Timing is everything. Spacey Jane know all about it. They were at the cusp of something remarkable, and then the world changed. If That Makes Sense, Spacey Jane’s third full-length studio album, is a reset for a band cruelly denied their chance at storming the music world, and claiming a seat at indie-rock’s high altar. If That Makes Sense is remarkably their first LP not tainted by the pandemic.
Rewind to 2019. Spacey Jane were at the front of the queue. Their single “Good for You” dropped in August of that year, and went on to crack the triple j Hottest 100 at Number 80. The following month, two impressive showcases at the BIGSOUND summit, an industry pow-wow that can pump rocket fuel into ambitions. Audiences were hungry, the music industry on board. The set-up for their debut album, Sunlight, couldn’t have been sweeter.
Then, in March 2020, the WHO declared a global pandemic. Borders closed everywhere, as did live music venues. Western Australia closed its borders to neighbouring states. The fun drained out of live entertainment. When Sunlight broke in June 2020, it did so in a touring wasteland.
“We felt like the world was at our feet,” frontman Caleb Harper recounts. “Initially, it was so frightening and we’d all just started doing music full-time. Immediately we found other jobs and things kind of fell apart around us. From a personal perspective, that was very anxiety-inducing. It definitely made me a worse person during that period of time.”
With no end in sight, Harper, singer with one of the country’s most popular emerging acts, took on shifts in a warehouse, wearing high-vis vests and steel-cap boots.
At a national level, Sunlight shone. The collection was triple j’s feature album and enjoyed glowing reviews, including four stars from NME. Sunlight went all the way to Number Two on the ARIA Charts, and paved the way for a global deal with Dew Process Publishing, administered by Kobalt.
The lockdowns meant Spacey Jane largely had their homeland to themselves. No competition from other touring artists, and a trickle of major releases. “For a while,” notes drummer Kieran Lama, who co-manages the group with Los Angeles-based Monotone, “we were the only band in the market.” However, “any sense of international growth was stunted or reversed for us in a lot of ways,” admits Harper.
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Their second album, Here Comes Everybody, went one better, debuting atop the ARIA Charts in mid-2022. Triple j listeners hadn’t tuned out. Six tracks from it impacted the Hottest 100, three of those making the Top 10, and, like its predecessor, Here Comes Everybody was the most-played album on the national youth network for the year. Supporting the LP with live shows, however, was an ongoing problem. WA opened its borders just three months earlier, and international travel was still sketchy and expensive.
Everything comes to an end. Good and bad. Starting afresh for this third campaign, Spacey Jane recruited songwriters Jackson “Day Wave” Phillips and Sarah Aarons, a Grammy and multiple APRA Award winner, and producer Mike Crossey (The 1975, Arctic Monkeys, Wolf Alice). If That Makes Sense is the sound of a band that’s lived and learned, channelling themes of hearts filled and broken (“Whateverrrr”, “I Can’t Afford to Lose You”, “Falling Apart”, “Ily the Most”), of pushing through pain, and taming the black dog (“So Much Taller”).
In a change of tack, the four bandmates took a gap year in the pursuit of a fresh perspective. As part of that process, Spacey Jane wrapped up live shows in late 2023, starting a touring hibernation that felt like an “identity crisis,” Harper reflects. The band had carved out their reputation on the stage, initially through relentless touring of the west coast club circuit, well before they’d released music. “In the end, it meant we wrote a lot more music and tinkered with the record and got it to a place where I’m not sure if more time would have made it any better. It was the first time we’ve had that experience,” he explains. “We extended ourselves.”
Led by “All the Noise”, a single that offers more warmth than a Ford Falcon hubcap on a scorching WA day, the collection was recorded in Los Angeles. Those sessions coincided with a move to LA for Harper that made him feel “very exposed and vulnerable.” La La Land can have that effect. “It took away a lot of the guardrails that built up over 20-plus years here in Australia and Western Australia, in particular. Like, where are all my friends? That was a pretty insane experience that I was not prepared for at all.”
Pressure, it’s often said, makes diamonds. Those sessions, remarks bass player Peppa Lane, were tinged with “elation, excitement, a fear of overwhelm. Strong emotions. We invested so much time, money, effort, and energy into it. And then, as things started to unfurl and as the magic of the album started to reveal itself, it all became worth it. And now we’re sitting on this beautiful thing.”
Multiple beautiful things. Spacey Jane also recorded an EP outside of those SoCal sessions. “We’ve never, ever been this banked before,” says Caleb, “which is a good feeling.” The recordings “flow on to each other,” and should prove handy as the band embarks on extensive international touring, which should carry them into North America at year’s end and the UK and Europe next year.
Recording finished in March 2024, and by the end of that year the band members had relocated to different timezones — Melbourne, Sydney, Margaret River, and the US — where previously they were within walking distance from each other. “We’’e all figuring it out as we go and accepting that we don’t live in the same place anymore,” says guitarist Ashton Hardman-Le Cornu, “which is a bit of a bummer.”
2024 was “constantly saying goodbye to each other, though it makes the time we do spend together more special.” It’s a good thing that’s an exciting prospect because, in 2025, the bandmates “are going to be in each other’s pockets so much.”
The new set will reach listeners around the globe via Concord Records, a division of Universal Music Group, and domestically through AWAL.
“Right now, we’re sort of the most prepared we’ve ever been,” reckons Caleb. “This feels like an international debut for us.”
This Spacey Jane interview features in the March-May 2025 issue of Rolling Stone AU/NZ. If you’re eager to get your hands on it, then now is the time to sign up for a subscription.
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