Victoria Anderson and Brendan Watterson are seemingly two very different people, but find solace and connection when creating art together. I spoke to Victoria Anderson of Opaque Space to get the low down on their creative journey and ethos.

How did you form the band and settle on a name?

Me and Brendan met at the Stones Corner festival out in the smokers section. We got to talking and it was post COVID, talking about our frustrations with music. I was writing a lot, and he suggested that I come and jam with him at his place. I didn’t contact him for a while, it was like a month and then my friend at work asked if I had contacted that dude yet and on my lunch break at work I went and did it.  We got together and it was magnetic chemistry. He was playing on guitar, and I was singing, and we just came up with a song in about five minutes which was awesome because it’s hard to gel with people, especially strangers, there’s all these insecurities like are they gonna like my voice? or things like that. That was only three years ago, so we’ve only known each other for three years but we’ve written a body of work, about 22 songs, 10 of them are on our upcoming album titled Pronoia.

Coming up with names is funny. I run an op shop in Wynnum, and we get a lot of random stuff in. You know those magnets you write poetry with? Brendan and I are both into space and we’ve talked about physics… I rumbled my hand around in the magnets and opaque came out and I was like Oh, opaque space. That sounds interesting.

A lot of people think of it as the opacity when you’re doing photos, they think it’s see through but it’s not, it means you can’t really see through it. I think that I would say opaque space is something that you can’t really perceive, so your mind makes up things about what’s on the other side of that, like the grey area. Life has a lot of those grey areas, we touch on a lot of that in our lyrics. 

What were your initial ideas or visions for the band and has that changed at all?

It took awhile for us to find our voice.  We’ve both been in bands before, so coming together and only just knowing each other… It was just building that relationship and friendship first that was really important. I’d been writing a lot during COVID, and he’d been doing a lot in his studio during COVID as well and we were bringing two individual sounds to something. 

The first song we wrote was called Fucked It Up. I was going through a breakup at the time, it was very intense, and it was a very wordy song, it had a lot of lyrics in it. We recorded it and then we left it to the wayside for a while as we started creating other songs. We both sit on the back deck at his place, and we coined it back deck records. That’s our little thing, cause that’s where we come up with all of our songs and that’s basically where we found our sound.

Brendan has an audio-visual company called VAST AV which, weirdly enough, on his computer in his studio are the letters V.A which is my initials, so the first time I saw that I was like omg it’s a sign that’s crazy. So, he really wanted to bring in a lot of visuals on stage like trippy things and psychedelic things. We are both very into trip hop music so that’s naturally where it went but we just started off with the acoustic and the vocals. I think we didn’t really have any preconceived notion of what it was going to be but that’s how it’s come out… a sort of Portishead vibe.

I was very intrigued by your Instagram bio which reads “A place somewhere between what is plain to see and what cannot be conceived clearly. A duo formed to bridge the gap between worlds.” I want to know more about that ethos. 

Brendan and I are two very different people, and we probably wouldn’t have met if it wasn’t for the Stones Corner festival, he’s a very private person. And the two different worlds… it’s just what you see on the surface and how it can be viewed. I’m a bit weird, I’m a bit out there with my clothing, my hair, my makeup. Brendan’s a very conservative looking person but his music is quite cinematic and he’s done a lot of amazing soundscapes so he has this weird, twisted side. I guess with us, I wear my weirdness on the outside and Brendan’s is on the inside, so it’s something that comes through in our music but if you just saw us, you wouldn’t realise that’s what we’ve got going on behind the curtain.

What do you want listeners to take away from your music and live performances?

Number one would be authenticity. I think Brendan and I are very honest about who we are and what we want to say, but also acceptance and inclusion. We love everybody, we want everyone to feel safe and welcome at our shows and to leave with a feeling of optimism. I call our music melancholic optimism, it can sound a bit sad or moody, but the lyrics are upbeat and optimistic. There’s so many dark times in your life and so much darkness that it’s good to peek through and see the light again which I think we do sonically, as well as onstage. 

