AS a Beatles fan Newcastle rocker Lachlan X. Morris is too modest to ever compare anything he's written to Paul McCartney.
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However, just as Macca famously did in 1965 when he wrote the majestic Yesterday, Morris earlier this year dreamed up his latest single Pick Up The Knife.
"When I was backpacking in Japan I woke up from a dream and Pick Up The Knife was in my head," Morris says. "Then I was walking around Sendai and I was humming it.
"I thought there was something to it. I didn't know what it was, but I wanted to try and capture that."
The Beatles references don't end there.
Inspired by the George Harrison Beatles song, Savoy Truffle, from The White Album, Morris decided to add distorted horns to the track, morphing it into a pulsating slab of psych rock.
Morris and his band of Fraser Marshall (drums), Nick Thorpe (guitar), Carter Smyth (keys), Jennifer Hankin (flute) and Jackson Beasley (bass) debuted Pick Up The Knife last Friday in an electrifying set to close night one of the Sky Ball concert series at Dashville.
Despite the aggressive title, Morris says it's about motivating oneself.
"It's not inciting violence or anything," he says. "The meaning I got out of it was, 'why don't you pick up the knife, like why don't you get on with things? Step up'.
"I'm pretty impatient sometimes, so it's bit of a get-on-with-things mantra."
It's a theme which is carried through Morris' forthcoming fourth album Muscle Memory, expected to be released in December.
"It's thinking about the ruts I've been in, or that people get in, and trying to break out of them and the certain things you start taking for granted as habits," Morris says.
"A lot of the songs revolve around that theme.
"The songs capture the frustration of that, but still trying to make progress within yourself."
After the release of Mood Bullet in 2019 the prolific Morris opted to focus on singles and dropped the tracks Shadow Lover, Blood Rhythm n Blues and Stone Unturned over the past year.
But the lure of recording another album became too strong for Morris when he returned to ATM Studios for the first time since his 2017 debut Ouija Board Heartbreak Tambourine to work with producers Fraser Marshall and Geoff Mullard.
"All through COVID I was on bit of a roll with songwriting and we ended up booking in a bunch of sessions and we ended up with nine songs that flowed together," he says.
"There's a spontaneous energy in recording them all in a burst so I thought it would be a shame not to release them as spontaneously as we recorded them."
Lachlan X. Morris' single Pick Up The Knife was released on Thursday.
Josh Leeson
Josh Leeson is an entertainment and features journalist, specialising in music, at the Newcastle Herald. He first joined the masthead in 2008 after stints at the Namoi Valley Independent and Port Stephens Examiner and has previously covered sport including the Asian Cup, A-League, Surfest, cricket and rugby league.
Josh Leeson is an entertainment and features journalist, specialising in music, at the Newcastle Herald. He first joined the masthead in 2008 after stints at the Namoi Valley Independent and Port Stephens Examiner and has previously covered sport including the Asian Cup, A-League, Surfest, cricket and rugby league.
