Making Sense - An Interview with Spacey Jane

Australian indie rock band Spacey Jane have recently released their third studio album, 'If That Makes Sense' earlier this month. Spacey Jane have their origins in live shows and club scenes in Perth, and definitely are best enjoyed live still. Many of you will know their song 'Booster Seat' from lockdown era! Their previous albums are works capturing moments in their life, raw and sunny and cathartic all at once.

'If That Makes Sense' is the latest to tackle love, loneliness and human contradictions, with ear-worm guitar hooks and lyrics that haunt you in the best way possible. The album debuted #2 on the ARIA charts, and soon the band will be embarking on an international tour supporting the release — coming to Auckland Town Hall on June 1. With the NZ tour on the horizon, Craccum had the opportunity to ask some questions, which singer/guitarist Caleb Harper took the time to answer through email.

To start off, I notice you have an intro to this album, which you haven’t really done before. It also has a different kind of sound to the rest of If That Makes Sense, a very dream-like quality. What’s the story behind Intro?

CALEB: I’ve always liked album intros but we’ve never really had the time to go down those kinds of rabbit holes before. We definitely had the time to play around for this record so it was on my mind. The intro started with a video I took of Mike soloing and balancing all the little arpeggiated guitars and synth sounds we recorded for “Through My Teeth”. I played it for him a couple of weeks later and suggested we turn it into an intro. The audio is actually ripped from the phone recording and we pitch shifted a bunch of my voice memos from when I was writing the early album songs and put them in there.

(Mike Crossey is the producer of If That Makes Sense. He is best known for his work with the 1975 and Arctic Monkeys, bands that have been inspirations to Spacey Jane. Spacey Jane worked with him in Los Angeles and also brought in external songwriters Day Wave and Sarah Aarons for the first time.)

I hear that you recorded everything Stateside this time around, and I’m sure it was a different and exciting experience. What sort of difference did that make in your writing and recording process, and would you perhaps say this album was heavily impacted by where and how it was made?

CALEB: LA definitely had a big impact on the record. From a song writing perspective I found I had a lot of time to myself, a lot of time feeling isolated and forced to reflect in a way I hadn’t before. It’s also just a practical thing. There are so many incredible song writers, producers and general music industry folks out there. We collaborated far more than we had before and learnt a lot about the industry. It was all really valuable.

If I listen to the album in one go, I find it very cohesive sonically. It speaks to a side of me that misses people but is afraid to connect, a side that tries to embrace a kind of uncertainty while being convinced of terrible things. It isn’t one thing but many at the same time. Did you go into it with a vibe already in mind, or did one emerge while you worked on it?

CALEB: I avoided prescribing an overarching theme to the record when we started making it. To me it just feels like a collection of the songs we liked the most made over a two year period. What it means to me is more about the context of how we made it. Betting on ourselves and taking the plunge into the deep end.

We grew as people and as a band and especially grew closer to each other.

Did the sound of the album naturally end up so cohesive, or did you have to return and tweak certain things to make them fit into how the overall album had taken shape? How did you all decide on the song order? ILY The Most being followed by August is very fascinating!

CALEB: Mike kept saying that the album would tell us what it wanted to be. I think I understood that in principle but it was amazing, as we approached the final weeks, how we began to have a sort of short hand for certain tones and ideas. We would go back to songs we’d recorded earlier and know exactly what to change to make so that they would fit into the whole of the record seamlessly. The track order is a much debated and confusing process. I still think there are other ways it could have gone but I’m also really happy with where we landed. Sometimes songs just feel like an opener or closer ([Through My] Teeth and August really had that vibe), sometimes songs feel like they have a partner song and belong together and other times you’re just trying to create the right ebbs and flows. Ily [the Most] into August felt right because of the mood of the songs but I agree it’s pretty funny how they quite heavily contradict each other.

Whateverrr really reminds me of when my friends and others around me say “Whatever, I don’t even care” when they care very, very much. Just from the lyrics and the title of the album, do you think dealing with big emotions as though they don’t matter has been a big part of your life?

