Josh Pyke deals with anxiety and finding the balance between family and music on his fifth record

AWARD winning singer and songwriter Josh Pyke shares his battle with anxiety on his new record, as he learns to find a balance between music and family.

Pictured in Surry Hills is musician Josh Pyke who is about to release a new record, But For All Those Bleeding Hearts. Picture: Richard Dobson

AWARD winning singer and songwriter Josh Pyke shares his battle with anxiety on new record But For All These Shrinking Hearts in our Q&A.

But For All These Shrinking Hearts is your fifth solo record in a decade.

Coming here today I realised you and I have been talking about this s ... for 10 years. Isn’t that insane? I feel lucky to still be doing this, particularly now.

Which one of your sons is chanting at the end of the new single Hollering Hearts?

Archer. You can just hear it; he’s panned left on the headphones. He was super proud. We’d done the whole album and he was singing along around the house so I got my iPhone out. When we were doing the chanting, it was me, the producer John Castle and Hannah who works upstairs at the Alberts Studios. I just wanted that little thing to make it a bit more of a random chant.

Are your boys good sounding boards for songs?

Totally. They have the demos from day one, they know all the words.

Family album ... Josh Pyke enlisted his oldest son Archer to chant on his new album. Picture: Justin Lloyd

All your words? You have a lot of lyrics.

Archer is amazing. Surprisingly, there are no F bombs on this album or the last one either. I swear all the time in my talking voice, when I’m talking to anyone else but them. They have only really become aware of my music this year. They knew I was a musician but Archer now is ‘What’s this song about?’ I’ll say, ‘It’s about you’. “What this song about?’ It’s about your mum. They are not necessarily about those things but I don’t really know how to explain existential crisis to a four and a half year old. He sings along to Book of Revelations, the first song on the album and he puts on this amazing Eddie Vedder voice. He’s very cool. (My wife) Sarah has always been amazing at remembering songs after one go and I’m not. Augie our two year old is into making up songs of his own and drums.

Album cover ... Josh Pyke, But For All These Shrinking Hearts.

The album artwork and some of its ideas were inspired by your search for a tattoo design. Did you end up going with the perpetual motion machine you were looking for? Thanks to that cover I now know what a perpetual motion machine is.

Instead of a perpetual motion machine, I’m going to get a rope making machine, kind of like a loom but the old cranked ones.

Most of the songs took form in your backyard “shed” studio before you went into the big recording rooms.

On the perfect day, I drop the kids off, go down to the shed and work. Sometimes it’s going down the rabbit hole of the internet to research or making weird instrumental music. Sometimes I am writing a song I really love. I try to do 20 minutes meditation — yeah, decompressing — before I come back out into the world and go pick up the kids, cook dinner and have a normal family life. It’s awesome. And then I get to go on tour which I consider future-proofing myself against a midlife crisis. It’s my playtime and I get to sleep in, even if it’s until 7.30am with a hangover.

Do you ever stress about art versus commerce when it comes to providing for your family?

I refuse to write with an agenda or start thinking about what I need to achieve with an album. But yes, sometimes I am in a state of anxiety about it.

Hence the meditation?

Yeah, I have had some really bad proper anxiety attacks. Finding balance has been something that has become a focus for me. I never thought of myself as an anxious person, I thought I was super level-headed and rational but you feel it all unravelling at some point and have to face it. It’s definitely a recurring theme on the album which I didn’t realise until I pulled it all together. There’s all these references to crossing a line and I guess, as always, songwriting is the way I process what’s going on with my life and how I deal with it. There’s a line for everyone where you decide to cross it and deal with it or stay on this side of the line and slowly disintegrate.

Black dog ... Pyke deals with anxiety on songs on his fifth album But For All The Shrinking Hearts. Picture: Richard Dobson

You did some co-writing on this record to shake things up.

I never felt like I needed to subscribe to some Josh Pyke sound because I am me. But I wanted to do some co-writing. One guy I worked with was Marcus (Azon) from Jinja Safari after hearing one of their songs in a cafe. And then I found out my manager is their manager too. We came up with Songlines which is one of my favourites.

Is there any irony to the fact most musicians hate people listening to their music on mobiles and you wrote There’s A Line on a phone app?

You know, as much as I am a tech head when it comes to music, I have never been technically precious about how people listen to music. I don’t care. We don’t have a super fancy stereo at home. I love that you can make a song on a phone. As long as it has a feeling and an integrity, I don’t care how I make it. It’s about moments in time and capturing them, the song and the performance and how it is recorded, as cliche as that sounds.

You are launching the record as you always do with a Fan First tour? Do you get nervous introducing your new songs to your biggest fans?

It makes me so much better. They almost like it better if you f ... up. I remember when I did it for Only Sparrows and I just could not remember how to play Love Lies. I just had to stop and people have asked me since if that was part of the schtick or whatever but no, I just had total blank. At any other gig that would be a nightmare but at that one, it was fine. For me, those gigs are the most warm and welcoming environment to f ... up in that you could hope for. You cannot underestimate the importance of that connection with those people after 10 years.

HEAR: But For All These Shrinking Hearts out on July 31.

Originally published as Josh Pyke deals with anxiety and finding the balance between family and music on his fifth record