ARUGULA

Writer: Keeley Thompson

Images: Kitty Gilchrist & Mos Desert Club House

The ship sways beneath her, a rhythmic rocking that threatens the contents of her stomach with each nauseating lurch. She takes a step forward, her pace out of time with the moving ground beneath her. Unable to move due to fear of falling, she closes her eyes and listens. The ship groans from the ceaseless strength of each wave, the water pounding on the tired wooden starboard to create a somnolent tune. 

She yearns for solid ground, for the comforting stillness of land and an end to the metallic knocking in her head. Falling to the guard rails, she hopes for sight of something motionless, but sees only the endless expanse of the ocean stretched out before her. 

A voice, familiar and grounding, breaks through the fog of her discomfort. 

“Another drink?” her friend asks with a wonky smile and unknowing gaze. 

In that moment, the ship, the sea, the nausea - it all fades away. She’s back, sitting around a mahogany table covered in empty glasses in the dimly lit bar called Saville Row. Her friends at the booth share carbonated laughs and ominous hiccups while a deejay spins vinyl in a shadowy corner. 

A glance at her phone confirms the time. It’s past midnight, not that you could tell in this bar. She decides to put her phone away and forget about the passage of time. Her friends, with their wide, spirit-filled grins and nonsensical chatter is everything she needs to forget about the clock ticking. 

“Yeah, another gin and tonic please” she replies to her friend. 

She submits to it. Another night lost and found behind The Orange Door. 

This is Arugula. 

The five piece band, consisting of Aidan Harding Bradburn, Lachlan Breheny, Annie Kusovina,  Lachlan Sweet and Sam Faulker are a colourful and curated mix of indie, psychedelic and garage rock. An ode to the creativity and musicality of the 60’s, Arugula captures the essence of a bygone time in their own way. 

KEELEY: How have you been? 

AIDAN: Yeah great! Living the dream. 

KEELEY: What’s the dream?

AIDAN: Been doing heaps of music stuff this month. Arugula played like seven shows and the other bands I’m in, DVD and Midgee had a couple too. Being doing a lot of practice and lots of music which is epic. 

KEELEY: Arugula released a new single, ‘The Orange Door’ recently along with a few other singles earlier this year. How’s the reception of those been?

AIDAN: Yeah we’ve released three this year. 

We had a music video made for The Orange Door which is our first one as a band. It’s a super trippy, heavily manipulated video thanks to the editing from our genius mate Reilly Vanniekerk. It was super cool to have that out. 

We’ve actually had it on the setlist for a while so playing it live isn’t anything new but it’s a fun track for all of us to play. It’s nice to actually have it out in the world for people to listen to outside of our live shows. 

KEELEY: Did you go into the music video with a plan/idea? 

AIDAN: No not really. The majority of it was shot on a super eight camera with myself and the band just performing the track. 

I sent those to Reilly and was like “can you please edit this and make it cool?” and he did, which is a testament to his skills. 

I probably should’ve had a plan though because I can imagine it would’ve been a lot easier for Reilly to edit [laughs]. 

KEELEY: And what’s ‘The Orange Door’ about? Is this string of singles leading to an album? 

AIDAN: The song basically pays tribute to reckless joy and overindulgence of alcohol along with my (sometimes unhealthy) love for Saville Row in Brisbane. If you’ve ever been there you’ll know the orange door and if you haven’t been there, you should go. 

We’ve got a few more songs to finalise but yes, hoping to have an album out in March or April next year, we’ve done about six or seven so far. 

We’ve actually been recording them all at home so it’s been fun to not have time pressures looming over us. We did the last EP in a studio and it was a bunch of fun and a good challenge, but having to have everything recorded in three days was definitely stressful whereas recording this album at home has taken a lot of that pressure off. 

There’s different kinds of stressors that come from recording at home though. Our main one being that my computer crashes all the time but I’ve just bought a tape machine so hopefully I don’t have to use it [my computer] anymore. 

KEELEY: Where do you get inspiration from to create? 

AIDAN: Honestly a lot of it comes from being surrounded by creative people. I grew up on The Sunshine Coast and one of the main reasons I moved was to find more creatives. It’s been really nice to have those friendships and connections that keep you motivated and inspired. 

It’s also great to be able to talk to other creative people that know, understand and are interested in what you’re doing. 

KEELEY: Yeah, having those connections can be so affirming and so important, especially in an industry that can be quite challenging to navigate.

Where do you get inspiration from for your instrumentation and lyrics? 

AIDAN: I’d say about 75% of the songs I write are love songs [laughs]. I definitely gravitate towards that, probably because it’s a strong emotion. That might sound like a cop out to some, but that’s what I write about. 

That being said, there’s variation in our lyrics too. As I mentioned, The Orange Door is basically about alcoholism and I’ve written a few angrier songs too. 

Instrumentally, I really love 60’s music and its psychedelic, proto-punk sound. I love treble-heavy, grainy sounding music and that’s what I listen to most so it’s something I wanted to recreate in my own way. If I had to name some bands I’ve gotten inspiration from I’d probably say The Frowning Clowns and bands that are doing that revival kind of stuff. 

KEELEY: You’ve played a lot of shows recently! Do you have any highlights gigs? 

AIDAN: We played with Kid Congo Powers and the Pink Monkey Birds back in March/April, it was so cool hearing him play and getting to support him was a dream. It was at The Zoo too which was special given it closed (although it’s back now!). 

We also got to support Brian Jonestown Massacre in November last year and that was insane because they’re probably my favourite band ever. The power of an email hey. That was funny actually because they asked if we’d played any big shows and I said “Yeah, the Triffid”, but they didn’t know that our show at the Triffid was just in the Beer Garden. 

Those two would be the biggest ones for us, but we’ve been so fortunate to play with so many awesome bands. 

KEELEY: If you were a drink, what drink would you like to be and what drink do you think you’d actually be?

AIDAN: The first thing that popped into my head was watermelon juice. That’s what I’d want to be. 

What I’d actually be is a banana smoothie, but only because I like them.

KEELEY: What’s coming up for Arugula? 

AIDAN: We’ve got a few shows coming up! 

We’re playing at Weaslestock in Ulla Dulla and then a few shows in November! We’re playing with The Bures Band at The Bearded Lady on the 15th, Nice Biscuit on the 16th and Magic Machine on the 17th so that’ll be a busy but good time! After that, hopefully nothing for the rest of the year so we can finish the album and relax a bit. 

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