The Melbourne-based Maryborough-born singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/self-confessed sound nerd lets me in on the progress of his next single.
This isn’t the sort of sentence I write a lot, but it would be fascinating to get inside the mind of Craige Lovett, the publican in the regional Victorian town of Maryborough, when he was approached by Loui Froia in 2018, then a plucky high school student with a home recording set up. Loui had plans to release his debut EP at the pub, and Craig was prepared to take a chance on him. Launch night was a huge event: the aptly-named Loui Froia Band were a finely tuned act and the venue was packed with patrons standing shoulder to shoulder.
“The problem with it was, there was no follow-up after that,” Loui tells me over Skype, currently at home in Melbourne’s fourth Covid lockdown, his Rode NTA-2 drooping like a frond of a houseplant in the frame beside him. He has an authentic and warm presence, even across state borders, and when he talks, he gives the impression that he’s not only the kind of bloke who wouldn’t hesitate to get the next round, but also the kind who would be well worth having a beer and a yarn with. “I’d put this band together in the space of two months, and we were awesome. It was huge. People loved it. But there were no gigs after it, there was no tour, there was nothing. And it’s just because I didn’t know that you do that.”
Loui’s debut EP These Words was partially recorded at Ladd Studios and partially at his parents’ house in Maryborough, not that it sounds like an amateur production. Across the entire release, Erek Ladd’s drumming knits seamlessly with Froia’s home recordings. During my first listen, I scribbled “sounds like Thirsty Merc” in my notes. Both projects feature expansive and reverberating guitars, as well as harmonies with a raw edge. Loui’s vocals—especially performing live with his current band The Wayward Lovers—are big and dynamic, but highly listenable. It sounds like that one summer when you were fifteen. Twenty-somethings know what I’m talking about.
Because it came out of his high school experience, I asked Loui who his musical heroes were as a teenager. He took early lessons in catchy pop-rock songwriting from All Time Low before being introduced to Thirsty Merc midway through. “I was into all their albums. That kind of honest pop-rock songwriting really resonated with me. It’s raw, it’s honest, he’s [Rai Thistlethwayte] singing with his bloody Australian accent, and it’s huge!” While he still retained his earlier punky influences, he built These Words around what he admired most in Thirsty Merc, as well as similar acts like the fellow home-grown band Taxiride.
“You’re not going to believe this Loui—” I replied, flipping back to my initial notes.
When he’s not confined to a five-kilometre circle of his residence, Loui studies sound production at Melbourne’s RMIT. He’s been recording his own stuff since he was fifteen. He first saw the inside of a studio around the same time when he was invited to record a single with Shane Harman at his studio in Dunolly. “I kept my ears and eyes very aware of what he was doing, and I was asking questions like, ‘Hey, why do you mic up the guitar that way?’ And he’d show me. […] I essentially just looked at everything he was using—speakers, microphones—and then I went home, worked my butt off for a little bit and bought the same stuff.” This experience encouraged him to experiment endlessly with his home studio, learning how the achieve the sound he wanted as well as developing a preference for recording himself.
When I ask him to go back further and describe when he first found his love of music, he chuckles, and describes the first time he saw Back to the Future, specifically the scene where Marty McFly plays “Johnny B. Goode” at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance. “He was just rockin’ out and kicking over amps and I was like, ‘Yeah! That’s rock and roll! I’m doing that!’ And that sort of sealed my fate I guess.”
The songs from These Words tell stories of youthful love and heartbreak, the kind of overwhelming feelings you have for the first time as a teenager. In his Spotify bio, Loui boasts that his “thing” as an artist is honesty. He confesses that most of his songs are autobiographical to the extent that those close to him would know what, or who, they are about. “I’m only twenty. I’m not saying that I’ve lived forever or had many experiences, but I write about the things that I feel.” Lack of experience is an accusation levelled at even the very best, but Loui reasons that “We feel things more when we’re younger, because it’s new.” If he’s felt something, chances are one of his listeners has too.
That being said, Loui doesn’t save songwriting for when his heart is broken. “I think the fun part of it for me is because it’s just me and me when I’m writing a song. It’s just me looking straight at myself with a mirror. It’s like levelling with myself. What am I actually feeling? Why am I feeling that way? Asking yourself those questions and figuring out words to describe them and putting them in the lyrics. That’s what it’s about. That’s the fun. The challenge.”
Loui’s proficiency in recording and production gives him a lot of freedom over his workflow, and also means he can supplement his income with freelance projects. This has included work for Maryborough Council, composing soundtracks for student film projects, and working as a camera operator for the McNaMarr Project, a blues/roots group from Ballarat. Between this and his own work, he’s learnt to do just about everything required for the production and release of music. He sums it up neatly: “If you don’t have a record label, you essentially have to be it”, including not just music production but promotion and cultivating connections with potential listeners. Loui made the whole of 2018 about These Words, and it seems like he has similar plans for 2021 and his upcoming single.
As for that, Loui might be one of the few Victorians to be happy about having a week to himself. He tells me he “really just wanted to get into the studio and relax, have fun, maybe just finish off writing a few songs. This is—I think I needed it.” Covid pushed the project back significantly, and Loui confesses that after ending up with final result of recording in multiple locations, he “cracked the shits a little bit” and ended up scrapping a lot of his work. Despite that setback, and a minor struggle with his own perfectionist tendencies, he’s only got a little bit of vocal work to go. “This lockdown, I’m pulling the pin,” he declares, “I’m going to sing those songs and finish it.”
If that goes well, you can expect Loui’s next single in November, with an EP to follow. When Victorians are allowed back in pubs, you’ll probably see him and The Wayward Lovers out and about, with gigs in Maryborough, Bendigo, and Melbourne on the cards to launch the single. When I ask him about long-term goals, Loui takes a philosophical approach: “I’d just like to be in a position where my music is doing well enough and it’s affecting people.” He pauses, and then adds, almost as if plucked from a far-off dream: “I’d love to have a cup of tea with Paul Kelly and discuss books. That’s where I want to be.”
You can follow Loui Froia on Instagram and YouTube. His music can be found on Bandcamp and Spotify.
definitely something. 