SLOWLY SLOWLY

Ben Stewart’s goal for Slowly Slowly’s fifth album, Forgiving Spree, was simple: “I wanted it to be a really solid rock album that had no filler on it. Everything is tightly packaged, made for the stage, and explosive.”

 The singer-guitarist namechecks The Killers, Bruce Springsteen, and John Farnham as influences while creating Forgiving Spree, artists with classic songs “made and broken onstage”. Combine that melody-packed bombast with the lyrical dexterity and sensitivity of Bright Eyes, and you have Slowly Slowly’s stunning fifth record.

 The impetus for sculpting this nine-song set was the Melbourne quartet’s tour in support of 2022 predecessor Daisy Chain – which debuted at Number 5 on the Australian charts, their second Top 10 album following 2020’s Race Car Blues – a joyful series of shows that, says Stewart, were “ringing in [his] ears” as he began writing for the album that would become Forgiving Spree.

 Those sessions were split between Melbourne and LA, where he worked with Courtney Ballard (5 Seconds of Summer, Waterparks, State Champs, Stand Atlantic, Good Charlotte), who co-produced “Gimme The Wrench” and “Love Letters”, and acclaimed Panic At The Disco, Weezer, and Fall Out Boy collaborator Suzy Shinn (resulting in the anthemic title-track). Many of Stewart’s vocals were lifted straight off the demos, preserving the emotion of the moment he first committed them to tape.

 The singer may regard Forgiving Spree as “more brawn than brain at times”, but that doesn’t make its subject matter any less nuanced or heartfelt.

 “The idea that the songs are singalong bangers doesn’t mean they have to be frivolous lyrically,” he nods. “I still wanted to dig really deep. I didn’t want it to be a throwaway pop album.”

 That much is clear from the opening title-track, a song Stewart says provided a purpose for the album. “I was searching for this broad concept about forgiveness being for you, not the other person. People don’t often think about it as a selfish thing, but it’s such a valid tool to help move through things properly.” 

Then there’s “Hurricane”, a cinematic telling of Stewart’s wedding day and the joy of discovering he and his wife were to have their first child, only to suffer a miscarriage four months into the term. It took a session with producer Lucky West to coax the story out of the singer. “It was a really nice way for me to do it justice, and not cheapen it,” says Stewart.

Heartfelt emotional closer “Born Free” is the only song to veer from the short, sharp shock of the rest of the album, and was written in the wake of several deaths in Stewart’s family. It means so much to him he believes it will be “the song they’ll play at my funeral”.

If there is a muse on Forgiving Spree, it is surely Stewart’s wife – the person to whom he first shows every song he writes. That concept lies at the heart of “Love Letters”, which was penned following a conversation between Stewart and Ballard about the fact no one sends them anymore. The singer began reflecting on all the songs he’d written for his partner, and how they were in effect little audio love letters.

Their relationship also fuels the joyous “How Are You Mine?”, in which Stewart refers to his wife as the alkaline to his acidity, acknowledging that she’s changed him for the better. “I struck the lottery,” he smiles. “I’d built this persona as the lonely sad guy, and it’s like shedding skin. I can be happy. It’s a celebration song.” 

So too is “All Time”, a buoyant number with a two-step beat that riffs cheekily on the idea of eternal love, pitting its subjects as lovers meeting first in “the throes of Pompeii” and again thousands of years later at a “share house party”. 

That Stewart is willing to tackle emotions such as love, loss and forgiveness without hiding behind self-deprecation is indicative of his maturity as a songwriter and, indeed, a person. That he feels comfortable drawing on influences such as ’80s pop (the celebratory breakup song “That’s That”) and poking fun at the tantrums he was guilty of as a younger man in “Meltdown Masquerade” (“I view each line of the chorus as a dance move: ‘cry to your left, tantrum to your right’”) also speaks of an artist comfortable in his own skin. 

“It doesn’t seem to be a record beating myself up,” he nods. “And that’s something I’ve flown up the flagpole so much in my career. But now I pull myself up on the way I talk to myself if I make a mistake. I’m practising kindness to myself, first and foremost, and forgiveness is a tool for that.” 

If there is one song on the album that captures the determination with which Slowly Slowly are approaching the next stage of their career – one rich with the promise of new beginnings, having recently signed a global deal with Nettwerk Music Group – it is “Gimme The Wrench”. Inspired by the scene in the film Good Will Hunting in which Matt Damon’s protagonist has to choose an instrument of punishment – belt, stick or wrench – he opts for the latter to avoid leniency and test himself. 

It's a mindset Stewart adopted during the making of Forgiving Spree, as a whirlwind of personal and professional events swirled around him. “I was writing in LA when my wife was heavily pregnant with my daughter, I had this crazy touring ahead of me, we signed to a new label that was going to push us into all these markets, and it was like a gathering artillery kind of thing,” he explains. “I needed to hunker down and be kind to myself because I knew the next 12 months were going to be busy. And ‘Gimme The Wrench’ is that ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ moment, like let’s fucking go. I’m so up for it.”

Record Label: Nettwerk

Booking Agent: AU/NZ - Lonely Lands Agency | ROW - CAA

Publishing: Concord Music Publishing