SATURDAY’S CHILD is a studio project created by Australian producer-songwriter-musicians, Victor Stranges and Frank Apicella. A chance meeting in March 2021 at Thirty Mill Studios (Melbourne, Australia) resulted in the birth of Saturday’s Child. Victor Stranges and Frank Apicella were separately attending a recording session run by Mark Opitz (AC/DC, INXS, The Angels, Cold Chisel, The Divinyls) alongside studio engineer, Colin Wynne (INXS, Monique Brumby, Matt Walker, Jeff Lang, Ashley Davies). Opitz was producing a four-track EP for Victor’s son Sam’s indie band, LIPSTEREO. Apicella , a long-time friend of Opitz’s, often sat in on the producer’s recording sessions to learn and observe. Stranges was there to give his son moral support.
“I bought the cannoli and Frank made the espresso,” said Stranges. “And I later found out that Frank had been in the studio with Mark (Opitz) for eight years,” he added. Stranges and Apicella’s backgrounds are Southern Italian, with similar life experiences growing up.
In late 2021, Stranges called on Apicella to see if he was interested in co-producing and working with a talented singer they both knew. This connection resulted in the birth of SATURDAY’S CHILD. Their debut single ‘Cola’, an Arlo Parks cover is a slow-burning, soulful, melancholy song with a lyrical sting. Melbourne-based R&B singer Ema Jay delivers a tender, smooth, care-free vocal that belies the song’s lyrical themes of a relationship turned bad. Stranges and Apicella purposefully recorded the track with real drums without quantising the beat, thus giving an authentic feel of what pop music can sound like with a modern-day production.
In a few short weeks, ‘Cola’ has been on high rotation in the US, UK, Canada, Portugal, Belgium and Australia. Recently it re-entered the spotlight as the #1 Most Downloaded & the #1 Most Streamed track in the Australian Play MPE Charts (national industry chart). ‘Cola’ has officially been released and serviced to 16.000 radio stations throughout the world including the U.S., Europe, Japan, South America, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. on the newly established independent record label, Pop Preservation Society. ‘Cola’ is now available on all major digital platforms.
Australian Musician editor Greg Phillips sat down with Victor Stranges and Frank Apicella to talk about the inception of Saturday’s Child and the future plans for the project. Photos by Jason Rosewarne
https://www.saturdayschild.com.au/
Check out the fabulous video that accompanies the single ‘Cola’