Andy Jans-Brown has been doing this for a long time. The Byron Bay musician has spent decades creating not just music, but film, theatre, and poetry too. He doesn’t stick to one lane, and he doesn’t seem too interested in trying to. His latest track, "Sunset or Sunrise", is a sharp indie-rock song full of questions: are we on the verge of collapse or something better? Could it be both?
The song came out of a drive back to Sydney from Batemans Bay, after playing at a festival called Nellijam with long-time collaborator Cameron Spike-Porter. That in-between feeling, Andy says, started there and became the heart of the song. “There’s a particular kind of energy in those moments,” he says. “You’re leaving something behind, heading toward something unknown, and there’s excitement in that, but also a kind of quiet dread. Like standing at the departure gate, knowing your life is about to change, but not quite knowing how.”
That edge, standing between two places, past and future, became central to the song. “It’s not quite the fall, and it’s not quite the flight,” he says. “It’s that suspended moment just before you find out which one it is.”
Musically, the track pulls you forward at a steady pace, but there’s tension holding it back too. Andy says that push-and-pull was something he thought about carefully. “There’s that U2 song, ‘Running to Stand Still’, which I’ve always loved,” he says. “And I remember my dad used to say, ‘For things to stay the same, everything must change.’ Those ideas seep in. They stick with you.”
He talks about memory like it’s a flickering film reel. “How much of our sense of movement is just a story we’re telling ourselves?” he asks. “A sequence we’ve stitched together after the fact. Little fragments, like a Super 8 film, flickering somewhere in the mind.”
That idea of being stuck somewhere, even as life moves forward, worked its way into the song. “Maybe parts of us don’t move on at all,” he says. “Like the last time you kissed a lover goodbye at a train station, and some part of you is still standing on that platform, watching the train disappear forever. It’s that strange duality, moving forward, but still anchored to the past.”
Andy’s been making music long enough to know how things build over time. He’s released four double albums so far, toured with legends like Nick Cave and Portugal. The Man, and somehow kept moving forward while keeping things grounded. His approach to music, film and creativity in general is open-ended. “For me, there’s really only art,” he says. “Each medium just offers a different doorway into that space.”
Andy explains that music is emotional, images feel closer to dreams, and language bridges into logic. But he’s wary of the way culture tends to simplify everything into bite-sized pieces for clicks and likes. “I think there’s a responsibility for artists to push back, to reintroduce nuance, to acknowledge and celebrate complexity,” he says. “Life is too vast, too layered, too messy to fit into neat little packages.”
Byron Bay is home for Andy, though he admits his version of life there doesn’t line up with the stereotypes. He laughs about being introduced on the radio as “Andy from Byron,” saying he should’ve leaned into the clichés of influencers and golden-hour yoga shoots. “At the time, I was working as a funeral director,” he says plainly. “During COVID, when all the gigs disappeared overnight, I found myself sitting with grieving families, helping them plan farewells for people they loved. Driving the deceased to the crematorium. Standing there as someone’s entire life was reduced to ash.”
He says that contrast, between beauty and sorrow, fantasy and reality, defines life there for him. “There’s the light, the ocean, the volcanic rocks, the fertile soil. But there’s also floods, grief, a kind of loneliness. Sunsets are more than just a photo opportunity, they’re liminal spaces like Airport Departure Lounges, thresholds we pass through as we journey into the darkness of night and the theatre of life”
One of Andy’s most treasured moments from the road was having dinner with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds after playing one of the last shows at Brisbane’s Festival Hall. “I sat next to Nick and Anita Lane,” he says. “I was blown away by what a gentleman Nick was. He was much softer and kinder than I’d imagined from his stage persona.”
Andy shared a dream he’d had where he asked Cave, “What do I have to do to be a rock star?” Dream Nick’s reply: “It’s as simple as sticking your dick in a dim sum.” When Andy told him this, Cave laughed so hard he almost fell off his chair. “Through tears, he said, ‘Maybe it is. Was it steamed, fried, or still frozen? Maybe I was trying to tell you it’s very difficult.’ Then he added, ‘I think you better take that one up with your therapist.’”
For Andy, moments like that stick. “He’s so much more human than his myth,” he says. “So much more nuanced, angelic even. He’s communing with something timeless on stage.”
Andy still finds himself surprised by the mistakes that music throws his way. “A wrong note on guitar, a misheard word, can open up new doors,” he reflects. “Most of the time we try to correct them, to pull back to what we know. But sometimes the best thing you can do is not fix it. Just follow it. Those moments where you let go of control, yield to the accident, they can show you the song’s real shape. It’s like the song is waiting to show you what it is, rather than what you’re trying to make it be.”
"Sunset or Sunrise" lives in that exact space. A song on the edge, waiting for what comes next.
Listen to "Sunset or Sunrise" by Andy Jans-Brown here:
https://app.localsounds.com.au/song/andy-jans-brown/sunset-or-sunrise