Satellite Mile have released debut single titled Recurring Dreams, from an upcoming album and body of work ‘The Waters Edge’ expected in 2025. I had a lovely chat with front man Ben Love about the inception of the project, the new single, creativity and more. Read on below.

How did your music project begin and what inspired it?

Satellite Mile began when I had a project with a female singer some time ago… we put out an EP but that fell over and didn’t continue. I had a lot of music to work with and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.  Someone made the point to me ‘you’re writing all of this material anyway; you’ve never really found out if you can maybe sing it.’ Because the singing for me is quite a recent thing. I had some lessons and went to a lot of open mics and started putting it all together and I got myself to a point where I showed a few friends the demos and the feedback was really positive. I figured they can’t all be lying. Eventually I had a body of work that I was happy with and approached Peet Gardner who’s a producer and engineer in Brisbane and we got to work on it.

Satellite Mile began from the ending of that other project, and I basically wrote all the material myself, put it all together and here we are. 

You have just released a single called ‘Recurring Dreams’, what is the meaning of the track?

The track is part of a wider body of works, there’s a full album that’s coming next year called The Waters Edge. I thought that track would be a good one to start with because it introduces some of the sounds and it’s interplayed between the guitars and the synthesizers which is one of the main features, I guess. It was one of the first tracks that I felt was going to fit and helped shape where this might go. 

In terms of what it means, I don’t love sort of getting into specifics, but I’m definitely pretty fascinated with dreams and what they are, where do they come from. I’m a big fan of David Lynch; a lot of his films explore a lot of those themes. Musically, the origin of the idea is a few years old, the main rhythmic patterns and the bass theme.

So, what does it mean? I think it’s a good taste of what’s to come with the rest of the album. But much further than that it’s pretty open to the listeners interpretation. 

What more can you tell us about this upcoming album ‘The Waters Edge’ , what key themes or ideas does it touch on?

Theres quite a few different themes. The dream stuff is a feature, but I wouldn’t say it runs all through it. Without spilling too many beans, it kind of begins and ends with bookends, with that in mind. And theme wise it shifts around a bit, musically there’s quite a lot of different sounds, it’s pretty heavy on the synthesizers and that’s a recent fascination over the last few years. It was mixed by Paul Gomersall who used to work with Kate Bush, George Michael and Genesis and those big heavy hitters in the 80’s. I said to him my references were So by Peter Gabriel, Mezzanine by Massive Attack and Violator by Depeche Mode and I would say it lands pretty well in that ballpark for sure. I think it weaves and moves around and there’s a lot of rhythmic ideas, there’s a lot of time and field changes and I’m very happy with it and I’m really proud of it and excited to get it out next year.

Do you have a release date for the album?

Hopefully February or March, it’s a little bit dependent on being able to perform it live.

Any gigs coming up?

In the works yeah, so performing it live, it’ll be myself and Geoff Green who’s the drummer in George, he’s a pretty extraordinary drummer who’s in the Gold Coast which is where I am. We’re putting that together at the moment, it’s the two of us and a small amount of synthesizers. Doing it with two people is doable but its challenging. But it’s definitely coming, and the albums done, the artworks all finished and there’s obviously a film clip for Recurring Dreams and there’ll be another song with a clip that will sort of precede the rest of the album.

Speaking of that video clip, I’d love to know more about the creative team behind it because you mentioned to me it was a similar team to that of the Brisbane  band Stahr. 

It is a very similar creative team. The director is Patrick McKenzie and Jade Ferguson did the artwork for the album and the single and she did that with Von Bishop who’s an awesome designer out of Melbourne. Patrick and Jade worked on a lot of Stahr’s visuals and short clips they have, and Jade does photography. Jade is the visual collaborator, probably more known as a photographer but I think she’s far beyond being just a photographer. There’s definitely a strong aesthetic that goes through the whole thing that’s in the video. 

In terms of how that came about, it was the three of us having a chat about what that might look like and somewhere in there I said that I like David Lynch and I like Darren Aronofsky… proceed as you will. I think he did a great job of it. Theres some interesting ideas going on in there like talking about dreams and there’s like a dream loop idea that happens in the clip. I’m really happy with it and I think everyone had lots of fun and that’s the main thing.

Being a creative person and a musician, what is your biggest take away being a part of this industry?

The way I try to look at that is I try to be creative first, I just happen to use musical instruments as the way I go about expressing it. To me, it’s something I’m compelled to do. I consume a lot of music, I go to a lot of concerts, I’ve had all these awesome life experiences all centered around music, it makes me feel.

For me it’s really important to try and develop myself as a musician, develop my instruments, and try to surround myself with interesting creative people who are also trying to make the best of their talents and do something that’s really interesting. To me that’s the main thing, the way that we go about that in terms of having a band, being a solo artist, being a painter, being a film maker or whatever it is. To me it’s kind of … that’s just your particular mode and for me, its sound. I try to make sure I’m always learning and moving forward and if nothing else, making something I’m really proud of and that’s kind of as much as you can ask for, and anything else is a bonus.

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