Interview with *Airline* (Eora/Sydney)

Hey Airline, who do we have here today and where are you writing to us from?

Hey, this is Andy from Airline, writing from Sydney Australia

What was the very first moment Airline “clicked” as a band?

I’d say our first show with Callum. Prior to this we were a three piece, and our sound was only really beginning to take shape. I’d say that his arrival really put everything we were trying to do into place and made sense of it all.

How would you describe the chemistry between you as musicians?

We’re honestly just really good friends. I’d say the band is an excuse for us to hang out, be idiots, and make loud noises together. Sometimes we completely lock in and it seems like, in those moments, we are creating something truly greater than the sum of its parts. Usually the lock in is followed by the check out though, and we resort to stupid jokes and bits. I’d say we collectively have the most bottom of the barrel sense of humour imaginable, really just pure garbage.

What do each of you bring to the project that people might not expect?

I don’t know how unexpected they are but there are definitely distinct things that we each bring. I bring a love of making spaced out weird noises, so a lot of the ambient stuff is my touch. Most of the melodic guitar lines are from Hunter, he’s got an incredible ear for heaps of music and it definitely shows. Lewis is our drummer but he’s also an all time guitarist and bassist too, all self taught, bit of a prodigy. In my opinion some of the best Airline moments are when he and Callum lock in together, like the 6/8 groove of the back end of ‘Bloodspiller’ — Callum has a knack for interesting rhythms and adds so much energy to the project. He typically comes equipped with his bass, pedals, a pack of manchester sapphires, a crinkled old water bottle with a few drops left, and the latest yarns fresh off the press.

How did you land on the sonic identity of Airline?

All of us have been really into heavy or distorted sounds in music for quite some time, be it shoegaze, post-hardcore, or emo style sounds, and I think we have a desire to make music that we enjoy listening to and playing. Subtle changes in our tastes at a given time have drastically altered what choices we make in the studio. I think this is pretty normal. It’s hard to say if we have even arrived at a definite sound yet. The reality that we likely haven’t is actually the most liberating thing we could ask for.

Are there any non-musical influences?

I’m certain that we are all influenced in one way or another by a range of things extrinsic to music, be it an experience, political view, a general outlook on life, or forms of art. Personally, I’m a pretty big nerd, fantasy and sci fi have always been pretty cool to me. I grew up watching my older brother play Halo on a little crt tv and it’s done a serious number on my neural pathways. Nature and Space are huge inspirations for me too. Callum and I often exchange space facts about the latest scientific discoveries, and talk nonsense about life on other planetsand our place in all of it, real life of the party behaviour. I would say that a lot of that finds its way into our music and the themes we consider.

Which influences are “core” to Airline, and which ones surprised you as they crept in?

The obvious ones to us would have to be Title Fight, Hum, Narrow Head, Julie, Thursday, The Appleseed Cast, Whirr, Braid, Deftones, and Ovlov. There’s plenty more that could be “core” I’m certain, but we would be here for a while. Some surprising ones have definitely been the more folky influences. There’s a little bit of Nick Drake, some Alex G, or MJ Lenderman, maybe even a touch of Slow Pulp in some of it. I’d say that most of our guitar parts start acoustic and folky before being worked on by the band. We’ve all got a big appreciation of folky, acoustic music.

Is there an album you collectively agree is perfect?

I’m gonna say Inlet by Hum. With honourable mentions to Moments of Clarity by Narrow Head, and The Last Thing You Forget by Title Fight.

Top 5 go-to Records at the moment?

How to Take a Fall - four way split album by: Juno Eclipse, Should be Sweet, Charles

Carnabuci, & Siphon.

God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars - by Shallowater

Chrysalis - EP - by she’s green

Sprouting from the Gums - EP - by Creeping Jenny

Standing Still in a Moving Scene - by Hyakkei

Are you gear heads? Any pedals, amps, or studio toys you swear by for your sound?

