INTERVIEW

*Photos By* *Miranda Nicusanti* *for The Luna Collective*

IT’S NO SURPRISE that Spacey Jane’s first shows of 2025 sold out in minutes. They’ve built a strong reputation for their live performances; their energy radiates as they bounce across the stage and flip their hair to the music. At Baby’s All Right in New York City, frontman Caleb Harper thanked lucky concertgoers in the sweaty, airless room and promised to be back soon. He really meant it.

On May 9, Spacey Jane will release their third studio album, If That Makes Sense. Right off the album announcement, the band brought the festivities to the U.S. with intimate shows in New York City and Los Angeles — thousands of miles from their hometown in Perth, Australia. But the fervor around Spacey Jane traverses continents.

“What we've been able to achieve in Australia, with the support of some of our amazing fans there, we want to replicate everywhere around the world,” says Harper.

I’m speaking to him on a momentous day: the band’s new single “How to Kill Houseplants” has just dropped in Australia, and in a few hours, they’ll announce a full tour there. A U.S. tour is in the works, Harper confirms. Emerging from their longest break from touring to-date, Spacey Jane is ready to cement their status as a global indie rock act.

“We want to be in the discourse, musically and artistically, throughout America and the UK,” he says. “That drives us. That's part of the reason for being out here and spending so much time stateside.”

Harper began writing If That Makes Sense in 2022. In that time, he relocated to Los Angeles, Spacey Jane found a new record label, and the band has spent countless hours crafting an album campaign. Harper, drummer Kieran Lama, guitarist Ashton Hardman-Le Cornu, and bassist and backing vocalist Peppa Lane recorded the album with producer Mike Crossey, and co-writers Jackson “Day Wave” Phillips and Sara Aarons round out the team.

“We wanted to feel uncomfortable and didn't want to be stagnant, and wanted to make a record that felt big and not shy away from something that was really produced.”

Much like its predecessors, If That Makes Sense finds Harper revisiting romantic relationships, working through trauma and rebuilding. But this time around, he brings a new lens to it all. While the album isn’t about his move across the world, homesickness catalyzed Harper’s self-reflection and informed how the record was written.

“You're sort of left on your own . . . [I was] trying to sort of recreate from memory, my life back in Australia, and the person I was and the things that made me the person I am,” he shares. “I think that was a result of being out here.”

Harper was “a fish out of water” in a city full of creatives. “Any ego and hubris and sense of, ‘Oh, I know how to do this,’ went out the door at the start of my time here.” Harper went on to work with songwriters for the first time, and put more trust in himself and others. Only through collaboration could the band get If That Makes Sense to the finish line.

“Throughout the process of this record, whether it be creative directors on the visual side, a bigger label team, a bigger management team, there's been, for me, finding the strength in letting go of things,” he shares. “. . . I just think that everyone's done their best work yet.”

But with an expanded team, an ambitious album and a growing fanbase, the expectations are high — and hard to ignore. Spacey Jane landed an ARIA for Song of the Year in 2021 for their anthemic single “Booster Seat,” and their sophomore album debuted at the top of the ARIA Charts the following year. They were also Triple J’s most played artist in 2022. Harper says it's impossible to brush off the pressure surrounding the band and album three.

“In a lot of ways we are desperate to be better every time we make music,” he shares. “. . . Sometimes it's hard balancing the desire to make really great music that we're proud of, while also knowing that we don't release music into a vacuum anymore.”

“It's not like, you know, our one hundred fans are going to love this. It is scrutinized more.”

A few hundred fans at At Baby’s All Right went silent as Harper picked up his acoustic guitar and began performing “How to Kill Houseplants” back in late January. Seconds prior, the audience had roared for an encore; now they listened with rapture, enthralled by the sound. If the show is any indicator of how If That Makes Sense will be received, Spacey Jane just might have another hit record on their hands.

“. . . The most satisfying experience is still being able to play [our new songs] on stage and watching people engage in real time and be able to see their faces, whether someone's smiling or screaming a lyric or crying or whatever it is,” he says.

“That is, for me, the greatest sense of accomplishment when it comes to making music.”