Songs and snapshots with Jack Lundy

Emerging young WA singer/songwriter Jack Lundy has just released his second single, Gone. He chats with BOB GORDON about channelling emotions into songwriting.

Having spent his early teens playing in school bands, Jack Lundy is establishing himself as a solo singer/songwriter. The 17-year-old’s new single, Gone, is a lovelorn tale with a staccato rhythm attack that already hints at the diversity at play in his swag of songs.

“The song is about how you’re in a relationship and then that ends and that person is literally just… gone to you,” Jack says. “Really quickly, just in a snap, they become like a little snapshot. It’s about the feeling you get from that as you ponder why it happened.”

Produced at Fremantle Recording Studios, Gone began as an infectious riff that Jack began playing at his kitchen table that just had to be built upon. Its catchiness is underscored by a change in musical dynamics that makes it all the more alluring.

“I decided to extend from that riff, which is the intro with a bit of a lead part, but at the same time playing the chords and the rhythm and giving it a musical turn by playing what should be a minor into a major, which really gives it a different sound,” Lundy reveals.

“By changing what it should be melodically, I guess it almost becomes uncomfortable or unsettling. It offsets what you would expect. It’s just kind of an unexpected sound, and I feel like it’s something that can draw people in.”

Gone is the follow-up to Lundy’s debut single, The Fire, released in early June. That song came about as a stream-of-consciousness piece based on a strumming pattern that itself created a mood. After two years of solid songwriting, he’s found that emotion plays a big part in his creativity; he’s not songwriting simply for the sake of it.

“I think I write more when the mood takes me, kind of when you have, I guess, a certain feeling,” Lundy says. “It’s more of an emotional thing rather than trying to create as many songs as possible.”

Lundy is soon to hit the studio again to record an EP he hopes will be out by the end of the year. Having performed at the Indian Ocean Hotel with bands such as Red Temples, Lazy Drive, and JREAMIN, along with appearances at the Kalbarri Open Air Festival and Nannup Music Festival, he’s keen to gig as much as he can.

Meanwhile, he also has to finish Year 12.

“It’s pretty hectic,” he states, “but the music is an outlet for me as well. It’s not just for playing the songs and trying to get everything out there; it’s also just something that I can do to have a break and put things off my mind for a bit, to just channel it into music.

“But to have the songs up on Spotify and stuff, it does feel like I’m actually doing something with it.”