Spacey Jane have big news today (February 10) – they’ve shared a deluxe edition of their 2022 album ‘Here Comes Everybody’ and May tour dates in regional Australia. Read on for the full list of dates and NME’s interview with frontman Caleb Harper.
Last time we spoke to Spacey Jane was in mid-2022, when the band were on the verge of releasing second album ‘Here Comes Everybody’.
“It feels like there’s so much more to be excited about, and it’s just a case of getting up and doing it,” Harper said at the time, acknowledging two years of havoc wrought on the music industry by COVID-19. Drummer and manager Kieran Lama echoed the sentiment: “It’s so much easier to feel hopeful for the future.”
Fast forward eight months, with their biggest Australian tour and first-ever North American shows under their belts, and those predictions were accurate – the band’s momentum has soared in the time since.
“I was really proud of those shows and that tour. It was special for us,” Harper tells NME of the band’s national home country victory lap, which saw them perform multiple consecutive evenings at venues like the Forum in Melbourne and Brisbane’s Fortitude Music Hall, as well as a hometown show at Perth’s RAC Arena.
They received a warm reception on their US run, an experience Harper calls “completely mind-blowing” when reflecting on the packed crowds. “We learned a lot about touring, and it was pretty intense,” he says of the lightning-speed jaunt – which saw them play some two dozen shows in the space of a month. “We had to really grit our teeth and get on with it, which was a good lesson for us, I think.”
Intense or not, Harper sounds, as always, sincerely grateful (and a little floored) about the opportunities they’ve been able to pursue in recent years. “When we put [debut album] ‘Sunlight’ out not even three years ago, we couldn’t have imagined we would be doing that sort of thing.”
Asked how his relationship has changed to ‘Here Comes Everybody’ since it was released, Harper says it’s been in “watching it find its way into other people’s lives” and translating it to the stage.
“Seeing how people engage with it, both online and then also in a room, at a show, and seeing how people are connecting, finding out which songs people like most, things like that. It’s always a weird transition but I enjoy it.”
Harper subscribes to the idea that once you put a piece of art out into the world, it shifts from your own hands to the audience’s. “You hope that they hold it and appreciate it.”
There’s no need to question the level of appreciation for ‘Here Comes Everybody’. Last month, six songs from the record placed in triple j’s Hottest 100 of 2022 – half the album, with three songs in the top 10 – making them the artist with the most entries in the countdown. The last time there were that many songs by a single artist in a single-year countdown was a whopping 17 years ago, when Wolfmother’s self-titled debut snagged Andrew Stockdale and co. half a dozen entries in the Hottest 100 of 2005.
“I was like, “Oh, I’d be happy with three or maybe four, that would be crazy,’” Harper says. “So for it to go the way it went was ridiculous. The reaction from us, when we were all together as it was happening, was just gobsmacked. Like, ‘Surely not.’
“Then it turned to one of just being appreciative. For us, it’s so important, those sorts of accolades, ones where it’s people that are voting, where it’s the voice of the fans. That means the most to us.”
Besides announcing a regional tour in May, with tickets going on sale at 12pm AEDT today via the band’s official website, Spacey Jane have released a deluxe edition of ‘Here Comes Everybody’. It includes the band’s first-ever featured guest through a rework of album highlight ‘Lots of Nothing’ with a verse from New Zealand pop phenom BENEE.
Spacey Jane’s label originally asked if the band had ever considered letting someone remix one of their songs. “We were like, ‘No, definitely not,’” Harper laughs. “The idea of letting a DJ remix it or something like that… It’s not the right BPM. How do you turn that into a dance track? Someone could do it, but the idea of commissioning it was kind of scary.”
In lieu of transforming the band’s jangly indie rock to a dancefloor banger, the idea of a guest verse was broached. BENEE, who the band met while touring together for Laneway Festival in 2020, immediately came to mind.
“She’s someone that we know personally, she’s from New Zealand, close by, so it just made sense. Her voice is so great.” BENEE’s honeyed vocals on the song provide a counterpart to Harper’s rawer croon. “Having [her] on the track balances out my voice a little bit, and she was just such a great fit for it.”
Along with a live version of ‘Hardlight’ recorded at RAC Arena, the expanded edition also includes two previously unreleased songs, ‘Sorry Instead’ and ‘Is This What You Wanted’. Their inclusion feels as natural as any of the other songs on the record: as Harper points out, the former song feels like a sonic evolution of ‘Sunlight’ tracks like ‘Wasted on Me’ or ‘Love Me Like I Haven’t Changed’.
“That song really only just missed out I think from making the cut from the record. It’s really nice to put it out. It missed out, but we said we were going to release it, so it’s nice to finally do that.”
‘Is This What You Wanted’, meanwhile, captures the repetition and listlessness that comes when you’re not sure where you want to be. Previewing the themes explored in greater detail on the rest of the album, it was among the first to be written for the record, in early 2021.
“I moved into a new place and wrote that, really, about a time and place experience I was having, just going through the motions of that feeling, depression and aimlessness. A lack of purpose.”
Speaking to NME last year, Harper indicated he was a restless songwriter, with a slew of demos lying on his phone at any given time. While that hasn’t changed – Harper says he was writing lots last year, over the summer, and is about to head to Los Angeles to fit in some sessions – he also indicates that Spacey Jane are going to take a more deliberate approach to songwriting when it comes to album three.
“We’re really going to set aside good chunks of this year to work on writing the next record, because I think maybe we haven’t done that in the best way previously,” he says.
“You put a bit of pressure on yourself and you don’t have the chance to get as much material together and really think about the record. So I think we’re going to try and ease into it a little more this time, which I’m excited for.”
Spacey Jane’s 2023 regional tour dates are:
MAY
Saturday 20 – Darwin, BASSINTHEGRASS
Wednesday 24 – Wollongong, Uni Hall
Thursday 25 – Gosford, Drifters Wharf
Friday 26 – Newcastle, NEX
Sunday 28 – Queensland, Miami Marketta
Wednesday 31 – Rockhampton, GT Western
JUNE
Thursday 1 – Mackay, Harrup Park
Saturday 3 – Townsville, The Warehouse
Sunday 4 – Cairns, Gilligans
Wednesday 7 – Sunshine Coast, Venue 114