Albums scrapped, changed and rearranged is no qualm for X Ambassadors. Their long-awaited sophomore album Orion was brought to listeners’ ears in June, and will make its way to Australian shores for the first time in February 2020.

Exploring the domains of identity, relationships and the human experience from many personas, the group tried “to pay attention to all the details on this record and try to have a flow [so] the songs referenced each other”.

We chat to lead singer Sam Harris about the projections on Orion and their eagerness to make their way to Australia for their debut shows.

I wanted to congratulate you on Orion, because when I listened to it, it was enjoyable because you made the difficulty and complexity of weaving so many mindsets and vulnerabilities seem so effortless.

Thank you so much! That’s so nice. I really appreciate that. We worked our asses off on this record. I laid so much stuff bare emotionally on this album. It’s really nice to hear that, so thank you sincerely.

Hey Child’s angle to kick off the album was compelling as it sounded like a letter delivered to an old friend, tinged with nostalgia.

Do you think you would’ve been able to articulate the sentiment if it weren’t for music?

Yes, I do. It is a letter to my best friend and our old guitar player in the band, and we haven’t spoken in a long time… This is someone who struggled with his demons for years and is still struggling. I have a lot of love for this person… and this is my way of trying to reach out and say, ‘hey, we have a lot of history together and I want to honour that by telling you that I love you and I think you’re going to be ok’.

For my personality, I don’t like it when I feel like I haven’t done my most to try and communicate everything I need to communicate. I did send emails, and tried leaving messages on his phone prior to writing the song and making the video. This is my artistic expression and it really comes from my heart, so I felt like it was a good way… I felt like if I’m going to be personal with this, I’m not going to do it for vanity’s sake and do it for a reason. That reason was to try to build a bridge.

The fact that it’s not for vanity’s sake is marked in Hey Child clearly. Narrating the journey of an unrepaired friendship, the group take an unselfish and unspiteful route in mending fences with loved ones.

Can you talk about finding that clarity and not being clouded by sabotage, or judgements of what others are going through? It seems to trickle all through the entirety of the album on tracks like Quicksand.

I think that it’s a product of how I grew up for me. I grew up with kind, loving and intelligent parents who were empathetic themselves. A lot of my empathy comes from growing up with my brother. My brother [Casey in X Ambassadors] is disabled. He was born blind and it was a responsibility I took on at a very early age knowing that, and seeing that if I help out, because my dad worked out of town most of the time and my mum was raising us, it helps my mum and it makes us a safer and better family unit.

I learned to empathise pretty quickly and I think that’s the biggest one for me. Seeing the way other people look and interact with my brother and hearing from him what his experience is like moving through the world, I’m always looking to try and understand how others feel. Sometimes it becomes a problem for me because then I’m not paying attention to what I need. The struggle you hear on Orion is me coming to terms with the fact that I can only give so much of myself to the people I love without losing myself completely.

Does that compromise or affect your song-writing, or result in you sacrificing time or depth in song-writing?

Recognising the struggle has made my song-writing better. There have been times where I’ve been afraid to talk about my feelings on something and bring up behaviour of people in my life. For example, my family, friends and bandmates, because I’m afraid of what people think.

I realised quite early on in my career that if I lean into that feeling of something that’s a little uncomfortable, the end result is way better and more honest. I look to that now as a sign that I’m doing something right. If I write a line, and I hear myself singing it back and I cringe because it’s uncomfortable, I know I’ve tapped into something good.

That’s how I wrote Unsteady originally. That was about my parents’ divorce and how it affected me growing up. When I heard it back I was like, ‘who cares? Everyone’s parents get divorced. Who am I to be complaining about this?’ People love that song and it really affects them, and I feel like it proves itself to be worthy. I was also nervous about what my parents would think of it, and it turns out that it’s their favourite thing we’ve written. Just goes to show you that honesty is really the best policy. Most of the time people see that and respect it. Even the people you tell the truths about.

It’s almost like clearing the air in a way.

