A Band You Should Know: HighSchool

Photo: Steaven David

HighSchool are a band that I’m ashamed to admit, I’ve only recently discovered.

Ashamed because the calibre of their talent should translate into absolutely everybody knowing who the fuck they are. Now residing in London after a strategic move from Melbourne as a self confessed ‘not very Australian sounding band’, the momentum of HighSchool looks a lot like that of a band that is about to be on everyone’s radar. With a handful of singles and EP’s released since 2021, members Rory Trobbiani and Luke Scott (and sister Lilli Trobbiani who is currently back in Aus finishing studies) are hyper focused on the release of their debut album coming next year off the back of a highly successful European and US tour. While their drowned out, lo-fi sound will undoubtedly get you hooked, it’s their whole look that keeps you there. Every aspect is considered, from their graphics to their outfits to the titles of their songs. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a band commit themselves so entirely, but let me tell you I’m sold. Here’s my chat with the fellas.

How was your day, it’s nighttime there hey? 

Rory Trobbiani: Yeah good, been working on some tracks and stuff. We watched the Euros semi-final. England is doing surprisingly well, they just won. 

Oh yeah, the football is mad over there hey. 

R: It’s just on a whole other level compared to Australia. 

Right. I remember when I was in London last, and I went to a Chelsea v Man United game and it was just insane. The teams couldn’t even sit with each other. I don’t know if you’re doing sport right if you have to separate each other in a stadium. 

R: It's pretty interesting and a pretty fun atmosphere to be around. But it’s weird, no matter how good they do everyone still seems to kind of resent them.

That British self-deprecating way. 

R: Yeah I mean they did only just make it but everyone is very pessimistic about it even though they’re in the finals. 

Anyway enough about football, I want to talk to you about your music. If I’m honest I only just recently discovered you and I was like oh my god how do I not know this band? I’m not sure if it’s just me but it seems like you’re flying under the radar a bit in Australia. 

Luke Scott: That’s kind of why we moved. 

Photo: Steaven David

Yeah. But then you’ve just wrapped up fifty-odd shows up there and have quite the following in London. Off the back of that tour, did you have a favourite spot? 

R: I mean, it'd be hard not to say Japan I feel like that's the obvious one. 

Is it obvious? I don’t hear Japan a lot. 

R: Maybe not obvious then because not as many people end up going there. But it was such a sick experience. They really treat artists with a lot of respect. You can tell that they really appreciate you making the mission and the effort to get out there. You meet the majority of the audience after the show, everyone hangs around. They always buy the mech and collect the vinyl. 

Yeah, that's super cool. And you’ve obviously moved to London from Melbourne - which makes a lot of sense for a band to do that given the sheer exposure a place like London has to offer - but on the other side, you’re also competing with so many more people - how are you finding the move? 

R: We spent a number of years in different bands, you know, six, seven years trying to cut our teeth in Australia. And I guess the best we did was an East Coast run. Then we started this new band, we signed a deal over here under a good agency that started booking us for good shows. It’s definitely competitive but we’ve also been living and doing the band in London for the last two and a half years now. We've had the chance to play some pretty big shows and big festivals. I think we wouldn't have been able to dip into the US market or even come back to Australia and headline without it [the move].

L: There's more competition but there's also more industry. It is easier to make it a job. 

Yeah totally. I mean a lot of the artists I talk to in the US, they’re not selling out stadiums or anything but they can make a living out of just being a musician just based on the sheer amount of people and shows they can play, whereas a band of the same calibre in Australia simply cannot. 

R: I think naturally we don’t sound like a very Australian band. 

Yeah, I can hear the London references seeping through the music more and more the newer the music is.

R: That helped a lot. It’s interesting that we are very much emerging in Australia in a slow sort of way. The festivals we’ve been able to do here are of a much higher calibre than the ones we would have been able to do back home. 

L: That’s why we moved over here in the first place. We have a UK label, UK management, and all of our fans are over here in the UK so they were like ‘you should move here.’ 

That’s where it’s at. 

L: And then when this Monster Children interview comes out that’s when we’ll blow up. 

(Laughs) Yeah get ready. 

R: It’s a clicky scene in Aus. We got a couple Triple J plays here and there which feels like a big deal but then within the first few months of being in here we got some Radio One plays which in the grand scheme of things are good goals. I think Australia punches above its weight. In it’s own way it’s quite competitive, you know. There's such good music that comes out of Melbourne and Sydney and all over. 

L: We always think if those bands moved to London they’d probably do really well. The calibre that comes out of Australia is very, very high. 

Yeah interesting. Well it sounds like a strategic move that you’ve pulled off. I was trolling through your Instagram and I saw a post explaining what New York, Paris and London was about. I’ll link it in this article for readers to see but based on that I’d like to ask what are you dreaming and manifesting as a band right now and do you find the ambitions from when you first formed being realised yet? 