We’re fairly new, we’ve only done three gigs and our last was in Toowoomba called Invasive Species Festival. It’s a punk festival which was super interesting and was a really great crowd of people that probably wouldn’t have been exposed to our music, but they showed up, they loved it. We’ve got another gig from that – at a rave! I don’t really believe in genres anymore, I think music is going beyond that, it’s what you feel in the moment, it’s what you do.  If our audience can walk away like they’re accepted, then I’ll be happy. 

What have you noticed change with each gig you do?

 I think confidence would be number one. The tech requirements and abilities of each venue is different so it’s overcoming that and feeling good in the moment regardless. I think connecting with the audience as well, the more gigs we have, the more comfortable we both feel with the music.

We’ve got one song, it’s a new one, we haven’t released or recorded it yet, but it’s one that I feel really comfortable singing and I channel this…I don’t know…something! Everything just goes black for me and I feel this emotion and reach out to the audience.  Invasive Species was a day time gig so I could see everybody’s faces which is great. It’s a culmination of a few different things, hopefully for our next gig we’ll have visuals. 

Our first gig was Brendan and I for Brisbane winter sessions with Ty Noonan and the next one was at The Cave Inn which is such a beautiful venue. The vibe is amazing, the people there are so welcoming, and it feels like home. With each gig we’ve stepped it up a little bit. 

Who inspires you everyday – musically, fashion icons, family?

I run an op shop in Wynnum, and I get to see all walks of life every day. I’m inspired by the outliers in society, the people who are brave enough to be who they are. I watched a video recently saying that queer people or people who dress differently tend to be attacked for that and it’s the fact that a lot of people aren’t brave enough to do that and they don’t really understand it’s possible.  It was from this amazing beautiful being dressed head to toe in colour and I adore that. I’m inspired everyday by humans, its people who are brave enough to be themselves and do it unapologetically and not try to force their agenda on anyone else. I just love people who are at peace. We’re all going through our own strife so if you can be who you are at the same time, I take my hat off to you. 

I don’t really believe in fashion; I believe in style and whatever makes you feel good. I’ve always wanted a tattoo, but I don’t have any, so I wear my style in my clothing and in my jewellery. I love colour, I’m not specifically inspired by anyone, but I am inspired by everyone you know. I used to work in high fashion years ago at Nelson Malloy which is very Japanese inspired. I really love the Japanese ideologies and things like Ma (間), which is like the space between, the silence in between things which I’m super attracted to.

Do you have any favorite Meanjin local bands, events etc?

 I’m big on supporting local artists, I went to Bigsound last year and met so many amazing people. One of my favourite bands is Worm Girlz, I’ve seen them a few times and went to their backyard gig many moons ago, they’re just really good humans. They did a gig at Netherworld which is another awesome place with great people. It was raising funds for ovarian cancer which a friend of mine was organising and another friend’s band played as well: Whale House and Terra Pines. It was a really good night and that’s what got me onto Worm Girlz, the energy they bring on stage is to die for and they’re the same when you meet them as they are on stage, they’re just real humans and I find myself incredibly drawn to that. Life’s a lot easier when you don’t have to put up a wall or a mask. 

What is next for Opaque Space?

We have our first album coming out this year, it’s called Pronoia which is actually a real word! People ask me this all the time, it’s the opposite of paranoia; the belief that the universe is conspiring to do good things for you which is something that we believe. At the Invasive Species Festival, we were rocking out doing our thing, they asked us to come and play at their rave ‘UFO Rave’ which is in Toowoomba on March 29th.  (Tickets here)

We just really love playing around good audiences and good people and that’s what we found so far. Every gig that we’ve played so far has been in a great space, a great venue, and had a great audience so we’ve been super lucky. We’re going to release our album, have a launch party, chase the gigs and yeah…live the dream!

Follow Opaque Space here