With the release of their latest hit 'High' and a fifth studio album in the wings for 2024, San Cisco are taking the world — and Adelaide — by storm with their headline tour.

It’s been more than a decade since San Cisco released their pop hit ‘Awkward’ about a young man stalking his crush — and the band tells CityMag they’ve only improved since the song was certified platinum in Australia in 2013.

“We have just gotten better at writing songs and better at music,” says lead vocalist Jordi Davieson. 

“I have been thinking about it since I went on this weird tangent where I listened to our old music — which I haven’t really done before — and I realised what we do now is quite different. 

“I guess because we have gotten older, we have become more conscious of everything. With our old music, we would just think, ‘That’s hooky’ and ‘That sounds good’ and record it with what I guess was a sense of naivety. You can tell we were just a bunch of kids, whereas now, I think we are a lot more critical of any songwriting — and that makes a pretty big difference.”

This “new phase of maturity, vulnerability and experimentation both musically and lyrically” will be revealed in the band’s upcoming fifth studio album Under The Light, which is set for release on 1 March 2024.

The forthcoming album was produced by James Ireland, one of those people you find yourself knowing through a convoluted series of connections, as explained by the band’s guitarist Josh Biondillo: “He is our drummer and vocalist Scarlett Stevens’ partner’s friend and an absolute whizz in the studio.”

Under The Light was written and produced in Fremantle, Western Australia.

“Jordi and I went to school together down in Freo, which is where we grew up and yeah, live,” Josh says. “Scarlett was a friend of Jordi — their families knew each other.”

“Fremantle is a small place where everybody knows each other — much like Adelaide I am sure — and we were a bunch of musically-leaning kids who came together and had a jam in Scarlett’s studio at the back of her parents’ house. One thing led to another and, before we knew it, we were in the pubs and cafes playing gigs.”

After more than a decade together, the trio has found ways of not getting under each others’ skin, which is something that will come in handy as they kick off their headline tour around Australia before heading to London.

“We all have our coping mechanisms for putting up with each other, but I still don’t really know how we do it,” Jordi says.

“I think it is a lot easier that we are not on the road together, constantly sharing rooms and never being apart — that got hard. But now, just with being a bit more mature, we can give each other space when we need it and also regulate ourselves a bit better. Maybe I am talking about myself a bit more in that regard because I can be a bit hectic. 

“I also think that, no matter how much we piss each other off, we really love each other. Like, even if we are annoying each other or disagreeing on something, we have a bigger vision of what our band is and what it means to us.”

Besties

The trio has already hit up Kingscliff, Brisbane, Sydney and Gosford, and will be onstage at the Hindley Street Music Hall tonight before venturing to Melbourne, Torquay and Perth.

“Lately, we have been playing a lot of weekend festivals where we go and play at a festival and come home, so I am actually loving playing our headline shows,” Jordi says.

“We can play a longer set and we can talk to everyone that is there in a way that assumes they are there to see us. At a festival, people might have just been walking past and seeing us, not knowing anything about us or the band or whatever. At a headline show, we can treat it a bit more like we’ve got our friends over for dinner.”

San Cisco says we can expect to hear the band’s latest releases, including their latest single ‘High’, at the concert alongside classic songs such as ‘Awkward’ and ‘Too Much Time Together’. 

“We might also play some unreleased songs if you’re lucky,” Josh adds.

So, CityMag asks, what is the band performing when they’re not on stage?

“It depends on what hour of the night it is. It also depends who I am with I suppose. There are songs we share with different friends,” Josh says. “Might be kind of lame but some Elvis I suppose.”

“Elvis? That is a big undertaking,” Jordi replies. “There is a big song that Scarlett and I sang in Tokyo together once — I think it was American Boy.”

“I have footage of Scarlett singing Video Games by Lana Del Rey and that is a classic.”

“That is a winner!”