HURB JEPHASUN | INTERVIEW + TRACK REVIEW

Hurb Jephasun tells the same story in two languages. The Perth artist works in music and paint simultaneously, letting whichever medium an idea arrives in dictate its final form. Sometimes he wakes up with a fully-formed song already sitting in his head and races to record a demo before it fades. Other times a painting shows up the same way. Both come from the same place, a mind that trusts itself to know what needs to be made and refuses to overthink it into oblivion. The through line is imperfection. Nothing gets softened, sanded down or fixed after the fact. Whatever came out stays out.

Hurb has spent years moving through bands and creative roles across Western Australia. The Jephasuns went quiet more than a decade ago and their reputation has quietly grown in the silence since. The Polite Society, his current group with a lineup of respected players, is on a scheduled break with a return set for the New Farm, New Country festival in Denmark, southern WA this November. His solo work has taken more of his attention lately, drawing from alt country and swamp rock, telling the stories of the overlooked and the forgotten. In the interview below Hurb talks about writing as a conduit rather than an author, why perfection makes him suspicious, how a friend's one-man intervention finally shifted his imposter syndrome, and what he hopes someone standing in front of one of his paintings understands before pressing play.

TRACK REVIEW - Run Away With Me

Run Away With Me opens on a set of longing keys that quietly set the mood before the vocals arrive to match them note for note. You can hear the feels in this one. It's songs like these that breathe authenticity, and Hurb lets it shine through in all the right places.

The track pulls you in early and doesn't let go. Strings float underneath the arrangement and give the whole thing that extra oomph of emotion, adding weight without ever crowding the vocal. There's never a moment where the attention wanders. The story sits front and centre, and you find yourself following it all the way to the end. Hurb has nailed this one.

Your music and your paintings seem to grow from the same dark landscape, just through different languages. When an idea first appears, how do you know whether it belongs inside a song or on a canvas?

Usually by the time an idea arrives in my head it's already decided what it wants to be. I trust the ideas and try not to overthink things. Just let it flow. There's been times when I've woken up with a fully formed song in my head. Words, music, the lot. I get up and 10 minutes later I've recorded a demo version so I don't forget it. It's kinda the same with painting, I just let the ideas flow, don't overthink. When I do, nothing happens. Sometimes it's hard though. When the idea arrives fully formed, I have to kinda deconstruct it to get it out of my head and then put it back together again if that makes any sense?

The Jephasuns have been largely silent on stage for more than a decade, yet their reputation has continued to grow. Do you think absence can sometimes become as powerful as constant visibility?

I think absence can definitely perhaps skew peoples memories. Not sure if that's powerful though. I guess it all depends on who you are. You see bands that split up at the top of their game and leave their fans screaming for more and others that just keep going until the dead horse can be flogged no more. Personally, I wouldn't put The Jephasuns in either of those categories. The band was of it's time. That time has passed. If some people dug it, cool…but time moves on.

Your work feels weathered rather than polished, as though it's lived a life before reaching the audience. What is it about imperfection that makes art feel more truthful to you?

Well, nobody's perfect and anything that seems perfect makes me suspicious. What is perfection anyway? It's how you can tell things that aren't real like AI & stuff like that. It's too good. How would you recognise perfection anyway? It's pretty subjective. My perfect ain't your perfect. People spend their whole lives in search of perfection. What if it was right infront of you the whole time and you didn't know it? Nah, for me imperfection is real, it's truth, as is. I'm not perfect. You're not perfect. The world's not perfect. Perfect imperfection. That should be a "thing".

Alternative country and swamp rock have always found beauty in forgotten places and overlooked people. What kinds of characters are you instinctively drawn to writing about, and why do they continue to follow you?

Most people in history of the world have been overlooked and forgotten. I'll be forgotten. You'll be forgotten. History, for the most part, has only been recorded by people that had enough time and money to write it down. I think that leaves you with a skewed perspective as most people were too busy feeding themselves. They're the ones that interest me. Real people. Even now there's forgotten people everywhere, you never hear from them. Everybody has a story to tell and they deserve to be heard, validated. As for beauty, we're surrounded by it. People just need to take their noses out of their phones and actually look. Real beauty. Not manufactured, fake bullshit.

You've spent years moving between different bands and creative roles. Has collaboration taught you more about your own artistic identity, or forced you to let go of parts of it?