Yeah for sure. And sometimes that’s not always the case. Sometimes feelings are hurt, and people can’t take it. That’s something you have to work around. As an artist, that’s your job.

The song that made me tap into how I feel and recognise my struggle is Confidence.

Confidence frames lead singer, Sam’s voice softly, as he laces his placid tone with exhaustion in his style of singing.

Did you do a lot of takes trying to manipulate your voice, and was the way you sung it a reflection of the words, or designed to match K.Flay’s vocal?

That was what I felt the track needed vocally. The song is funny, and I love that one. It’s really true for me. When I met my wife, and in the past when I met other girlfriends or meeting people I’ve been infatuated with, I always end up looking like an idiot. I lose any shred of confidence that I had before. I look like a bumbling fool.

It’s exhausting to feel like that and to feel like, ‘oh no, here we go again’. I wanted to capture that vocally on the record. That’s one of my favourite ones on the album. It’s a unique song and I love K.Flay on it. She is the best and is so cool. She’s a good friend of mine and it was good fun to work with her on that song.

Had you worked together before?

We had never written together before, but we’ve toured before and we’re homies through that. We’re on the same label and know a lot of the same people and live in the same neighbourhood. I was looking for someone to feature on this song and we tossed around some other names, but eventually I was like, ‘I kind of just want to reach out to Kristine’, because I felt like she’d kill it and I know her, so I could just text it to her. I texted it to her and asked what she thought and if she wanted to write a verse to it.

Originally, she recorded a verse I had written, and I wanted it to feel more like her, so I was like, ‘why don’t you just write a completely different verse?’ She did it while she was on tour, so we did it all through email, and she sent me something back and I was blown away. That’s how it came together.

X Ambassadors are headed to Australian to perform their debut shows in February 2020 nationwide.

Have you ever visited before?

Never in my life! I’m so excited to come to Australia.

The group’s album covers have made a statement in catering to the visually impaired through high contrast images.

What can we expect live? Is there anything in the live show that will accommodate for that also?

We’ve been talking about it now. On tour with us currently, we have something we collaborated on with Microsoft. We made an app called the Boom App. It’s an experience where our fans can put headphones on and there’s some tablets set up where they can experience the app. We’ve built these little sound stages.

One of them is an Ithaca scene, which is where we’re from in upstate New York. Another one is Bushwick in Brooklyn, where we started our band. There are different objects from our time there, from as early as our childhood in Ithaca, to things we used to have in our apartment in Bushwick.

That’s the kind of sensory experience we have set up for our fans, but in terms of the show, we haven’t quite figured out how to make it a more interactive experience for the blind and visually impaired community. It’s a challenge we are definitely interested in taking on more and seeing what we can do there.

We always try to make the show feel as big as possible [anyway] and electrifying as we possibly can make it. I’m bouncing around stage and my brother has so much energy on stage, so it’s pretty wild. We just want to make sure we do our best to sound as good as we possibly can and look as good as we can. The show is very high energy, I will just say that.

Since it’s your first time in Australia, will we hear a mix of the VHS and Orion albums?

Absolutely. We’ll do a nice, heavy mix of both old and new since it’s the first time we’re over there. We want to be able to give everybody a taste of all the songs they want to hear.

Does playing the VHS songs mixed with the new Orion songs help you see how far you’ve come and your creative growth as a band?

It absolutely does. It’s so funny to me also, because as excited as we are about playing the new stuff, it’s fun to see the crowd react so strongly to our older material in addition to the new stuff.

They’re a little more excited about the older stuff because they’ve lived with it longer and have deep, emotional connections with it. It’s cool to come back to those songs and have a renewed appreciation for them in a live context because you can see how people respond to it rather than going back and listening to it [yourself].

X Ambassadors begin their Australian tour on 4 February 2020.

Tickets**: secretsounds.com

DATES:

Tuesday 4 Feb ’20

Auckland – Powerstation

Thursday 6 Feb ’20

Sydney – Metro Theatre

Friday 7 Feb ’20

Melbourne – Croxton Bandroom

Saturday 8 Feb ’20

Brisbane – The Triffid