Caleb Harper charts Spacey Jane’s rocking ascent to third album If That Makes Sense
With its upcoming tour on track to sell 60,000 tickets nationally, WA rock band Spacey Jane has spent the past few years cresting new waves of popularity while powered by evocative songwriting.
When booking a tour in support of its forthcoming third album, Fremantle band Spacey Jane encountered a quandary. Having become an established live draw across the nation in the past five years, the band had an inkling it was likely to sell plenty of tickets, but the problem was figuring out the right-sized venues to book.
It’s a tantalising and enviable problem for a relatively young act to ponder; there’s not many Australian rock bands operating today that are wrestling with the issue of whether to hire arenas for single nights, or smaller rooms for back-to-back shows.
In the end, the quartet opted for multiples, and quickly extended the initial run to meet booming demand: 45,000 tickets were sold in the first week of sale, with the passionate response a side-effect of the band’s decision to stay out of the touring market for nearly two years while writing and recording album No.3.
In its hometown, Spacey Jane has sold out seven nights at the 700-capacity Freo.Social – a feat that set a venue record for the longest stint of shows – as well as three nights at the 3300-capacity Fortitude Music Hall in Brisbane, and two at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion (with a further third still on sale).
While the band has played large rooms before – including a 2022 debut at Perth’s RAC Arena, where the likes of Billie Eilish, Kylie Minogue and New Order have recently played – for now, a desire for intimacy trumps any itching need to reach for the next rung of the endless showbiz ladder.
Of the upcoming residency in Fremantle, frontman Caleb Harper tells Review: “Seven [concerts] is kind of where we capped it; we probably could have kept going, honestly, but we were like, ‘That’ll do’. It feels like a combination of a couple of things: it’s hometown love and, to me, it speaks to what we are as a band, and what people have come to love about a Spacey Jane show. It’s something that’s a bit sweaty and very intimate, and the ability to come home and do shows like that feels like it’s full circle, in a way. For us, it’s a thank you to people: ‘Hey, here’s a bunch of shows – pick which day you want to come’.”
“A lot of it is down to creating the right feeling,” says Harper of the live experience. “I think 5K [5000] is a really nice amount of people in a room; above that starts to feel … I don’t know, it’s funny, we’re not an arena band. Maybe we will be; maybe that will be the show that we pull together. But it’s also insanely expensive, and people don’t realise what it costs to put the production in an arena, for it to feel really right.”
As well, there were other considerations in play when prioritising intimacy over expanse. “There was plenty of emails going back and forth as we were adding shows: ‘Caleb, is your voice going to be fine?’ And I always just say, ‘Yeah’ – but I’ll definitely be getting a lot of sleep, that’s for sure,” he says with a smile.
Final ticket sales are approaching 60,000 across the 21-date Australian run, which begins in early June, a month after the release of third album If That Makes Sense.
“I’d say there’s a bit of surprise about how well this tour has gone for us,” says Harper. “I was hopeful – I always am – but also really nervous, having been away for so long, and without the album being out. It feels like a vote of confidence from people to say, ‘We want to see this show; we’ve missed you’, and that feels really special.”
Crucially, many of these tour dates are all-ages gigs, too. At 28, frontman Harper exhibits an earnest, vulnerable and relatable manner of songwriting. In him, young listeners have found a lighthouse; a young man whose stirring songs and melodies have become a reliable beacon to capture the imaginations of adolescents and beyond.
If That Makes Sense sees the singer-songwriter-guitarist flexing his creative muscles in new positions and modes, while backed by a sensational band – drummer Kieran Lama, bassist/vocalist Peppa Lane and guitarist Ashton Hardman-Le Cornu – who trade in sunny, smart and catchy indie rock arrangements.
A curiously named song called Booster Seat was Spacey Jane’s breakthrough, from its 2020 debut album, Sunlight. At 106 million Spotify streams, it remains the band’s most popular song by a wide margin, and for good reason: its central metaphor compares the feeling of sitting in a child’s car seat with the mixed feelings of trust, guilt and control as an adult, yet it manages to marry heavy, complex concepts with breezy instrumentation and an undeniable chorus melody. These memorable lyrics were set against a stirring soundtrack that managed to bottle the feeling of childhood nostalgia, in line with Harper’s remarkable imagery.
