Chit Chat: Nick Ward on his intimate debut album House with the Blue Door, working with Troye Sivan, and more

Nick Ward wanted his first album, House with the Blue Door, to tell his story up to now.

First gaining attention as an Unearthed High finalist in 2019, Ward's warm, inventive pop — a mixture of dreamy synths, diaristic lyrics, skittering hip-hop beats and big-swing hooks — runs towards questions with no easy answer: Who am I and what has shaped me?

Across the album's 11 tracks, the 23-year-old sifts through his life with a series of vignettes: Coming out as queer at an all-boys school; being shamed at nine for playing with make-up; being a third-generation immigrant; seeing (and accepting) your family's flaws; and saying goodbye to friends, family and homes.

It's gorgeous yet understated, with Ward saying he learned the art of packing lots into pop while working with Troye Sivan on the star's ARIA-nominated third album.

Currently supporting Sivan on his Australian and New Zealand tour, Ward chats to ABC Entertainment about his first love (film), coming-of-age, and how losing a hard drive of album material proved a blessing in disguise.

What was the last book you read?

The last book I read was a series of interviews between Roger Ebert and Martin Scorsese they had over the years [called Scorsese]. Ebert was such a champion of him, and it's interesting seeing the critic's brain against an artist. I think a lot of film critics are better writers than a lot of screenwriters.

So you're not of the mind that they don't build statues of critics?

I saw that! Then I saw a photo [with the caption], 'Admittedly, they did make that one statue of Roger Ebert'.

While making your debut album, you lost a hard drive with most of your songs. What do you do in that scenario?

When I make records, I normally like to choose a number — 100 or 75, or whatever it is — and make that many songs. Then you can start to chip away and try to find the threads.

[When it happened] I realised I lost so many songs that I didn't have to return to. If I couldn't sing it in my head or remember it, it probably wasn't worth completing. It freed me up a lot. I was able to zero in on the sound of this record.

Maybe I should do it for this new record I'm working on, too, and just throw my hard drive away?

You're playing Troye Sivan's Australian tour, and have writing credits on his most recent album. What's something you learned from working with him?

I had that hard drive f*** up when I was in Sweden, working on his record.

Partly why I was okay with losing everything was because I had learned so much while I was there. There was so much that I wanted to reapply and enter making the record again with this new headspace.

[Sivan] works with a very small team of people, and creates intimacy with co-writers and producers. What I learned from him is that you can collaborate on music, but you can retain your voice in that space.

It was the best experience of my life musically. I just learned so much.

What is your favourite movie of all time?

Yes! I've always wanted to talk about my favourite movies in an interview!

My Letterboxd top four are Oslo, August 31… Wait, I'm going to make some changes! Taste of Cherry, Punch Drunk Love and Beau Travail.

The catalyst for the 'Shooting Star' music video was Beau Travail — it was originally going to be a little bit more military vibes.

Is there a story behind the lyric in your title track, 'When I came out, I only got more lost'? It's against the grain of traditional coming-out narratives.

I came out on muck-up day at an all-boys school. I was driving to school with a friend, and they asked, and I was just like, 'Yep.' There was a feeling of weight off my shoulders, and I thought, 'Okay, I'm chasing that. I'm going to talk my friends today.' And it spread to other people who weren't my friends.

Everyone was either thinking that I was joking [due to muck-up day]. Or, coming out as bi/pan, my friends were very much like 'You need to pick a side.' Even my queer friends didn't believe in bisexuality. I suddenly felt I was having to reduce myself to a label rather than let it be fluid.

I felt this weird pressure from two sides, and I had such a limited view of what sexuality could be in high school. But when you leap forward out into the real world, and you meet more people, you can see that you don't have to limit yourself so much.

Another lyric that stood out from the same song was 'All the things I'm afraid of/They're made up'. What are you referencing?

A lot of the anxieties that I have can come down to perception and how I view the world. I'm a f****** insanely anxious person, and find it hard to do a lot of things — especially rolling out music, and feeling perceived and all that sort of stuff.

As much as this record is about childhood and memory, it's also about confidence and anxiety and mental health.

A lot of the time when you're in the music industry you feel like you're selling yourself as a person rather than the work you've done. I would always much prefer to speak through the work and have let that be the thing that represents me.

Even on this recent trip to the UK to play my first shows there this year, I was more anxious about the [songwriting] sessions afterwards than the shows — meeting someone for the first time, and I don't know, opening up that process.

It's interesting how being on stage is not necessarily that scary for me, but ordering a coffee is.

What's the last photo you took? And can we see it?

This camcorder that I'm bringing on the road next week.

It's just nice to document it. I never take photos or videos of anything, and I have such a bad memory, so I just don't recall many things in my life.

But this tour is something I want to remember.

What is your most listened-to artist this year?

This year, Animal Collective has become one of my favourite bands. I've been listening to their album Sun Tongs so much. Lou Reed, too. I listened to him growing up, but really rediscovered him this year.

[But Animal Collective are] a band that was able to Trojan horse so much f****** weird shit into such concise packages, especially on [break-through album] Merriweather Post Pavilion. And they never compromised: They did exactly what they wanted to do, and made only weirder and weirder albums.

When I started listening to them, and [band member and solo musician] Panda Bear, I felt super inspired. It opened up a lot of possibilities of where I wanted to take my music, being influenced by the 60s and psych-rock bands and synth bands and how to transform those influences into pop songs. Not many do it better.

You're a member of Full Circle, a collective of emerging Western Sydney acts and friends that includes Zion Garcia, SOLLYY and Friday*. What's the working dynamic like?

What I've gotten out of Full Circle is the experience of being in a band — people putting a battery in your back, being inspired by other people and pushing each other — but you still get to have control. You don't have the potential clashes that you could have being in a band and all trying to steer the same ship.

This is so pretentious, but there's this amazing Brian Eno quote where he talks about "Scenius" [a term Eno coined for the collective genius of a group of people working together], where it's more important to put energy into a scene and a group of people to generate an idea, even if it ends up being articulated by one person. With Full Circle, it's an endless inspiration for all of us.

Nick Ward's album House With The Blue Door is out now, and he is supporting Troye Sivan on his Australian and New Zealand tour this November and December.

Quotes have been condensed for clarity and brevity.