dust On Their New Album, ‘Sky Is Falling’

Photography by Josh Sabini.

In February of last year, dust vocalist and guitarist Gabe Stove said in an interview with us that the band's goal was to release an album. 

Now, a year and a half later, the Newcastle five-piece has accomplished that goal with the release of Sky is Falling. Their debut has instantly become one of our favourite releases of the year, with its varied range and more mature, evolved sound than we’d heard from them in their 2023 EP, et cetera etc. ‘Those earlier songs that felt like they were what we thought we had to be doing but with these songs it’s what we wanted to be doing,’ drummer Kye Cherry says about the album. Sky is Falling goes well beyond the IDLES-inspired contemporary “post-punk” sound of the band's early days, delving into their varied influences to create something more full and true to themselves while showcasing the band’s musical range and ability. From the slow songs to the chaotic songs, there is a balance that feels well thought out and complete. With Liam Smith’s deep bass lines, Adam Ridgway’s tastefully selected saxophone parts, Kye’s fast and flowy drumming and the great songwriting of the dual vocalists and guitarists Gabe and Justin Teale, dust have been able to make an album that is extremely exciting, catchy, and enjoyable to listen to, even if majority of the lyrics are about anxious thoughts.  

I sat down alongside special guest interviewer Tom Katsaras from Twine – who’s album New Old Horse was one of our favourites of last year – with Justin, Kye and Adam to talk about Sky Is Falling. 

Josh Sabini: Apparently, you guys released one song really early into being a band and it got deleted really quickly, what’s the story behind that?

Justin Teale: It was two songs; they were up for probably a year and once we started putting out the singles for et cetera ect. we realised we should delete them. I listened to those songs recently because my girlfriend had no idea about them. I played them to her, and I was so stunned that we made them. I couldn’t believe it. When I heard it, I was like what the fuck, those were fucked [laughs].

Kye Cherry: We got pressured into playing them a few times.

JT: They were made during a really young and impressionable part of our lives when we were listening to IDLES a bunch.

KC: Creatine! CHARLIE SHEEN!

JS: How old were you guys?

JT: Maybe like twenty or twenty-one not even that young.

JS: Oh, that’s not that too bad, I feel like that’s young enough to be excused.

JT: Yeah, it was nice to listen back to those songs but I’m glad they don’t really exist. 

JS: What was so bad about it?

JT: It was Gabe singing, his lyrics were good, but it was in his early days of writing lyrics. Neither of us had much experience writing lyrics and that was one of the first songs we ever wrote. 

KC: There were a lot of cliches with it all.

JT: Yeah, we were listening to a lot of that music at the time, so it was a lot of the cliché in those being like ‘Fuck this and fuck that, everything’s fucked’. It’s not even just lyrically bad, it’s also bad musically, I listen to the guitar parts and start gagging.

JS: So, you guys have been in a band for five years now and you guys are calling this your first album would you consider et cetera ect. an album?

JT: Yeah, I’d say this is our first album, with et cetera ect. it has the interludes and intros, they’re songs but I wouldn’t really count them, to us it’s an EP.

Tom Katsaras: Yeah, I always thought an EP is anything under half an hour and then once you go over that it’s an album.

JT: Yeah, it only goes for twenty minutes too so it doesn’t feel like an album. This writing wise feels like the first album, where it was front to back thought out.

KC: et cetera ect. was everything we had at the time. For this album we wrote a bunch of stuff and we cut things down, trying to work out what works for this conceptually and sonically.

JS: Yeah, how was thinking more deeply about it trying to work out how it would all fit together?

JT: Sonically we used all the avenues of stuff that we liked, we accepted all the influences, we love a lot of electronic music. Then writing wise I was listening to a lot of softer music; I didn’t discover Pavement until recently which is kinda embarrassing…

TK: Loser!

JT: I was listening to Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. when I was younger but somehow, I never came across Pavement, but listening to them and hearing the simplicity, that really blew my mind and made me want to write more.

TK: Aren’t they the best.

JT: They really are. I was listening to a lot of Elliott Smith, wanting to incorporate more song writing rather than just a big band sound, but at the same time we obviously all love Grouper so we want to have big sounds and tape-like stuff.

TK: So Kye, what about you?

KC: Yeah, as I was saying with those earlier songs that felt like it was what we thought we had to be doing but with these songs it’s what we wanted to be doing. Instead of us being like we are this kind of band it was us being like, ‘This feels really good to play’. We also spent more time with the songs, so it got to the point where it was like, ‘We like it, fuck it. It doesn’t matter if people don’t like it.’

JT: Listening to rockier stuff than we were before, some of the songs turned harder. Writing lyrics was more of basing it off personal feelings and thoughts you get every day. They’re a lot about feelings that you experience every day, very specific feelings of feeling awkward, struggling in social situations, feeling like you’re the worst. That’s where a lot of it came from lyrically, it’s about specific feelings of when you’re at the pub and feeling like you can’t be there, it’s random feelings like that.

JS: Yeah, totally. Listening to the lyrics of “Alastair” it feels like it’s one of those conversations you have with yourself when you’re freaking out, especially in the last verse.

JT: That’s funny you say that because it’s about a guy we met who was like that and then the song “Fairy” is that. I thought ‘fairy’ it’s another word for the person you’re talking to inside yourself. 