It was catnip for Triple J radio listeners in particular, who voted the song into the No.2 spot on that year’s Hottest 100 music poll, behind only Heat Waves by British band Glass Animals – a unicorn of a song that broke chart records worldwide.
(An aside: it would have made Review’s list of the 60 best Australian songs of the past 60 years, too, if not for another beautifully composed song issued that same year – Cherub, by Brisbane band Ball Park Music. Both were released in 2020, an interrupted year coloured by Covid lockdowns; coincidentally, both of these wistful songs appealed to a generation feeling cooped up and deprived of their usual social routines. Cherub polled at No.4 in the Hottest 100.)
Booster Seat also won the band its first ARIA Award for song of the year in 2021, and when asked about it in early March – on a video call from Los Angeles after playing some “underplay” club shows Stateside – Harper describes it as “undeniably the thing that broke us in Australia, and definitely to whatever extent we’ve broken in the rest of the world, it’s a big part of that as well. It’s funny when a song grabs like that”.
“It wasn’t a single. It was a ‘focus track’, I suppose, once the record came out. But none of us really thought that it was going to be that special,” he says. With a laugh, he adds: “The label didn’t really know. I remember Amelia [Murray], who was our first bass player; just around the time that we finished recording that song, she finished playing bass on it, then left the band to go do her post-grad medicine and become a doctor – which she is now. She was always like: ‘That’s the song!’ I’m like, ‘All right, if you say so…’. But it’s funny: the lesson in that song is that I have no idea what’s going to work, and what’s not going to work. That taught me to be like, ‘Who knows?’”
As for his relationship with Booster Seat now, five years on?
“I love it,” Harper replies, smiling with pride. “The only relationship I have with it – outside of really appreciating it – is that I want to make something that does even better than it. I definitely think about that. I’ve never tried to make something that sounds like it again, or whatever; we definitely don’t think about it in that sense, but we want to make a song that goes to greater heights than that.
“I’m not sick of playing it, by any means. When we hit the ‘ohs’ in the bridge, I step off the mic and let people just belt it, and I still get goosebumps.” He pauses. “I’ve got goosebumps talking about it right now; it’s an incredible feeling, no matter how many times we play it.”
The band’s recent US shows – as well as three pop-up club gigs in Australian capital cities in January, announced at short notice – marked a return to the stage following a self-imposed 15-month break from performances, so as to pause and re-evaluate after several years of whirlwind success.
Slowly but surely, the songs for album No.3 were written, finessed and finalised, then recorded in Los Angeles across 12 weeks with Northern Irish producer Mike Crossey, whose credits include work with Arctic Monkeys and the 1975.
Self-funded by the band before being offered to record labels, If That Makes Sense shows the four musicians’ patient and self-assured approach paid off: the record offers the strongest set of songs Spacey Jane has yet issued.
As an accomplished, cohesive body of work, it also presents a fine entry point for new listeners seeking an Australian rock band capable of producing gorgeous, emotive and melodic music redolent of acts such as the Go-Betweens, the Triffids and Crowded House, although Harper cites his own key songwriting influences as Jeff Tweedy (Wilco), Chris Martin (Coldplay), Alex Turner (Arctic Monkeys) and the early work of US band Kings of Leon.
The frontman talks excitedly of forthcoming US and UK tours, and booking bigger venues than he and his colleagues have previously attempted to fill overseas. His ambition is palpable, but it’s backed by earned experience and a measure of healthy uncertainty, too. He leads what has become one of the nation’s most popular bands, but there’s no sense he’s taking anything for granted.
As for whether the past five years have felt like a gradual progression or a steep ascent, he pauses to reflect on the question.
“I think back in 2020 and 2021, when Sunlight came out and it felt like the world changed for us, that definitely felt steep – but at the same time, that was four years into being a band, making music and touring, so it felt like we’d laid the groundwork for that,” he says. “Not that we deserve success, or deserve to be where we are; it definitely feels like we’ve worked for it, and we’ve been really fortunate along the way. For us, if we can just keep steadily growing, and if we can keep doing this for a long time, that’s the goal.”
If That Makes Sense is released on May 9 via AWAL. Spacey Jane’s 21-date Australian tour will begin in Brisbane (June 4-6) and end in Fremantle (June 26 – July 3).
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