It’s always a super-lovely day when the music gods deliver a nugget of sonic gold to us and our eardrums. Better yet – Public Figures have delivered the whole darn jackpot. The brand-spanking new duo – made up of musical whizzes Evie Vlah and Gigi Argiro – have blessed the soundwaves with one heck of an earworm. Their debut release is the intoxicatingly magnetic “Onto Something”, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the pair are truly onto some great things.

We caught up for a chinwag with Evie and Gigi to find out how Public Figures got onto…

Making music together… Gigi: I believe it was around three to four years ago. Evie and I had recently moved in together when we were coming out of lockdowns. Whilst we had already been playing music together for some time, we were constantly discovering shared musical influences and childhood favourites – like our shared love for bands like KISS and Sonic Youth, as well showing each other new music that really inspired us. I guess it just felt a natural evolution to then try and figure out what a project would look like together. With many different inspo playlists and mood boards, it wasn’t for another year or so before we actually committed to any ideas, and then another two or three years before we launched the project in late 2024.

The “Onto Something” music video… Evie: Richard Clifford is the star who created the music video for “Onto Something”. We knew that Clifford would be able to perfectly execute our vision and add a certain richness to the world of Public Figures. We’ve been friends with Clifford for a while and have worked together before – working alongside Clifford is always comfortable, fun and calm, which can sometimes be a hard space to land in but we manage to do it with him! From the moment we sent across the song, Clifford was on board. Plus, I think having a glance at our mood board for the music video really sealed the deal! Think Paris, Texas, yearning, Mad Max (1979), pensive stares and fast cars.

 

 

 

 

 

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Their debut song… Gigi: This one definitely was one of the earliest songs we wrote, and perhaps the first song we fully completed. I think it first started back in 2022 and we slowly chipped away at it over the next year or so. We eventually headed into Taste Police HQ with Vincent McIntyre to complete a day of drums that finally brought the track to life. As this was early days, we were still figuring out what works for us when it comes to collaborative songwriting. It started with us jamming on the chords with a voice memo recording, both of us simultaneously ranting gibberish melodies until we settled on a few ideas to flesh out in the demo. This process has become our go-to method when writing together, which can lead to some interesting results – some good, some not so good.

Public Figures’ visual aesthetic… Evie: Ugh – I’m a sucker for mood boards. Life is one big visual treat and I love constantly discovering new things. I'm always bookmarking things, dog-earing pages and mentally saving ideas, photos, patterns, colours and textures. It’s something that's equally important to me as an artist as the project is itself. I’ll have four different mood boards going at any given time for every different facet of Public Figures – it’s exciting! Okay… so you want to know what's on the mood board at the moment, do you? We’re often drawn to strong women. So, you'll find pictures of ‘70s bodybuilder Lisa Lyon, Joan of Arc, Alice Bag, as well as ‘90s archival leather dyke zines – they mean the world to us! Films like Elvira, Death Becomes Her and Jubilee all scream camp and contain mystifyingly big hair – because that's important too, duh! Oh, and my copy of Toby Mott’s Showboat: Punk, Sex, Bodies is etched into my brain!! Basically, just strong non-cis male figures rule our world and star in every mood board ever. Feral femininity 4eva.

 

 

 

 

 

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Cover artist Diva Scum… Gigi: I remember ages ago Evie showing me some of Diva’s photos on Instagram and we both loved her style and knew we’d love to do a shoot with her at some point. In terms of the cover art, it was actually not the intention of the shoot to get a cover art image for this single. But after seeing this shot amongst the rest of the shoot, it definitely stood out as one that could be used. We actually didn’t decide to use it until about a week before the release… Thankfully we did, as I think it's a great shot to welcome the project into the world.

Check out the snazzy video for “Onto Something” below and keep up to date with all things Public Figures on their Instagram. If you’re sauntering around Melbourne/Naarm on May 9th, make sure to pop into Fitzroy’s Old Bar to catch this electric duo play live.