Easy Life have announced and released their UNFD debut, There Can’t Be This Much Water In The Sky EP today ahead of their Yours and Owls main stage debut this weekend.
A striking snapshot of small town living, Easy Life created a vivid collage of the anxieties and emotions of life in a regional coastal town in There Can’t Be This Much Water In The Sky. Growing up in the idyllic surrounds of Shellharbour NSW is where Easy Life’s coming of age story begins, and the boys take us on a tour of their home in the video for “Light Me Up”.
The four luscious tracks on There Can’t Be This Much Water In The Sky address the limbo between youth and adulthood; where for many it’s the first time they flirt with grief and pain.
“I was in a tough place in my life at the start of last year,“ says frontman Max Pasalic. “The anxiety and everything that comes with it not only destroyed me but I exploded and had a bit of a meltdown and the story arc of the record is a different stage of that and how I was feeling.”
There Can’t Be This Much Water In The Sky begins with self-destruction, then acceptance, understanding and finally rejection, set to a melancholy yet triumphant soundtrack that shares a shelf with Bring Me The Horizon, Citizen and Basement.
Easy Life, comprising of vocalist Max Pasalic, guitarists Jack Rankin and Jesse Mate-Gallo, bassist Kurt Haywood and drummer Jordan Pranic, formed in 2014 with the goal of escaping their small town and taking the unknown road. Fuelled by ambition, in their short time together, Easy Life have found a home on triple j Unearthed Radio with an Artist Spotlight and “I’m Fading Away” added to rotation. They also won a main stage slot at Yours and Owls festival, courtesy of the station. October sees the band embark on their first Australian tour with Endless Heights.
“Growing up in a small town, there’s not a lot of opportunity,” continues Pasalic. “The trajectory for a lot of kids is either you go to year 10, you get a trade and that’s your life or you go to year 12, get a university degree and move to Sydney and that’s your life. I can sit in my town and live a simple life for myself, or I can choose the left-hand path and take the next step.”
The last song on the EP “I’ll Leave You Behind” culminates with Shia LaBeouf reading the words: “nothing can define me. Not my anxiety. Not own mind. Just myself”. The line is a piece Pasalic submitted as part of LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner’s #andintheend performance art at the Sydney Opera House in 2016, and is a fitting end to an EP that sees the Shellharbour Sweethearts embracing their fears wholeheartedly.
