For Karina Wykes, Cam Robertson & Joey Wenceslao, the past year has been an absolute whirlwind. The young Sydney trio have been crafting majestic pop as Glades; their three debut cuts came as a sonic trifecta, racking up millions of hits and landing them on everyone’s ones-to-watch lists (as well as a snazzy record deal!). We caught up Karina, the girl with the golden chops, to chew over songwriting, the Spotify universe, prepping for live gigs, and binge-watching Suits.
How did the three of you start making music together?
Karina: The three of us were friends in high school and had worked together on a previous project, but it all kind of fizzled out. After high school, Cam & Joey were producing for friends and decided to try out the artist thing. They wanted a singer to make it more of a band rather than just a production duo, so they asked me, and here we are!
What’s the story behind the name?
We spent months trying to think of a name. During a holiday break, Cam went to the snow and was at the top of a ski run called ‘The Glades’. When he got back to the lodge he texted us, and we really liked it, so it stuck.
What are your musical backgrounds? What artists did you grow up listening to?
I play a little bit of guitar, but I’ve been singing for as long as I can remember. Cam & Joey both play piano & guitar, and both did internships at music studios. We grew up listening to artists like Coldplay (so much Coldplay) but also our parents’ music like The Eagles, Toto, America, Queen…
Can you take us through your songwriting process?
We always start a writing session with listening to music. Then, 99% of the time we start by making the beat, lay down some chords, and then start writing the lyrics & melody. Songwriting is often a very personal experience for us.
What was your approach to co-writing?
The main rule of co-writing is to leave your ego at the door – everyone’s opinion is equally valued. It’s a pretty delicate balance sometimes, but we make it work! It’s always about saying, “how can we make this idea work?” or asking, “how can we make this better?” rather than, “No, my idea’s better.”
There are a lot of young electronic artists breaking through at the moment – do you find it hard to keep an ear out without being influenced too much/risking creating something that sounds too similar?
It’s always a risk with art, to make something similar to something that exists, because that route’s easy. It’s definitely difficult, since we listen to a lot of music, but we try to make a conscious effort to make music that’s different; if you copy something that exists, it’s rarely better than the original. Especially since a certain someone in the band is hypersensitive to catching minuscule similarities between songs… *cough* Joey!
How would you describe your sound?
We’d probably describe our sound as ambient, dreamy, and electronic with natural elements.
“Drive” has clocked up over 17 million plays online now! What’s the story behind the song? Did you anticipate the response you got?
Before “Drive”, we’d written a handful of songs, and they were all basically breakup songs. We felt like we should write a more positive song, so we wrote “Drive”. There’s no way we could’ve predicted the response we got – it’s always a little scary releasing new music because you never know what people will think.
How did you celebrate? Do you feel added pressure with your upcoming releases as a result?
From memory, to celebrate, we binge watched a few episodes of Suits… We’re definitely feeling a bit of pressure with our upcoming releases, but people seem to like what we’re doing so far, so we’ll keep doing that!
How do you think online streaming is changing the music industry?
More than ever, it puts the power in the listener’s hands. Anyone with internet access can listen to virtually any song. Playlists are evolving and becoming the new radio to an extent, and the listener has a continually evolving number of virtual stations to listen to. For the industry, this means another way to push content to the listener. It’s interesting to see the shift from buying music to streaming it – from an artist’s perspective, it means less income per unit, but there’s potential for an exponentially increased amount of virality as the entire song is accessible (as opposed to a 90-second preview). Streaming’s been the core of our success so far – with “Her (Loving You)” for example, the song’s exposure came primarily from key playlists on Spotify. People added it to their own playlists, and then it was shared around social media from there. There’s no doubt that it’s here to stay.
You premiered a lot of new material at your first live show – did you feel nervous leading up to it? How did the audience respond to the new songs?
It was pretty nerve-racking, even though we’d rehearsed pretty hard for it! It was the first time we played live, as a band, in front of an audience we didn’t know, with five essentially unheard songs. The audience response was incredible though. It was a showcase with a few other bands, but quite a few people came to support us specifically, which was so cool.
Is there an album or EP in the works?
We can’t confirm anything just yet, but we’re always writing new songs.
You can check out Glades’ stunning new cut “Speechless” here:
Photo by Nicol Mouton.