It's taught me more because I've collaborate with people that I think are really, like, cool and clever and they ask me what I think. That's taught me to trust myself more & ignore the self-doubt that's been my constant companion and, at times, master. Having said that though, there's a huge part of me that's still waiting for people to realise I'm really crap or something, a fraud. Imposter syndrome, yeah? It's taken a long time for me to feel comfortable playing with some of the people I play with. For years I'd be thinking "Why do they want me playing with them?" That self doubt thing again. There are people that I consider to be great musicians and songwriters that send me their demos and ask for my opinion. That blows my mind. Why would they want to know what I think? It's only fairly recently I've been able to let go of it. It's still there but I try and ignore it. A couple of years ago a good friend kinda did a one man intervention on me. "Do you think your friends are stupid?" No. "Do you think your friends are lying to you?" No. If anything, it's forced me to let go of the parts of my creative identity that I didn't need anyway, the bits that were just holding me back, and to be more comfortable with who I am.

Your visual art doesn't feel like merchandise attached to the music; it feels like another chapter of the same story. Do you see your entire body of work as one ongoing narrative, regardless of the medium?

Well, yeah, it's all me telling stories. It just depends what I'm using to tell the story. It's still my story though. I've always seen things with pictures and music. Like, I walk along the street and I have a soundtrack playing in my head, like John Travolta at the beginning of Saturday Night Fever walking along to Staying Alive. I see the world through my eyes. Hear it through my ears. I know my perspective is different to other people's. I've always felt like I vibrate at a different frequency to most other people, like, a bit off, not in sync with everyone else. Everything I do is just me trying to show other people what their world looks like through my eyes, my perspective, in the only way I know how. So regardless of if you're looking or listening, it's all me, it all goes together.

Western Australia carries a different sense of isolation than most places. Has living on the edge of the continent shaped the emotional atmosphere of your work in ways that listeners from elsewhere might not immediately recognise?

I'm isolated in my head anyway, doesn't matter where I am and it's not like I've lived in Perth all my life. My work is shaped more by experience than location. Are we really isolated these days? It's not 1900 when letters took weeks to get delivered. Experience is what makes people different, regardless of where they're from. I don't experience the world the same as most people in Perth, let alone the rest of the planet. Everyone's different otherwise everything would be the same. The most isolating thing these days is the internet and anti-social media. How many people know the people living nextdoor? There are people that can go days or weeks without having anyone actually acknowledge them or talk to them. That's got nothing to do with where in the world they live and more to do with the world they live in. Everybody just seems so busy with things that don't even really matter.

Many artists become more interested in saying more as they get older. Your work often feels like it's searching for fewer, heavier truths instead. Have you found yourself writing with more restraint over time?

What's restraint? Sure, your perspective changes as you get older, everything develops. I don't have restraint. Like I said, I try not to think about things too much. I just like get it out there, let it flow. Of course, if I paint or write something that I thought might be hurtful to somebody, I wouldn't let it out in public. I'm not that sort of person. It still exists though. I just like to let ideas "happen", get them out there. That's how it works. I'm kinda like a conduit. Sometimes it's pictures, sometimes music and it can hit anytime. Some of my best ideas have come while I'm at the shops or gardening. Whatever wants to come, comes when it wants to.

The Polite Society is made up of musicians who have already built respected careers. When experienced artists come together, does ego disappear, or does it simply become quieter and more sophisticated?

I can't speak for egomaniacs because I try not to know any, but in The Polite Society you'd best leave your ego at the door. We have fun. Talk shit. I think at this point in our lives we're all pretty comfortable in our skin, we know who we are. It's more like a group of friends having a good time. I pity any ego that tries to show up in our rehearsals. It'd get shown the door pretty quick. We don't roll that way.

If someone walked into a gallery filled with your paintings before hearing a single note of your music, what would you hope they already understood about Hurb Jephasun before pressing play?

I'm real. Imperfect. If a painting looks unfinished or makes you feel uneasy without knowing why, it wasn't an accident I forgot to fix. It's meant to be that way. Like I said, nothings perfect so why spend your whole life chasing something that doesn't exist? I don't go back and soften something once it's out. I let it's truth shine. Whatever came out stays out. It exists for a reason. Just because you don't know the reason doesn't mean there isn't one.

So yeah, look around at the rough edges. Let the eyes stare back at you for a bit too long. Take it all in and then press play. I play no different than I paint.

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