Riding high off the release of their second album What You’re Worth, Bre Jones and Bobby May of Library Siesta joined Grace and Al in the studio to talk artistic vision, bawling your eyes out and Murphy’s Law.

A gap of seven years separates Library Siesta’s debut record and their 2022 follow-up What you’re Worth. Those years were far from quiet. Along with writing, rewriting and refining 11 songs in the long lead up to their sophomore LP, the five-piece faced a series of personal challenges. Grace and Al asked what the last seven years looked like for Library Siesta.

“Friendship, health crises, financial crises, A lot of crises! But also a lot of joy, music, art practice and being in my bedroom.”

“We actually attempted to record during that period but then elected to re record all of the songs. They just weren’t ready yet.”

Fuelled by the collective belief in the music they were creating, Library Siesta stayed true to their artistic vision. Opportunity presented itself when the band was awarded the Sound On grant from Accessible Arts and Create NSW. This allowed them to connect with producer Ryan Brennan (Julia Jacklin, Ainsley Farrell, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard) to record the music in the environment it was meant for..

“On the one side, I feel like we didn’t have the choice because we didn’t have the money to record the songs in the way we believed they deserved. It became a bit of a Catch-22. The longer we spent working on it because we believed that we couldn’t do it in a DIY way, the more invested we became in it and the more we felt like, ‘No we do have to spend money on this,’ and we’re like, ‘Where’s the money?'”

The ongoing success of What You’re Worth has been shaped by a series of dreams-come-true for Library Siesta. From receiving the grant, through to radio play, rave reviews, sold out interstate shows and playing their favourite venues such as Oxford Art Factory’s Gallery Bar. Frontwoman Bre spoke about the feeling of reverse Murphy’s law around the launch.

“It’s almost like the opposite of Murphy’s Law. When Murphy’s Law says that everything that could go wrong will go wrong, it’s like everything that could go right, is going right and I’m like, ‘What is going on!’”

Most important to the band however, is the message behind the music. Masked by a glossy sheen of bright indie pop, What You’re Worth is a collection of deep and visceral stories. It dances with the idea of our own self perception and how it’s shaped by relationships with the people around us. According to Bre, this through line appeared gradually. 

“These songs are written over such a long period of time, after a time I started to notice some threads… I started to deliberately dig further in that direction. It was all about self worth and this question of what are we worth when we balance up all of the good things and all of the bad things and what makes us human and what does it amount to? There are all of these different ways into that bigger question.”

The goal for any artist in releasing their work is to have those pieces connect with people on a deeper level. This was a connection Bre and Bobby dug into after receiving a touching review from a fan detailing the impact What You’re Worth had on their life, pulling them out of a “slumber”.

“I bawled my eyes out when I read that review. It just felt so relatable because I have those records in my life that have changed things for me and to have made something that did that for someone else… there aren’t words that can describe what that feels like” – Bre

“It’s unreal hearing something like that. Bre built this beautiful canvas for us to build on and to see how far these songs have come and what they mean to me, I’m not sure I can fully express it.” – Bobby

Want to hear more from our chat with Library Siesta? Listen to the full interview with Grace and Al up top! You can also experience What You’re Worth below.