TK: I don’t feel like the dust song writing was ever bad, but it feels a lot more considered on the album, also the way the songs are a bit softer it doesn’t feel like you guys are trying to soften up it’s more emphasising the song writing as the lyrics are a major part of the song.

JT: Exactly, but that came organically which I’m really happy about. But I also love saying stupid shit with a song like “Swamped”. It was just funny to say things.

KC: That’s your Malkmus.

JT: Exactly.

JS: It’s sick that at the start of “Swamped” someone just shouts ‘gangbuster’.

JT: We weren’t going to put that in, it was just in the recording, and it was so funny. Just Adam shouting it.

JS: The album feels a bit more polished too, the slower songs bring everything together. It feels like you took your time with them, was that something you wanted when you were working on the album?

KC: Yeah, we played a lot of them while touring. We didn’t get the chance to record for ages because of the tours, so we got to try a lot of them live. That meant the recordings could be what would serve the songs the best way because we knew them so well and how they sound live.

JT: We wanted to keep it chill, it’s very easy for us to get carried away but we all wanted to do more softer dynamics.

KC: There were more songs, but we also spent so much longer recording it. For the EP it felt like we had to do everything on the first take which made it more frantic and chaotic. That was cool for that time, but this was a lot more like let’s do it again until we feel like we’ve done it. Also, when we were writing the EP we still weren’t living out in the world. Now, we’ve all lived together for years, experienced life a bit more, and got to write from experience, not just like ‘We’re a band.’

JT: We’re the five wise men.

JS: How was living together?

JT: Good. I lived with Gabe for three and a half years.

TK: Are you still in that crazy house in Newcastle?

KC: We’re not but that was crazy, I’m glad you got to see that house. There were like fifteen people living in that house and Twine came through. We lived there together

JT: Me, Adam, and Liam lived together in the middle of Darby Street above the thai restaurant, that was sick. We really got into electronic music around that time.

JS: What electronic stuff were you listening to?

KC: It was a lot of Grouper, Aphex Twin, and lots of Autechre. We were living in the middle of Newcastle, we’d be up all late in the lounge room looking over the street, watching all the cooked shit that goes down while listening to electronic music. It felt like a maturing musical time. 

[Adam Walks Up]

KC: We’re talking about the nest.

Adam Ridgway: Great time. We had a good set up too, we tried to record everything in there and the karaoke nights.

JT: Riley singing, all of me by John Legend with autotune [laughs].

JS: How do you think that electronic influence came into the album?

JT: I love big thick sounds and pads, crazy big ambience. Even though it probably doesn’t sound like it but when I’m playing guitar that’s what I’m trying to achieve, cranking the reverb. Also adding samples, making samples and using synths.

KC: Also, the fast cymbal washes, down the line direct high-hat notes, but also really flowy and free in the interludes. I’m really trying to bring textures into it rather than just playing beats, trying to play like a drum machine on the drums, letting it get kinda locked in then really loose.

JS: It’s cool with the saxophone, it adds another texture.

JT: Perfect timing.

JS: Yeah, do you want to talk about it, Adam? Whose idea was getting the sax involved?

AR: I was playing guitar for a while and I played a little bit of saxophone in school, then put it down. At some point I was like I’ll bring the sax and see if it’s alright with everyone. It was cool and I was like I’ll keep doing it. I feel like I’ve transitioned from guitar and sax to more sax now.

JT: We had to pry the guitar out of his hands. He still wants to do it and try to bring it to the gig. We’re like ‘No, sorry mate’ [laughs].

KC: He’s going to be a multi-instrumentalist; we’ve got big dreams for him.

AR: Big dreams for me [laughs]. But yeah, working on the sax more and more. Getting more comfortable with it in songs, taking the lead in a different way because I feel like I play a lot more in it now than on top of it which is nicer.

JT: I’m sure you have the same thing with the violin being a very leading instrument. 

TK: Yeah, I think it’s a thing of the longer you play together you figure out where you need it, it becomes less of throwing shit at the wall and being a bit more present with your choices.

JT: I’d say you did that so well on this album, it’s like why don’t you do something here but you’d be like ‘Not here’.

TK: Restraint is so hard to have.

AR: Knowing when it’s needed not being as tokenistic because it feels a bit silly sometimes. There are lots of conversations working out where we should add sax bits. 

JS: For sure, when you have an instrument that isn’t traditionally in the band’s in the genre of music you make it sort of becomes this gimmick, but it’s important to make it not a gimmick but something that really amplifies the music.

AR: Yeah, exactly.

JS: To wrap this up we have a big question from our guest interviewer.

TK: This is for you Justin, it’s a finish the line: ‘You pick up the phone and dial while I listen to my…’

JT: You bastard! I knew you were going to pull some shit like this!

TK: What’s the line?

JT: You pick up the phone and dial while I listen to my vinyl. That was from my first go at writing lyrics when I was eighteen, they are fucking garbage, I wrote them on a piece of paper, they were in my drawer, and we put them on the fridge. We had Twine over one night and we all were reading these really bad lyrics. I also think I’m a little bit dyslexic and the writing makes no sense.

TK: I think there is some gold in there you should bring them back.

JT: I wish I knew what the rest of the lyrics were [laughs].