Hockey Dad frontman Zach Stephenson has teamed up with The Belair Lip Bombs’ Maisie Everett on “Jeans in Japan”, the final single from his forthcoming debut solo album, I Needed to Hear Me Say It.
Released today, the track arrives one week ahead of the album’s October 30th release via radius, continuing Stephenson’s exploration of sounds beyond the punchier rock music he has become known for with Hockey Dad.
“Jeans in Japan” explores self-discovery through travel, with Stephenson joking that it’s about someone “like a hipster lad who won’t shut up about finding all the cool local shit in Japan.”
Although it was the last song written for the album, he grew increasingly attached to it during recording and eventually enlisted Everett to turn it into a duet. “We were trying to find a song for Maisie to sing on and this one just felt right. It worked out perfectly as a duet and I think our voices work really well together. She absolutely nailed it,” he said.
The collaboration extended beyond the single, with Everett also recording backing vocals across the remainder of the record.
“Jeans in Japan” follows previously released singles “Broke My Jaw” and “In N Out”, offering another glimpse into Stephenson’s musical direction outside Hockey Dad.
Speaking to Rolling Stone AU/NZ at BIGSOUND in September, Stephenson revealed that the solo project came together after he accumulated a collection of songs that didn’t quite fit Hockey Dad’s established sound. “It came from a bunch of songs just kind of lingering around on my hard drive for a year or so,” he explained.
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Rather than reworking the material to suit the band, Stephenson decided to embrace a different approach to songwriting, experimenting with piano ballads, horns, strings and pop influences. “Instead of pulling back and being like, ‘Oh, I should Hockey Dad-ify this thing,’ you know, I was like, ‘I’m just going to commit and make something weird and doesn’t have to be released or whatever.’ I wanted to just finish it and get weird,” he said.
The resulting album draws inspiration from the likes of Nick Lowe, New Radicals and The Last Shadow Puppets, with Stephenson telling us that he wanted to move away from Hockey Dad’s “fast, tight, blasting rock sound”: “I’m trying to push it in ways like that, get a little more adult contemporary.”
The musician has also chosen to prioritise experimentation over expectations with his solo project. “I realised that we only get one go at this life, and we may as well write and complete as many creative endeavours as possible. If they’re ‘good’ or not is kind of irrelevant,” he said.
Recorded and mixed in the Blue Mountains by longtime collaborator Wade Keighran, I Needed to Hear Me Say It features contributions from Stu McKenzie, Josh Williams, Stephen Bourke and Nick Meadows, with mastering handled by James Trevascus.
While the solo project marks a new chapter for Stephenson, he previously reassured fans that Hockey Dad remains very much active, revealing that he and bandmate Billy Fleming have also been working on a new album. “We’ve been working on new music for this whole half of the year, really, because I kind of finished writing this [solo] record at the end of last year,” he told Rolling Stone AU/NZ at BIGSOUND. “So basically all this year has been Hockey Dad work, working on the new record and writing.”
Stephenson will play headline shows in Newcastle tonight and Milton tomorrow, before joining The Belair Lip Bombs for three east coast shows in November.
Zach Stephenson’s “Jeans in Japan” featuring Maisie Everett is out now.
