Welcome back. It’s been a while since we’ve seen you here. The house hasn’t changed much; some of the paint has peeled off the walls, and the gutters need cleaning, but overall, it’s still standing tall despite the weather constantly beating against it. It’s an older house now cosmetically, it needs work and might feel a little out of place in this
neighbourhood. That being said, the bones of the house are sturdy. Somehow, the structure has become more solid. The contents will keep changing, but the house will stand for another 40 years before it crumbles.
Odlaw isn’t just a band; it’s a family. (insert Vin Diesel meme here). It’s a small army of people gathered around the songwriting of Mark Neal. The 8-piece band consists of Perth-onality heavyweight champions like Veronica Zurzolo (Dolce Blue), Lee Napper (Gap Year), Damien Goerke (Sugar Wife), Jamie Gallagher (Pat Chow), Michael Strong (Alyosha), David Jago (Mezzanine), and Skinny O’Leary (sidequest).
The full band struggles to fit into most living rooms, but on one sunny winter day in late November 2023, they huddled around microphones in Sumo Studio alongside producer/engineer Mitch McDonald (The Love Junkies) to record a selection of songs that were their most personal and heartfelt songs yet.
What came out of those sessions is Odlaw‘s fourth full-length album titled ‘MI(L)D LIFE CRISIS’.
“Odlaw was me all alone on the last 2 records,” explains Mark. “Thanks to those records, I found a bunch of people who wanted to be part of it, and we took the songs that were the most enjoyable to play and made a really fun live show. Suddenly Odlaw grew from 1 lonely guy into an 8 piece band, and even got to 11 people on stage for a festival last year.”
“I’m still surprised people cared enough about me or my music to join up and listen to me sing. The band is fun, and I like writing fun songs, but I can’t make a whole album of fun songs, that would be boring to me. So the real challenge was being able to bring my more vulnerable sobering songs to the band and make it work.”
“The album turned out better than we could have hoped. We recorded it all live so it really captures this part of Odlaw’s journey and resembles a live show”.
Love for Odlaw has grown with the band being asked to support Kisschasy and Sly Withers around WA, as well as
being invited to perform at festivals like RTRFM’s In The Pines, and Blues at Bridgetown Festival. A recent crowdfunding campaign shows how much support for Odlaw has grown in recent years. “We reached targets quickly and were able to put the album out on vinyl, the pre-orders far exceeded expectations coming close to being sold out.”
‘MI(L)D LIFE CRISIS’ is Odlaw’s most concise work yet. A journey through the perils of adulthood with endearing songs about relatable factors of life.
With thanks to Blue Grey Pink