R: The subject matter of why that song was written still very much stands, and I think we’re continuing to progress, and do what we do, but we’re still dissatisfied in a sense. Years ago if I knew that we would have the opportunities that we’ve had so far, knowing that, I'd be really stoked, really happy and I'd be just chill. But now, want to refine our art more and more and make it better.

L: But even then, we have headlined New York, Paris and London now. 

That's what I mean, that’s amazing. See manifesting works. 

L: Yeah right. I didn’t even think of that. 

R: In terms of at the moment I think we want to just keep things very simple and direct. We’re in the process of writing our debut album. I think that often we overthink things and overwork stuff but we’re realising how simple and digestible things need to be to sort of translate. So that’s what our goals are now. 

L: Even in a pragmatic sense, our minds are just solely focused on making the record now which is coming out next year. Super psyched about that. 

I’d love to know about this album, but I don’t know how much you want to give away? 

R: I’m not sure what do you think Scotty, we probably can’t talk about exactly who is producing it but…

L: Yeah I’m not sure how much we can talk about. 

R: Slightly contrary to what I just said but I think naturally as an artist you want to keep changing and move away from the core of your band almost too fast. The second EP we put out was a step different, very experimental but now I think we just want to get it back to what the original idea for the band was. Very poppy, gothy tracks. Aesthetically, I think, want to keep it pretty close to the original conceptual look of what the band was going to be like.

Left: Photo: Steaven David. Right photo: Photographer David Barron, Art Director Alexander Campaz

Yeah just on your look as well - you have this gothic, lo-fi, moody feel across everything. To have the foresight to be that consistent is so impressive, you’ve obviously put a lot of thought into it. I can almost imagine a cult following to come of it. How do you actually base your sound around your look? 

R: I guess sound or visuals are just a different medium for expressing different feelings and thoughts. If I feel a certain way about something, I can express that visually or I can express that sonically through music. When we started this band, it was just me and my sister, and we were thinking about the look - the gothic thing. This is pre Wednesday Addams popping off. I don't want to say that we started that but low key (laughs). All the bands we are inspired by - Joy Division, The Sisters of Mercy, their aesthetic was also deeply gothy and sad. 

L: Everything that surrounds the music, the photography, the fashion, is of equal artistic value as the music itself. There’s no reason why we have to prioritise music as the most important art. It’s one part of a whole. 

R: Historically I think people lean on one or the other. Looking back the artists that go down in history have this brilliant, iconic look and persona that is larger than the music itself. But then there are other artists that don’t even want you to see their faces. It depends but the look is super integral to us and puts the music into context. 

Yeah I see the vision. Even just down to the names of your songs. 

R: I mean sometimes we don’t think about it that much. The song titles I mean. Even the lyrics. Not to compare us to Bob Dylan in any regard because he’s the GOAT but I know that he had a lot of people that would read into the songs he made and he was always like oh no I was just drunk and that’s what came out. 

I get what you’re saying, I think it comes naturally because of the talent. It doesn’t sound like you’re even trying to do it, you’re just so immersed in what you’re doing that the byproduct of just putting out whatever is still cohesive. 

L: Yeah. It’s interesting how off the cuff things still hold sentiment. Like when the audience tries to figure out what we mean by a song, whatever we meant by it doesn’t really matter because art takes on meaning. The audience contributes to that. It takes on more and more meaning over time as it’s consumed by more people. 

R: We’re going philosophical here. 

I like it. When you say this new album goes back to you were doing at the start, what do you mean by that? 

L: Yeah because we haven’t put that much out. 

R: I guess when I think about the first EP, it was very straight to the point. The guitar and bass harmony are the backbone of the song, with the drowned out lyrics over the top. 

Gotcha. And the same kind of themes too? In your song, Colt, you have this line ‘I want to know how lucky feels’ which by the way is a brilliant line, I love it. But I think, well at least this is what I take from your music, but a very good representation of the themes you explore. That angst and heartbreak which is pretty normal for young artists to sing about. Does writing about that help you make sense of the world? 

R: Definitely, yeah, it's an outlet. And it's a way of, I mean, I don't know how to say this in not a corny way, but when you have pent up emotions and go talk to someone and get it out, it’s the same. To not have it bottled up in you, and to make art and have people resonate with it. - that’s a really beautiful thing. Not to say I’ve had too much heartbreak but channelling it into something. I’m really glad you like that lyric but I think to us, that really nice, uplifting transient sound that invokes a feeling is what we’re trying to do with HighSchool. The lyrics are often the last thing. 

I think that lyric resonates because we all get into those spots where we feel like life is against us. I think I first listened to it when I was having a dick of a day, and I was like man this lyric is perfect.

L: That’s it. Absolutely everyone has shit days.