Two highschool friends from regional Western Australia meetup, sharing stories of their day. One thing leads to another and Dave House and Henry Carrington-Jones start playing music together, working on tunes in their downtime, before making the decision to convert an old stable on Henry’s parents property to a rehearsal space.
Blood, sweat and a couple of beers later, the boys, with a country allure, had formed Old Mervs and doubled down on daily sessions in the sweaty barn. These formative years would prove fundamental to the band and their debut EP ‘Get Better’, cutting their teeth in the mellow surroundings, before diving headfirst into shows across Western Australia, as well as the East Coast.
For the two lads, ‘Get Better’ is a memorandum of self-reflection; bringing to life the emotions felt post-high school, when you’re forced to reflect, more deeply than ever, on who you want to be and where you’d like to go. Realizing their calling was not monotony the duo had found themselves in, they crafted ‘Get Better’ in cathartic writing sessions that drew daily confirmations of just where they needed to be: writing tunes, in their barn, with the sun setting in the distance.
Henry Carrington-Jones of the band explained, “The EP explores a few things, but the main one is self reflection. The whole theme is quite varying, but we chose ‘Get Better’ as the title because it can be interpreted in a few ways, with it having a double meaning. A big one for us is it being a step up in songwriting and production, so in a basic sense getting better, but then also mentally in a self reflection form trying to ‘get better’. Interpret it how you will but this is why we chose it as a title track.
Title track ‘Get Better’ accentuates the themes running throughout Old Merv’s EP. Dave House sings of hour-long car rides out from their home in regional Western Australia, questioning where his life is headed & his next move, with the windows cranked down and the air thick with heat. An ode to mindful self-improvement, whether stumbling forward or figuring it out as you go.
Dave House added, “This EP is pretty much a self reflection and just touches on basic things people seem to feel and go through in their early 20s. The song “Get Better”, for example, is about feeling very overwhelmed with what you're currently investing your time with. For me it was the work I was doing and the confusion of how much I loved it but also how much it was pissing me off. I’m really happy with how the EP sounds, we went for a more produced style while still capturing the raw sounds and emotion that have shaped our songwriting.”
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