Blending saccharine guitar licks and tongue-in-cheek lyrics, The Tullamarines are Adelaide’s next great hope in the indie-bop arena, with a poignant message that floats across jangly guitars and insatiable rhythms.
Inspired by how powerless young adults feel in the “internet-age”, ‘Television’ is an anthem for the ‘zoomer’ generation; a group who are bombarded with bad news and political inaction, yet feel constantly unable to affect genuine change.
With this mutually shared eco-anxiety, frontman Angus Purvis took strength from those around him to pen a track, not just himself and fellow bandmates, but for those coming of age in 2022, feeling the effects of global instability, yet helpless to influence world leaders.
With ‘Television’ birthing as an instrumental demo from drummer Josh Thomas’ computer, the band combined during a writing session to sprinkle in input from all members, working to come closer to the final song heard today.
After a brief wrestle with verses and structure, guitarist Ben Waltho came in to practice one day with a new demo, perfected verses & the song was complete. The band headed to Forest Range Studios in the Adelaide Hills to track the single, roping in Holy Holy’s Oscar Dawson to fine tune the track through mixing & mastering.
“Television is a song about watching the world burn from the comfort of your bedroom. As members of the ‘zoomer’ generation it’s easy to feel completely hopeless for the future. Being constantly bombarded with information from the moment we wake up to the second we fall asleep and watching our world leaders actively avoid action is truly terrifying.
We often feel powerless to do anything besides sharing a post or signing a petition, actions with a seemingly minimal impact that perhaps only serve to make us feel better in the moment. We really wanted to write a song about this eco-anxiety we all face everyday, thus birthing television.”
Angus Purvis, The Tullamarines
“The song started as an instrumental demo that Josh had been playing around with on his computer. We jammed it during a songwriting session adding some of everyone’s flavors to it , but the form was so strong it stayed largely the same. We were wrestling with those verses for what felt like forever until Benny rolled into practice an hour late one day with a brand new demo. He played it for us and about ten seconds into that first verse the rest of us just looked at each other with a universal ‘yep!’ and the song was done”
Angus Purvis, The Tullamarines