Foto-© Cole Barash
Drei Jahre ist es nun her, seit Spacey Jane ihr zweites Album Here Comes Everybody veröffentlicht haben – eine gefühlte Ewigkeit für ihre treue Fangemeinde, die sich nach neuen Songs gesehnt hat. Doch genau die können sich nun freuen. Denn die Band, die erst ihre Heimat Australien erobert hat – und nun den Rest der Welt, melden sich zurück mit ihrem neuen Album If That Makes Sense. Ihr Sound geschärfter, die Texte offener und emotionaler denn je – im Ganzen weniger jugendlich klingend. Wie If That Makes Sense zustande gekommen ist und was es thematisch behandelt, konnten wir den Frontsänger Caleb Harper persönlich fragen.
Your new album If That Makes Sense is coming out on the 9th of May. How are you feeling about the release being just around the corner?
Caleb: I’m good, I‘m tired. We have been rehearsing a lot and my voice is sore. I’m really just looking forward to getting a show on the road. It’s funny…the months leading up to the record coming out and the presses of finishing is pretty exhausting and can be nerve wrecking. But now that it’s about to come out it feels good and it feels like it’s out of our control and I we’re just excited.
You relocated to L.A. to start working on the songwriting. I know from experience that moving to or visiting a new place by yourself can be quite daunting. Can you tell me how you felt at that time?
Caleb: Yeah, I mean it was definetely daunting. It felt like an adventure at first and I had to figure out how to get my drivers license, social security number and all that stuff. It was kinda stressful and didn’t have a lot of my friends and you know what it‘s like when you’re in one place for a long time and you just know to which pub you go, where you go grocery shopping and all these things. The isolation was definetely difficult and it was an adjustment. There are a lot of cultural similarities between Australia and America but also many differences too, so that was a bit tough. But it was also good in a sense that I just focused on music, I wasn‘t distracted by anything.
While you were in L.A., how was the communication between you and the rest of the band in regards to the songwriting progress? Did you exchange ideas or was that something you exclusively did yourself?
Caleb: The songwriting itself I did by myself and other songwriters but there was always communication. Ashton was in L.A. for a bit with me, our guitar player, and Peppa and Kieran would come out a lot for rehearsals and pre-productions. I would go disappear for a month or two and send a new batch of songs like here, that is what I’ve been working on and this is the direction I’m liking. Yeah, it would come together like that slowly. We were always in communication and everyone knew what was happening.
You took your time with If That Makes Sense. You had around 40 songs written before going into recordings. With so many songs written, how did you approach the decision of which 13 would make the cut? Were there immediate favorites or was it hard to pick?
Caleb: Hm, I think we got it down to like fifteen or sixteen songs that we felt like were strong favorites and then the final little bit was tough to pick through like the ones that didn’t make the cut was pretty sad to miss out on. But with a lot of songs, it might be like I have a verse and a chorus and maybe I don’t even the show the band because I don’t think that this is the one. But yeah it is weird…it also becomes about what songs you think work well together and suits the tone of the record. Some songs I‘ll keep for later. You know everyone just has a feeling and you just sort of know which ones need to make it in the end.
I can imagine it being sad to not use songs that you wrote but as you said you can always come back to them.
Caleb: Yeah, it is sad that so much does not make the cut. But I also think that you need to make all this other bad music to make good music. That is my way of thinking about it. Somethimes weeks go by and I won’t come up with something I like or half happy with and it stays on my computer. I think that process is essential for making good art, to go through a bunch of sh*t art and then eventually something valuable comes out of it.
When you compare your new album to your previous ones Sunlight and Here Comes Everybody what do you think sets it apart the most?
Caleb: I am so bad at telling that because I feel so attached to them in different ways. But I think that “If That Makes Sense“ feels like it got the biggest sound, the least sort of garage-indie record. It feels like it was made with bigger things in line, hard to quantify that. It also feels more personal somehow, like I didn’t think I could be more personal but I guess here we are, haha. An even more devastating account of what I have been feeling.
How did Mike Crosseys experience with bands like The 1975 and Arctic Monkeys influence your collaboration and were there specific elements in his previous work that you hoped to incorporate into your own music?
Caleb: Not so much. What I like about Mike is that he’s made a lot of really good guitar records that don’t sound the same, they’re all vastly different. We like The 1975 but I love Arctic Monkeys but I don’t wanna sound like them. And I also love Wolf Alice with he worked with too. The thing about Mike is that he is bringing the best out of people. He made these amazing records with bands that sound so different to each other. I mean, he is the purest about tone and he is a really good engineer to start with and so you get a really good foundation to build on. We just spent so much time, everything was meticulously put together like there is no filler, no last minute decisions, everything we did was considered. I think that is something he is really intent on. If anything is going to be in this song, it has to earn its place. I like that mentality.
