Making a name for herself as leading lady of Sekiden and keyboardist for Regurgitator, Brisbane’s pride and joy SEJA VOGEL (that’s Sey-a) has finally decided to test the waters alone with her debut solo album  We Have Secrets But Nobody Cares. In amongst a lot of laughter and sidetracking, she tells TESS CURRAN all about it.

Seja Vogel likes vintage synthesisers. She likes them so much that she spends a fair portion of her spare time hidden away creating handmade felt-based replicas of her instrument so revered. And keyboards too – don’t think they don’t get the same treatment. It’s all under the facade of her cult craft label ‘pul(sew)idth,’ which she started almost by accident after deciding to create “a studio out of felt” as a Christmas present for one of her friends. (Now that’s the kind of gift that knocks your socks-and-bath-products combo right out of the water).

“I’ve always made presents for people for birthdays and Christmases, so I tried to make this one friend a whole studio out of felt,” she recalls. And she does mean everything. “I even tried to make a full computer screen with an open session of Pro-Tools with a stereo track,” she laughs. “Then my brain exploded and I decided I had gone too far.”

I can only imagine: a grand idea in theory, but one that ultimately led to her self-imposed entrapment alone in a room covered in felt and glue for weeks. “That’s the story of my life!” she exclaims. “I am always stuck in a room doing stuff on my own!”
Time-consuming as it may be, pul(sew)idth is just a side project for Seja, who still spends the majority of her time devoted to the functioning versions of her felty creations. After spending several years as a member of Brisbane indie faves Sekiden, she has also spent the better part of the last few years playing keys for Regurgitator and Spod, and has contributed her talents to many other local bands including The Mess Hall and Dave McCormack & The Polaroids. That’s quite a resume.

“I started playing in Sekiden when I was 17,” she explains. “I think Sekiden definitely felt like it was ‘my’ band, you know – I had a certain amount of ownership over it because I was one of the people who started it. With Regurgitator it was all really, really fun, but it’s Ben and Quan’s band, so that’s just a whole different experience.”  

And what about the decision to go solo? Is that something she had been thinking about for a while? “Yeah I guess so,” she muses. “I think I just had heaps of time on my hands when I’d come home from tour [with Regurgitator] and just not have anything to do for a couple of weeks. I ended up feeling like I wanted to do something creative for me ... When you play in someone else’s band, you don’t really have that much input into the songs and songwriting.”

She pauses. “I also just really wanted to see if I could do it on my own.”

And so she has – and very well at that. However, she quickly admits, it wasn’t such a ‘solo’ process after all. “In the end I didn’t really do it on my own so much. Mainly just because I was just bored sitting in a room by myself!  My brother [Mirko] helped me out a lot, and I got a lot of friends in too.”

But the solo songwriting process was something she did find a refreshing change. “I enjoyed it so much, I really did. It’s so different from writing with other people. I found myself getting really attached – it was really hard to let go of songs. You know, when you feel like they’re completely yours and you don’t have anyone else coming in and saying ‘Okay, stop now – it’s finished!’”

“I think it would have been a really different record if I had used commercial stuff and other instruments … I guess it was a real love letter to vintage synthesisers.”

In her quest to create the self-described “girly, synthy, vocally pop” that is We Have Secrets But Nobody Cares, Seja chose – once again – to work only with vintage synthesisers to achieve the sound she desired.   “I think it would have been a really different record if I had used commercial stuff and other instruments,” she explains. “I guess it was a real love letter to vintage synthesisers.”

Wow, missed opportunity for an album name right there.  Oh well, we eventually agree, there’s always the tour. And the book. “Ode To Analogue,” she laughs, before I quickly press her about the actual title of the album ... What are these secrets she speaks of?

“They’re boring secrets,” she dismisses. “Nobody cares.”

Nice ruse. Maybe we get to hear the secrets if we play the record backwards?

“You can try,” she says.  Well maybe I will Seja, maybe I will – just after I figure out how to load mp3s backwards into iTunes...

But for now, I’m happy – as many others are – to just listen to We Have Secrets But Nobody Cares the way it is; an album first described to me as ‘one which reveals the sort of mixed euphoria astronauts or pilots may feel when an affair begins mid-flight.’ And, as obscure a reference as that may be on paper, I think I’m inclined to agree.

So with the heights of spacey dream pop now successfully scaled, is Seja now ready to follow the more-than-usual trajectory for Brisbane creatives and set her sights further afield? (More specifically, London or Melbourne way?)

“I’m not sure,” she says. “I really quite like Brisbane. I like the music scene here, and think there’s lots of really amazing people and really creative energy ... You can tell when you come into a city like this. I get really overwhelmed when I go to somewhere like Sydney or Melbourne or overseas, and there are like five million bands trying to make it and they’re all really amazing. You get paralysed; just overwhelmed.”

So does she prefer being the big fish in the little pond that is Brisbane then?

She laughs. “I don’t know. I don’t see myself as a big fish – but I definitely like our pond.” 

With a Troubadour show next week just one of the many gigs coming up for Seja to celebrate the album’s launch, how would the lady herself sum up the venture? 

She pauses for a moment. “I don’t know. I’m bad at describing these things. I guess I just wanted the sounds in my mind to just come out...”  

Well, Seja, then you have a very beautiful mind indeed.

SEJA plays The Troubadour alongside Otouto and BigStrongBrute on Thursday Apr 22 from 8pm. WE HAVE SECRETS BUT NOBODY CARES is out now through Rice Is Nice.  www.myspace.com/sejamusic  / www.etsy.com/shop/pulsewidth

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