Sam Bentley of The Paper Kites Talks Finding Authenticity and Conviction in Music

Aryeh Harris-Shapiro

Australian latest release of indie folk-rock five-piece The Paper Kites was “Twelvefour,” a moody collection of ’80s-inflected late night jams written between the hours of midnight and 4 a.m. The 2015 album, recorded in Seattle alongside Fleet Foxes producer Phil Ek, represented a step forward artistically and commercially for the Melbourne natives, who are still touring behind the release. The band members are now in Canada with one last leg of shows to go in the U.S. before they return home to work on new music. On his way to L.A. for a show at El Rey this month, Sam Bentley, the group’s songwriter and lead singer, chatted with Entertainment Voice about “Twelvefour” and the Kites’ early morning experience.

Where did the early morning concept for ‘Twelvefour’ come from and how did the rest of the band react when they found out about it?

I was searching for an anchor point for this second record and you have this idea of the curse of the second record in the back of your head. A lot of bands strike out on that album, but I think when that happens it’s often coming off a very successful first record. We didn’t really have a very successful first record. We didn’t have any sort of pressure to follow up anything at all. We could do whatever we wanted.

I was just looking for an idea and I found one through talking with a friend of mine who’s a screenwriter. He had said he’d seen an interview with some other screenwriters who were talking about the best time to write. A lot of them seemed to agree that the hours between midnight and 4 a.m. were their most creative time. That kind of sparked the idea for me. So I reversed my sleep patterns for about two months and stayed up every night just writing these songs. I ended up with about 30 demos that I just sent to the guys when I finished and went, “try to find an album in here, I’m going to bed.”

Once you gave the band the demos, how did their input shape what “Twelvefour” would eventually become?

That was tough. You give them about 30 songs, and without even realizing it you’ve already formed attachments to certain songs and you already have an idea of what the album you’ve written is going to sound like. But then you bring four other people into the mix who weren’t involved in the writing but are still part of the band and still have a say in the direction you take. You give them these songs without any context other than what was going on for me personally when I was writing them, and then they choose their top 10 and it’s completely different from yours. That was a bit of a tough time. We had a lot of arguments about what we felt were the right songs and the right direction for the band.

Listening to “Twelvefour,” the end result is very different from how I initially imagined it. A lot of the songs that I wanted to be on it didn’t actually make it on there and that’s fine. I think it’s OK to argue and to care about that stuff because it’s all in the interest of trying to make the best record you can. There were some songs like “Too Late,” the last track on the record, that the other guys initially didn’t like. I had to put my foot down as the writer, which I often don’t. I’m usually happy to let the democratic version of the band decide what songs end up on the album. But that one I just had to put my foot down.

What was your original vision for the record?

I wrote a lot of songs that were delving more into Massive Attack trip-hop territory and some of it was quite grungy and quite heavy. Some of it was very ’80s as well. I’m glad the ’80s stuff ended up being at the helm of the album, but I think I wanted it to be this very dark, sleepy record. There were also these alt-country songs like “I’m Lying to You Cause I’m Lost” and “Woke Up From a Dream” that I didn’t love when I wrote them. I do love that style of music but I didn’t actually see them having a place on the record. Obviously, the guys disagreed. There were times when I really had to swallow my pride and let go of songs. There are still almost 20 unheard songs that will never get recorded because we always like to work with the newest material.

Unlike your first album, 2013’s ‘States,’ there aren’t any songs on “Twelvefour” that feature band member Christina Lacy on lead vocals. Was there a reason for that?

We planned to have Christina singing some of the songs. When we were working with producer Phil Ek on the album, there were a few songs she actually recorded and Phil just stopped the session and said, “To be perfectly honest, it sounds like you’re singing someone else’s songs. You’re not really earning them.” Which was true. She was singing songs that I had written with her in mind, but I don’t think they worked for her in the end. They were my songs, my thoughts, my feelings, trying to be translated to someone else. We decided that if Christina sings songs they have to be songs she’s written. It was a bit of a tough call because she’s got a great voice and people love to hear her sing, but it just wasn’t translating in the right way.

Was it different to work in the United States?

When we record at home we have the luxury of going home to our families and our partners and such. And while you do get the record done it’s not the only thing you’re thinking about. We didn’t really want to do that this time. We really wanted to be consumed by the work we were doing. We obviously love Phil’s work and he suggested we come to Seattle and we thought, “That’s far enough away from Melbourne, let’s do that!” We’d only been to Seattle once, and in typical Seattle fashion it rained, so we thought it’d be gloomy and depressing, great for the album. We showed up and it was sunny and beautiful and I had no idea Seattle even had mountains around it. We lived there for a little bit over a month, staying in Airbnbs around town. We kind of felt like locals. It was so important to be somewhere where we just had each other and the work we were doing. I think having experienced that, we’d be pretty hesitant to record at home again.

Did you learn any lessons from “Twelvefour” that you’re going to apply to your upcoming third album?

There were some songs where Phil said, “You guys sound like you’re holding back, you’re kind of playing timid. You need to let the song be what it feels like it wants to be.” That was very profound for me. In the studio, you can be focused on getting everything perfect and technically correct. But there’s certainly something to say for stepping back and just playing. Listening to our old work, this album sounds so much more convincing. I think there’s something to be said about not being so analytical about your work and just playing the songs and, singing-wise, just trying to capture what you’re writing about instead of being technically correct. Phil really brought that out in us, and I think we’ll probably carry that with us

The Paper Kites come to L.A.’s El Rey Theatre on Dec. 15.