LEAH WILLMOTT MEET... DORIS

LEAH WILLMOTT MEET... DORIS
This interview was conducted on stolen Aboriginal land in which we’d like to acknowledge the traditional owners of this land, the Awabakal and Worimi people. Sovereignty was never ceded and this land always was and always will be, Aboriginal land.

WORDS/IMAGES BY LEAH WILLMOTT 
Independent and illusive, DORIS likes to keep you on your toes, unintentionally and intentionally.
Before we start, this interview does not reveal the real identity of "DORIS" it is said that DORIS roams the yellow brick road of this Steel City, hiding in the bricks beneath your feet and watching from afar. Those who encounter DORIS leave dizzy, sweaty, and full of chaotic energy.
We met up with DORIS band back in early 2022 and sat down for a chat about all things shoegaze, junkyard jamming, and zesty releases.
 If you could describe your band in one word, what would it be?
"CHAOTIC! Or DIY, even though that's technically three words".

"
We do everything ourselves, and that's the goal, whether managing our gigs or promotion, everything at the moment, is all us.
"It gives us a lot of freedom to do what we want to do." 
The band is made up of 5 individuals – Billie, Ethan, Ziek, Cullen, and Myles – who, of course, all have other commitments and work. Which means coming all together to record and produce can be difficult to achieve. "The live songs compared to the recorded songs are different because we record individually, and Ethan produces all of it, making it a super collaborative process."

Recording individually and then coming together in the studio adds to the band's layers, deciding if they like the song or press alt ctrl delete.
Aren't we lucky we got them all together for this sweet little piece?
Myles gave us a superb analogy that encapsulates their whole music production process… 
"If you think about it like a Newspaper, Ziek would be the editor, and we are the individual writers. So he has a unique idea for what he wants the song to be, and we get to work within that, and it gives us a lot of space to work, and it fits what he wants from it".
Achieving this unique type of producing and still releasing stellar tracks is applaudable. With an EMO, Shoegazey, and Wacky mixture of sounds, each band member's eclectic taste, and novel inspiration comes through in the final product. "We all draw inspiration from different places as well; we all listen to very different music, so trying to combine a happy medium between it all is interesting."
Also drawing inspiration from local musicians and bands, DORIS is influenced by an array of urban artists for more than just their sound. "Local friends DUST, Underlay, Lamphead, Raave Tapes are some of the people that inspire us as individuals."
"Raave tapes were the first band I saw live in Newcastle as a teenager, and that inspired me to go 'I could do this'," Says Ziek.
Childhood sweethearts who all met at school, DORIS band began roughly 2 years ago after Billie's HSC recital. Starting with punk and grunge covers, their music transpired into what you hear now with new additions of sax and synth. "We go into shows thinking people don't listen to what we play, people don't know us, and we've come to terms with that, being the outlier, I guess."
Springing out of Maitland, the band started performing shows within the COVID landscape where gigs were still seated and when the live music scene was in hibernation. "It was hard to gauge how our sound came across to other people."
"At the beginning, we were immature in an experience sense, very naïve, rocking up to shows with 4 guitars each".

Beginning the band in a wildly unpredictable time where you had to scream and blare heavy fuzz to a seated crowd would have had its challenges. However, this only reverberates the band's dedication and devotion to pursuing a passion for a pending industry. 
Despite challenges, DORIS has played numerous shows back home in Wonnarua/Maitland, locally in Mulubinba/Newcastle, and onto shows in Eora/Sydney and Naarm/Melbourne.  Not without hard work and persistence, the band landed a show in Naarm/Melbourne in June, one of the band's "notoriety" shows. Ziek continues... "It took me four to five months of emailing back to back, different venues, trying to get anyone's attention, and then we got attention from Retreat Hotel but had to wait two months to book it in."
 
However, humbly bringing it back home, their biggest show to date was at the Junkyard in Wonnarua/Maitland. "We headlined one in December, and that one was really weird for us cause people from school, people who made fun of us, were at our shows."

"Seeing the whole place packed out was ridiculous, and that was the first time that had happened to us."

To date, the band has had some pretty surreal moments, playing shows in not only local Mulubinba but Eora/Sydney and to new and old audiences. It rings true that being a misfit is powerful, proving to yourself that you can do anything if you work hard and flaunt your stuff. With a current 2 year break from releasing new music, I asked the band why the elusiveness. Is it intentional? "Aside from the music part, what we are on stage is completely different from off stage." 
"Cullen's an extrovert, Ethan can talk to people, but the other half, we'll sit in the corner of the pub..but when on your stage, it's completely different, and that's what's possibly surprising to people".
We've all been there, we can all be awkward humans who like to hide in the pub corner, but not many of us can jump on stage and perform to that velocity. "It's a performance. You kind of have to play a character when you're on stage." Safe to say, we're impressed.
Now somethin a little juicy… 
The band hasn't released much since their 2020 tracks, but that's about to change. DORIS has plans to release some new recordings, fresh from the works.
"It took the longest to make so far because there are so many steps in it and so many changes within the song that we really wanted to get right before playing live."
Mashing three songs together from some archived goodness, this new single is going to be pretty damn fine. It will also be the first fully collaborative DORIS song, with Myles and his serenading sax and a studio recording with drummer Ethan.
The band is set to be more active in releases, and you'll see a lot more of them around town and beyond, a little less in pub corners and more on stage.
In saying that, DORIS has a new track that will be released on Sept 9th, 22, and you betcha, we'll be cheering for this one. Join the cheer squad, get dizzy, sweaty, and release some chaotic energy while DORIS perform their new track/s live at the Family Hotel on Sept 16th. 
 

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