The others love their pedals and like getting good tones, but don’t really obsess over gear. I’m the opposite, definitely a gear head. I’m massively into pedals and amps. The pedal that is most important for my heavy tone is an octave fuzz called Transistoriser by Dirty Sock Effects. I’m a huge fan of all their pedals really, Ewan is a proper mad pedal scientist. A lot of the ambient stuff I do is assisted by the Plus by Gamechanger Audio, it’s a piano sustain for your guitar, that can be dialed up to sustain infinitely, and you can stack up to 5 sustainedlayers at once. It’s pretty amazing and super intuitive to use, genuinely an incredible pedal for creating texture and pads for melodies to sit on.

Ampwise, the Roland JC-120 is unbeatable if you use pedals or want to create space in your tone. Personally, I’ve never had a bad show or recording with one. As for studio toys, one of the engineers we work with a lot, our homie Finn, has a couple of the Chasebliss pedals, it’s a proper ambience cheatcode. They are full fledged spaceships and it seems impossible to create the same noise twice through them. I’m not even sure how to describe what they do to the sound, it’s kinda a reverb, chorus, ensemble, bitcrusher, distortion, and delay all in one, with no clear idea how to drive any of it. Some of the spaciest, most outlandish sounds come out of all of them, and it’s always a surprise. Makes it super easy to fall into a creative mindset where every cool part of the recording was a total accident at the time, and is somehow cooler than anything we could’ve come up with on our own. Shoutout Finn and his Chasebliss pedals for real.

Do lyrics come from personal stories, or do you write more through imagery and vibe?

To be honest a bit of both. Some of it is immensely personal, about moments of our lives, about the world, about people, or about ourselves. I like to use metaphors quite a bit, I like to think it makes the lyrics more universal, open to the listener’s interpretation. For other songs though, it may be a completely meaningless series of words that sound kinda cool together. I think there’s something to be said for allowing a song to form itself, so many times I’ve tried, with a heavy hand, to force meaningful lyrics on a song that doesn’t need it. If a song is meaningful it comes easy, the words seem to write themselves and the whole thing works. Every time you overthink it, or try to add meaning where it didn’t exist, the listener can tell, and so can you. Especially as some songs don’t need to be deep at all, they just have to be interesting or fun to listen to, sometimes you just wanna hear something and go ‘yep that is beast’ without having to study every syllable.

What’s been the most memorable gig you’ve played to date?

We’ve had a fair few memorable shows in our time, I’m sure we all probably have different ideas for the ‘most’ memorable. Touring with Gush in 2024, we played a diy show in a crowded kebab shop in Canberra on a freezing cold winter night. We’ve played a show at Marrickville train station once, the cops came. We recently played an all ages show in someone’s backyard where some kid got thrown into our drum kit. Most recently, we played at Kelly’s for Summer Crawl in Newtown, the room was shoulder to shoulder and people were spilling out onto the street, none of the mics worked so no one could hear a word we were saying, but the energy was good, I suppose it’s memorable because it feels like it was the largest crowd we’ve had yet and knowing that so many people stopped to check us out is a pretty cool feeling.

What’s the plan for 2026 and where can we see Airline play next?

Our second EP is coming together nicely. Titled ‘koi’ it’s set to release in March alongside a release show, and we are all pretty proud of it, some tracks are old, some are brand new. It follows a pretty consistent theme throughout but doesn’t demand understanding. It is far lessintentional than our previous work, a lot of it has fallen into place by chance. Its heaviest moments are far heavier than we have really gone before, and its softer moments are some of our most stripped back sections to date. Super keen for everyone to hear it. The release show is at the Oxford Art Factory on 26 March 2026. We’ve sorted a huge lineup of our friends and inspirations to support us. Juno Eclipse, Creeping Jenny, Gush, and Twelve Point Buck. It’s going to be such a sick night, we wanted a lineup that we would go to see, even if we weren’t playing. For the rest of 2026, we have a few exciting things in the works that we will talk about closer to the time. For now, get a ticket and come to OAF.