CALEB: Yes, that’s one of my favourite moves, for sure. I think we can all be guilty of keeping big feelings at arm’s length in the name of protecting ourselves from uncovering too much hurt or letting it get too close. Whateverrrr is trying to wrestle with this idea that the biggest part of who I am was formed 20 years in the past and I can’t touch or really change it anymore.

I really love the All the Noise music video, but it makes me wonder about the setting and what’s really going on — there’s an American flag visible and your car is driving on the right side , but we see the car itself is a right hand drive. Was that meant to reflect something (Aussies in America?) or was it just how things unfolded? How about picking up the broken instruments at the end (charming!), was that a spur-of-the-moment sort of thing?

CALEB: It’s a combination of intention and coincidence. The car is actually a Japanese import and that’s why it’s right hand drive. We didn’t plan that, it’s just a friend’s car we borrowed but certainly something we thought about. The video was filmed in California (which explains the flag and right side of the road) and we wanted to capture the idea of the “girl from the middle of nowhere,” hence the location. We certainly wanted to lean into a bit of Americana and pay homage to the place where the record was formed and birthed. Ashton also swings a cricket bat (instead of the originally suggested baseball bat) as another nod to Australia. All of it is representative of an Australian band who love their roots and are trying to spread further afield. Picking up the instruments was a way of undermining the childish rage that went into smashing them. The song has a lot of anger without a place to direct it and we tried to capture that.

Additionally, the phone call is present in the video but not in the audio version. I feel like this adds a layer to enjoying this song, getting a different kind of context depending on how we’re listening to it, but was it intended as more of a flavour or is it referring to something specific?

CALEB: That’s a directorial choice that doesn’t have much to do with the song itself. Dan wanted to find a way to let the intensity breathe a little before we hit the chorus and I love how he did it. The song definitely deals with feeling disconnected from someone but not in the romantic way that the call hints at. 

I think How to Kill Houseplants is certainly the most eye-catching title in all of the album, and as one listens to the song it really makes sense (pun intended) why it was named that way. What sort of plants would you say fit best into the metaphor? I was imagining the piranha plant/venus flytraps from Mario, personally, but that sounds rather off the mark.

CALEB: Haha I can’t say I’ve ever had a venus flytrap so I’m going with a fiddle-leaf fig (although I’m doing a really good job of keeping one of them alive at the moment).

I’m really excited for your upcoming tour in Aotearoa New Zealand, it’s very rare for a band to start off promos after an album release here. You’ve toured here before too, and I’m sure visited across the ditch on other occasions. I wonder if you have any fond memories or places you love here that you’d like to share?

CALEB: So are we! We love touring in NZ and always have. There are so many similarities between our countries and we’re made to feel incredibly welcome. Without a doubt, I loved Hot Water Beach the most out of our travels across the ditch! We played in Coromandel and spent the afternoon at the beach and it was incredible.

Thank you for all your time. Just to end, I want to ask you about your favourite song from this album, and if you have anything else to say to your fans in Aotearoa.

CALEB: That’s a hard one and it seems to change all the time but for me I’ll say August. That song was close to 2 years in the making and a few times I thought it wouldn’t make the cut so I’m really proud of that one.

All I can say is thank you for listening and we can’t wait to see you!

Spacey Jane recommend listening to Good For You for first-time listeners of their music!

Head to Spacey Jane's website to check out more of their music and merch, and if you're in Auckland on the 1st of June, you can get tickets to their show here. They're also performing in Wellington on May 27-28, and Christchurch on May 30 if you happen to be there at those times. Get in quick to experience the groovy energy of their live shows!

Additionally, I must recommend giving their new album ‘If That Makes Sense’ a listen for some catchy songs full of guitar hooks and melodies that stick in your head. Personally, ‘Through My Teeth’ hasn't left my head since I first heard it. It's really becoming a problem I'm keen to spread to the rest of you.

Spacey Jane | Official Site

New album “If That Makes Sense” out May 9th

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