If you let TOWNS run your town, the food places never close and the mayor is whoever slept more.

TOWNS have now made their Singapore debut at Music Matters, but before they landed, they were already plotting sugarcane juice, hawker food and (fingers crossed) a trip up the skybridge. Aston Valladares and Daniel Steinert started out carpooling to uni and swapping songs from their childhoods, and somewhere between the shared playlists and the “why not?” energy, TOWNS was born. Now, with SAY IT ALL and MAGNIFICENT out in the world and a new album on the way, they’re feeling more current, more chaotic and a lot less shy.

Ahead of the trip, we caught up with the duo to talk “audio flirting”, new music they owe themselves, Aussie bands that deserve more love, and what happens when two grown adults are handed the keys to a town.

Scroll on for the full Q&A. No delivery fees, no service fees, no regrets.

You both met in Uni, so we have to ask — what were your first impressions of each other? And what was it about your friendship that made you go, “We should probably make music together”?

Oh gosh, I think we both came across more shy than we probably were to seem ‘cool’ - it didn’t take long for us to start carpooling to and from the campus together which is probably where our connection really started to grow. Sharing songs from our childhood, songs that made us feel amped up and we realised how much we clicked sonically. We didn’t take uni too seriously and we spent most days thinking of how to make anything more fun, when we started to get separated in class we thought maybe a good time to channel this energy into something creative and then TOWNS was born!

You’ve been making music together for quite a while now-what do you think you understand about each other creatively that you might not have understood when you first started making music together?

It’s an ongoing learning process, we still have our quirks about the way both of us write and see music but I think we connect so heavily on our similarities that the differences just become exciting. I had never sung until TOWNS started simply because we thought ‘why not?’ and then that bled into our songwriting approach and led us to discovering a sound that felt uniquely ours. I think we are both incredibly in tune with each other's ear, like when we jam i always know when Dan will be about to do a fill, or i know what chord i can play that Dan will want to turn into a song, it's literally like audio flirting, it would be rude not to follow that thread and make music.

It had been a little while since sentimental slowdown, and now we’ve had SAY IT ALL and MAGNIFICENT in the space of a few months. What’s it been like having new TOWNS music out again, and how do you feel these two songs represent where you’re at right now?

I think the coolest and simplest way to look at it, is we set out to make sentimental slowdown a nostalgic record that we felt we owed to our younger early 2000’s selves. This new music feels like the music we owe ourselves now. It feels representative of all the early freedom we felt as songwriters with the experience we’ve gained from doing this together for so long. It’s always sad to see older songs leave the set, but the energy it brings us to play new music is 1000% worth it.

Now that new music is back out in the world, is there anything you can tease about what’s coming next?

I think what I can tease is that, from what i’ve heard of our new album, I’ve been the opposite of shy, I’ve been antsy to show people and see if it ticks their boxes, I feel like on our new record there is VERY likely to be a song out of the lot that someone would enjoy or appreciate. You can never appeal the masses but the influences on these new songs are much more current, chaotic and in tune with what we are into now

Who’s an Australian artist or band you’ve been really excited about lately that you think deserves more attention?

I think it would be rude of me to not mention Bakers Eddy (RIP) while they were a NZ band who moved to Melbourne, they truly were so special and so creative and everything they did we were massive fans of. Egoism is another one who gets better and better with every song they put out and I know they’ve been to music matters before so people should be across their wonderful songwriting!

You’re coming to Singapore for the first time with Music Matters-what are you most excited about? And is there anything you absolutely want to do or eat while you’re here?

Excited to try sugarcane juice, Tik Tok put me onto it as a must try while i’m there. Also keen to check out some of the local Hawkers. Universal studios if we have time would be sick and is it the skybridge? Sometimes i feel like social media can ruin the surprise of visiting a new place, but Singapore looks absolutely breathtaking online so exciting to see it in real actual life.

Since this is your first time meeting the Singapore crowd, what’s one thing you hope people who come to your show leave knowing about TOWNS?

That you don’t have to take yourself seriously to be taken seriously! We make sure every live show is different and it’s never the same set, jokes, moves or words as the last. Some people like that and some people may find it inconsistent and unprofessional, we just think its part of what makes playing music fun for us and fun to watch as a fan!

Okay, now, if TOWNS were an actual town, and we handed you the controls to build it from scratch, what kind of place are we moving into? Think local landmarks, questionable neighbours, the town's soundtrack — and of course, which one of you is running the place?

Okay, firstly it would have activities, a batting cage, a cinema, an arcade, a football pitch, go karts, mini golf, VR goggles everywhere, life size rocket league court, e-scooters. The food places would NEVER close and there would be NO delivery or service fees in our Town. It would be like if you let two 13 year olds run the school and be in charge of all the rules, Probably super unsafe and chaotic but we’d figure it out. Local landmarks would be the world's biggest superbed, basically we love getting to a hotel room and making a giant bed in the loungeroom over separate rooms. The main street would be full of decadent pastry shops and coffee shops. We would also be the host to the next world cup hopefully as well. I think we are pretty good at keeping everything 50/50, maybe a rotating roster where we swap each week based on who has more brain capacity that varies based on sleep, hunger and how many reels we’ve watched.