Josh Pyke Explains How 'But For All These Shrinking Hearts' Helped Him Process His Politics

Josh Pyke's eight-part web documentary series comes to a close this week, with the final chapter exploring the making of his 2015 full-length But For All These Shrinking Hearts.  

Describing the album as "a different kettle of fish … for me, writing-wise", Pyke explains that he doesn't really think of himself as a political person — and certainly doesn't want to be thought of as one by other people — but nonetheless the national and international climate of the time and his feelings about it nonetheless seeped into the fabric of the record's songs.

"I'm a political person in the sense that I vote and I have an opinion, but it never really has entered my writing before," he explains in the episode. "And I just felt honestly really disillusioned with the world at that point.

"We were in the midst of the Abbott government, Brandis cutting arts funding… I just felt like, you know, all the issues that Australia has, with our policy with refugees… all these things were kind of playing on my mind and it influenced the writing of Shrinking Hearts — you know, songs like Song Lines, and even Hollering Hearts; they sound joyous, you know, but they're more a reflection on how you have to protect the things that are important to you and, for me, it's family and it's also creativity.

"So, for me, that record is about my struggle with feeling like those things are under threat because of the climate of the world and the climate of the government."

As close to the surface as he wore those feelings on the album, fans shouldn't expect his future releases to necessarily be so interwoven with ideological underpinnings, even if he doesn't necessarily feel any better about the world now than he did two years ago.

"To be honest, those fears haven't left me at this point; we have a new problem in the States with Trump, and we still have a pretty shitty government here in Australia, so those things haven't left me — but I do feel like that's something that I've kind of got out of my system, songwriting-wise," he reveals.

"I don't want to be thought of as a political writer but I guess when those things come up, I don't fight it, I don't write with an agenda — I just let them come out, because, as I said, it's the only way that I know how to process those things.

"So whether it's politics, world views, relationship issues, having kids… it all just comes through my body and brain into a song and that's what we end up with."

The final episode in the candid series — a companion to Pyke's recently released Best Of, B-Sides & Rarities collection, which landed at the end of last month through Ivy League Records — also discusses the production of the album as well his performances and recording with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

With the series done and the album now out in the world, Pyke is preparing to set off for a national tour with Kyle Lionheart from the end of the month; see theGuide for all the dates and details.