Q&A: Spacey Jane on bringing their show back to the states, their new album and more!
PHOTO BY COLE BARASH
Three years ago, in October of 2022, I saw one of the greatest shows I have ever seen. As a concert photographer who attends many shows, that is a huge statement to make and I still stand by it. The show was Spacey Jane, an Australian indie-rock band made up of Caleb Harper (lead vocals and guitar), Ashton Hardman-Le Cornu (lead guitar), Peppa Lane (bass), and Kieran Lama (drums). Ever since then I have been not-so patiently waiting for their return so I could witness the magic I saw the first time, and luckily, my prayers have finally been answered.
Spacey Jane released their third album, If That Makes Sense, in May of this year, and after playing the new tunes to audiences in Australia and New Zealand, they're finally bringing the show back to the states this September. PLEASER got a chance to chat with Caleb Harper prior to the start of this highly anticipated tour and chatted about his experience recording the album, touring it so far, Triple J covers and more!
PLEASER: Now that the album has been out for a few months, how has the response been? It is truly such an incredible body of work.
CALEB HARPER: Thank you! It's been good. I am past the phase of obsessively checking the numbers and thinking about it every day, which is nice. And I mean touring helps with that as well. You kind of get to see it lived out in the real world, so to speak. It's been really good, the response has been amazing, and it's been really fun playing the songs, so yeah, so stoked.
The Australian and New Zealand portion of the tour already happened, how was that? Did you have any songs that really stood out to play live?
CH: Yeah, definitely. I mean, off the bat, like the first show back having people sing along to album tracks that had been out for only like 10 days. It's pretty cool, even songs that weren't singles. I've been really pleased with “Ily the Most”, that song, which wasn't a single, but has been getting a really nice response live. I've seen it in peoples wedding videos and proposal videos and things online, which is cool. It's always nice because you don't know- obviously, you push songs, whenever there are singles and you service them, and then a whole bunch of album tracks are sort of left by the wayside in terms of marketing. So when one of them does well, I guess it's an indication that people have organically found it and that's really cool.
Definitely! Speaking of the tracks on the album, I read that you had almost 40 songs before you cut them down to what the track list is now. What was the process of deciding what made it and what didn't?
CH: Luckily, there's a pretty good general consensus among us about what songs we liked the most, which is always helpful. We then sort of narrowed it down to 20 or so, and then it was a lot of just playing them together in a room in pre production. We want everyone to have a contribution to the track and feel like it's a Spacey Jane song. So, you know, if someone’s not feeling it, then that might be a good indication that the track’s not meant to be for us as a band.
It's been three years now since you toured in the states, do you have any specific cities or places that you're looking forward to coming back to, or any you haven't been to yet that you're excited about?
CH: I have a few answers to that. I mean, LA has been home for me for the better part of the last few years, so I'm really looking forward to having all my friends at that show. And I always love playing New York, there’s something about that city that feels really magical. There's a few places we've never been before, like OKC, which will be interesting. I haven't toured much in the South. And Montreal, were doing Canada for the first time. My favorite part about touring the US is the weird off days you have, like I think we have an off day in Billings, Montana maybe, or Wyoming, one of those two states. And I’m just excited to see what's going on there, like it's a place you don't go to, necessarily. So yeah, that's my favorite part. Last tour, we had a day off in Hot Springs, Arkansas and just got to go to a steam bath for the day. That's the fun stuff.
I love that you're bringing the Bel Air Lip Bombs to open for this tour, who are another incredible Australian band. Are there any other Australian bands you love and want to give a shoutout to?
CH: There's so many! Teenage Dads are really good friends of ours, love those guys. An artist called Phoebe Go who we toured with in Australia recently. And the Moving Stills. A couple of classic, great Australian artists are Julia Jacklin and Angie McMahon as well, two incredible female solo artists.
One of my favorite things that the Australian music scene does is the Triple J covers. I know you did “Here Comes The Sun” previously, if you could do one now, what song would you choose?
CH: I was actually thinking about this the other day. We actually sort of hate doing covers because it's so hard to decide, and we're really bad at learning songs. Maybe we need to get better at our instruments, but I kind of want to do “Take It Easy” by the Eagles, so I'll see if I can convince the band of that.
Was there any media, whether it's music or movies/television that inspired any of the album?
CH: Not particularly, I mean, artists we were listening to at the time, I was smashing a lot of like Tom Petty. And I was listening to a lot of Australian ‘80s pub rock bands like ICEHOUSE and The Church, sort of relatively obscure music outside of Australia, but massive back home, especially during that time. Yeah, that's the similar vein in music. I think that had some inspiration, just the way they have these big snare and a lot more synth stuff, and they're really well produced and engineered records. I think the biggest inspiration was honestly Los Angeles, being away from home and the people that were around me and the collaborators, that was where the inspiration came from.
How was it being on this side of the world recording this album? Were you guys all together, for at least certain points?
CH: At certain points, yeah. I mean, it was mostly me there. Ashton came over for a bit and he and I did a lot of guitar stuff, pre production. It was amazing, I got to work with a bunch of people who I wouldn't have had the opportunity to work with in Australia. That was challenging and inspiring, but it was also really isolating in a lot of ways. I was on my own for a lot of it, and you know, just stuff like, how do I see a doctor? I need to get my drivers license, I need a social security number and all that. I spent 10 years of my adult life in Australia sort of figuring all that stuff out, and then I moved to LA and it's like, oh, I don't have any friends here, I don't have a credit score, like how do i do all that? It's just those sort of weird practical things you don't necessarily think about that are the really taxing part of being in a different country. But overall, it was a great experience.
Lastly, do you have a favorite memory from that experience that stood out to you?
CH: I remember, we would go to a bar in LA in Koreatown that was called The Prince, which is the bar they shot New Girl at. We would go there a lot during making the record and get the Korean fried chicken and get surgery bombs and just drink a lot of beer. And then the last night, we went out with everyone, Mike and Steven who produced the record, and just a lot of friends, and just had a ‘we finished the album’ celebration. That was a really special night. I hadn't drank during the whole recording process, and I just let loose. It was so great!
Listen to If That Makes Sense, out everywhere now, and make sure to catch Spacey Jane on tour!
