear more of that in 40th Parallel. As opposed to Oscar with poetry, I’ve fallen more in love with putting together the song structure and chords. 

JEREMY: Yeah, Jimmy hasn’t written too many lyrics for us yet.

SANDRO: You’re definitely a good writer, though. 

JOE: Do you think any of Alison Parade has rubbed off on you since you joined the band, Jeremy?

JEREMY: I would definitely say Alison Parade’s cohesiveness and Oscar’s unique songwriting have inspired me to be a better musician and band member in general. But lyricism - we’re very different in that regard. I can only really write lyrics when I’m at rock bottom or feeling something very deeply. I try to be very personal and honest with my lyrics. Not to say Oscar’s aren’t, we just have different songwriting styles I think.

JIMMY: If you compare Jeremy’s writing with Alison Parade, although both interpretive, Jeremy is often far more literal.

JEREMY: With recording the new album, we’ve been purposefully collaborative too. For instance, we have a new song coming out later in the year called Rush, and it was based on a poem written by Sandro. 

JOE: You said ‘album,’ not EP. Do you find the idea of an album daunting at all after recently finishing an EP?

JEREMY: Nah, not really, it feels pretty chill to be honest - it feels like we’re destined to do an album. We’re just chipping away at it one day at a time. 

JIMMY: We also record a lot at home, in between different houses, so the financial burden isn’t as scary since we’re only paying people for mixing, we’re not renting out studios or anything. 

SANDRO: We’re also self-managed, too, so we don’t have anyone telling us what to do, which lets us work at our own rate. 

JOE: Have you settled on a favourite new song to perform live?

JIMMY: I’d say for me, it’s our next single, Cold Light. 

JEREMY: I’d say that too. When Sunshine plays it with us, it’s definitely the best. That switch-up in the middle is so interesting to play every time. The chords that Jimmy wrote for it aren’t hard to play, but it’s so satisfying. The structure of that song is very unique compared to the other ones, stress-free but also very fun. 

JOE: Do you think you’ll hop on a tour before the album is out?

JEREMY: I hope so. We’re going to Albany in a few weeks for a show, but we haven’t played outside of Melbourne or WA since making the move here. 

JIMMY: We’ve talked about heading up the East Coast. 

JEREMY: We’d really like to head there within the next six months or so, but we can’t justify doing a headline show because we just don’t have that audience yet. Like, we don’t really exist yet, so it’s hard to do our own shows outside of Melbourne. But it would be ideal to hop on some support slots at different shows in the east. 

JOE: What city on the East Coast would you be most excited to play at?

JIMMY & SANDRO: Sydney. 

JEREMY: I’d say Brisbane - I think that scene is far more exciting than Sydney’s. Honestly, I’d prefer to play in Newcastle than Sydney. 

JIMMY: I don’t know, Newtown in Sydney seems pretty awesome - it seems like they have a good scene there. 

JOE: For those who haven’t heard of 40th Parallel before, why should people listen to you?

JEREMY: You shouldn’t. No, I kid, I think the music we make is something which most people wouldn’t have heard before in the Australian scene. I have faith that our music is quite unique and interesting to listen to - without being overly experimental or whacked out. 

JIMMY: All of us try to write music that we find interesting, but we aren’t into heavy dissonance, so we try to focus on making melodic music with interesting structures. 

SANDRO: That’s a good way of putting it. I’m confident that no one sounds like us. Nah, I’m joking, but I do think our sound is unique to an extent.

40TH PARALLEL -> | SINGLE LAUNCH TICKETS (NAARM) 15/08 | INSTAGRAM | SPOTIFY | BANDCAMP