Exploration, Escapism, and Well-Being

The Australian rock band, Ocean Alley, talk about their travels, the importance of mental health, and their latest album, Lonely Diamond.

Sydney, Australia

Who is Ocean Alley and what are you guys about?

We are a rock sextet from Sydney, Australia and we just released our third studio album Lonely Diamond. We are a bunch of mates who grew up together living in a seaside suburb of Sydney and found a passion for writing and performing original music together.

In all of your travels as a band, what have been your favorite spots? How does traveling together strengthen your relationship?

We always have too much fun when we tour Europe and our favourite place there would be The Netherlands. In North America we’ve been to some amazing spots on both the East and West coasts. Whether it’s bushwalking and swimming in rivers in Nelson, BC or swimming at the beach in South Carolina we always find the time to get out together and explore wherever we are. It’s very special to be able to share all these new adventures in new places with your best mates.

As a band, you are advocates for mental health and work with organizations like One Eighty, which helps to prevent youth suicide. Why is mental health important? What inspired advocating for this issue?

People should be more open about their mental wellbeing and the mental wellbeing of others around them, and have the access to be comfortable in conversation. It’s important to start conversations about this topic and to attempt to remove the negative stigma surrounding it so as to prevent, particularly young people, thinking there is no one there to listen to them. Many friends and friends of friends from around our area growing up and indeed in communities all over the globe have lost their lives to mental health illnesses. If we reach out and help our friends, families and people around us these deaths can stop. We just want to do our part to help.

In your band's journey in mental health, what have your struggles been? What kind of barriers did you have to break?

It can be difficult to remain focused when we go on long tours and the monotony of groundhog day and missing our partners and friends sometimes weighs heavily on us and all in different ways too, but I think we try our best to support each other and that is a good way to get through hard times. Luckily we were very close friends when we started playing and writing music together nearly everyday so it was easier for us to open up to one another when things were not great.

**You just released your third album, Lonely Diamond. What are you exploring in this album? What kind of story are you telling us? Why is this story important?**

We explore new sounds and lyrical themes of escapism and exploration of new realms. We want to encapsulate the listener in our sonic universe to show them where we are right now musically and where we could possibly be travelling to in the future. Our most concise record yet should be experienced in full start to finish and with little preconception of what’s about to happen.

**How does Lonely Diamond show the band's growth and change from Chiaroscuro?**

We chose to try and do two things with this record; link our unique sound with our last record and also to explore new sounds and styles to give direction and inspiration to our future work. For the first time we made bold stylistic choices with a few differently delivered tracks to try and challenge the listener and ourselves further. Straying from a quintessential sound, we hope, will be just as exciting to the listener as it was to us as creators.

What's next for Ocean Alley?

More writing with all this time on our hands and plenty of planning for our live show for when live music returns to our pubs, clubs and venues. It’s a strange time for us but we are keen to come out the other end still firing!