What would you say are the most prevalent emotions you were trying to capture across the album? Was there a certain feeling you kept coming back to?
Caleb: I think the thing that I kept coming back to was how being away from home made me lose or question myself and try to like find other things to build my identity around. It’s kind of what I’ve been saying before, I felt like such a product of my environment and I feel like I know who I am when I am here in Perth where I have my friends and these things that hold and shape me. So when I was in L.A. I lost those things I guess. It is like looking inward and to the past to figure out who I am without all these things that I have come to lean on.
What inspired you to name the album If That Makes Sense?
Caleb: People used to always ask what’s the theme of the album or trying to get like one headline out about it and there is none, It is not about one particular thing, I didn’t really know what I was trying to say or what I am getting at. It is just a whole collection of thoughts. It is a word salad as we say, they are not coherent and, I dunno if I believe any of them nor if I stand behind them. And I feel like in Europe in a lot of countries like Germany you guys are like more efficient with your language than we are. We say a bunch of sh*t and then finish with if that makes sense or i don’t know. You sort of discount what you say and it’s a way of almost washing my hands of the concepts of the album. Yeah, I don’t know.
Lyrically, I find the album very vulnerable and honest – quite self-critiquing too. There seems to be a theme of you, Caleb, feeling remorseful about how your younger self has acted. In “All That Noise“ you sing “Yes it’s all my fault and I have years of keeping score“. Can you tell me about your meaning of this song?
Caleb: Hm yeah I mean, I started this song…I am trying to like tell this story and trying to understand and figure out where I came from. And understanding my parents and the dysfunctional history they had that I don’t quite know much about and I am too afraid to ask about. So it is like this retelling of this story and piece it together and like there’s this crossover anger about not knowing what happened and there’s this vulnerability in the chorus where there is remorse for the person I turned out to be when i was younger and the way I acted in my early twenties and just the shame of that, I guess.
The album touches upon childhood experiences and family dynamics – while writing about it, is there a sense of resolution that comes with it?
Caleb: I don’t know, I don’t think so. Like sometimes I think I have revelations when I am thinking about it hard enough like wow yeah that’s interesting! But more than anything it’s consolidation of ideas and simplification of things because it still has to fit in the song and suppose to feel poetic, concise and there is still some creative freedom to make something fit better. I guess, sometimes there is resolution but for the most part it really is just things I’m thinking about.
You have credited your bandmates a lot with giving you grace and supporting you through tough times. You spent so much time together in these formative years – How would you say has your relationship as a band evolved?
Caleb: It’s been through a lot of phases, uhm you know, I think we’re the closest we’ve ever been. We love each other and support each other which is really amazing. It‘s funny, it started out as us partying a lot and there was no responsibility because we weren’t doing anything serious. We were just playing shows on the weekend. It came a time like four five years ago when it became a job and that introduced a new dynamic. Now all of a sudden you run a business together and you support each other financially. You are each others safety net and that is stressful because we are friends and business partners. We spent a lot of time together on the road in really close quarters. You also have to be vulnerable and be able to like share things intimately, so that we can create together. So yeah, it is really complicated and I know I am grateful, I feel we’ve worked through a lot of things and had our ups and downs and we continue to. There’s just a lot of love and support, we hold each other delicately.
The amount of amazing and successful bands coming out of Australia is quite bizarre. You being from Western Australia, is there a feeling or vibe from home that you try to carry into your own music?
Caleb: I don’t try to do it intentionally but I think that it just comes through. I think there is something about the sunniness and the easiness that also seems to be in our music. Someone texted me the other day, how does it feel having your entire identity associated with a certain season? I was like „damn, thanks“. So yeah, there is a little bit of that. The vibe is relaxed and chill but the thing that has the biggest impact on our music is the live scene in Perth. It is really – well at least was when we were playing- competitive in a way. There were a lot of bands and not many venues, so you had to be good and bring crowds and had to really work on your craft. We played for a year probably like 50 – 60 shows before we even went to the studio. Uhm, that culture in WA is really cool. There is less and less of that in music now especially if you do hiphop or pop, sure you can make all that music and do it in your room or whatever and then when you get on stage is one thing. But as a band you need to have chemistry and that only comes from doing it over and over again. So that is what WA is really good for.
You are about to embark on your headline tour to AUS and NZ. Which new songs are you most keen to play live?
Caleb: Oh, I am really excited to play Through My Teeth, I love that song! Have loved it ever since I wrote it and also Falling Apart I think is going to be really beautiful. This one is very emotional and I get to belt it. Let’s stay those two songs. Ah and August! There are a lot of songs. August is my favorite song of the record, so I’m excited about that.
Spacey Jane live:
30.10.25 Berlin, Hole44
01.11.25 Köln, Club Bahnhof Ehrenfeld
