Wollongong musician Leo is part of a band that has written and recorded a song – without any members ever meeting face to face.
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Well, in person at least.
Leo (the stage name for 25-year-old Gwynneville musician Lucy Mills) joined what has been tagged as Australia’s first “internet band”.
With her are Melbourne singer-songwriter Rowena Wise, who has recently released her debut album, and producer Jayden Rando from Bunbury in Western Australia.
Acting as mentor is Melbourne-based artist Harts.
The virtual band – named Two Sense – have been been talking online via video and have been recording their parts of the song and sending them around via the internet.
The band is part of an NBN campaign, where the members will connect solely online, ahead of releasing an original song in February 2017.
“It’s interesting,” Leo says of the concept.
“I had no idea what to expect because none of us had done anything like this before.
“It’s really good for developing ways of songwriting in general.
“We started with an idea and then passed it around to each other to add our own little bits and pieces.
“[The song] is not finished yet – we’re still in the process of putting it together but we’ve agreed on a direction.
“We’ve got the idea and we have a demo down and it’s just a matter of making it final.”
Leo says the song has been recorded “remotely”, with Wise recording her acoustic guitar and then sending it to Leo and Rando to add their musical parts.
“It’s all separate but we all have to talk to each other to make sure we know what we’re doing,” Leo says.
“But it’s all quite solitary as well.”
Leo says she was chosen for the project after organisers saw her online videos and Soundcloud page.
Once she heard what they had in mind, Leo was intrigued enough to take part.
“I wanted to experience this new idea of creating something,” she says.
“And I get to work with Harts, which is amazing. Any exposure I get out of it is a bonus.”
Two Sense is a bit of a change of pace for Leo, who has been in bands and duos before but is now focusing on her solo career.
“I started playing guitar when I was about 10 but, performing properly, I started around 2010 when I started doing musical comedy around the place.
“That was when I looked to making it into a career.”
